B (4:41)

Happy April Fool's Day to you.

C (4:43)

So how would you define a practical joke?

B (4:47)

Well, a simple definition is just a trick that is played on someone for fun. If you want a more elaborate definition, it's a scripted play activity in which one of the major players is unaware that they are playing.

C (5:03)

And when you talk about that script, can you break that down a little bit? What are some like genres or categories of pranks that you've come across in your research?

B (5:13)

Well, for April Fool's Day a popular genre is the fool's era and all the wild goose chase where you send someone to find a non existent object or to perform an impossible task. Go and milk the ducks is one that's been around since the Middle Ages.

C (5:30)

Can you break that one down a little bit? I'm not familiar with that one.

B (5:33)

Well, you can't milk a duck.

C (5:34)

Okay, got it? Yeah, sure.

B (5:35)

I don't think. I wouldn't want to try.

C (5:38)

Right.

B (5:38)

First you must catch your duck and then so. Or go and find a biography of Eve's grandmother. Since Eve was the first woman, she didn't have a grandmother. So it's a non existent object.

C (5:50)

Funny.

B (5:52)

And the script comes in where it's a simple one to the fool's errand. The dupe is going to go and follow instructions and do what they were told to do and without. Without success. That's a simple script. But then there are other scripts that get a lot more elaborate.

C (6:11)

Yeah, you have other ones that include kick me pranks. What are those? Is that just saying kick me on the back of a shirt.

B (6:18)

That's a good example of turning someone into a performer or a player without their knowledge. If you fix a kick me sign to the person without them being aware. Or if you're in France, you do it with a paper cut out of a fish. Because April Fool's day is poisson d'. Avril. April fish day. Everything has to do with the fish theme. If you're in, if you're in France. But if you put that thing on someone's back and they remain unaware of it, they go around, go about their normal business, but totally unaware that everybody is watching them with unusual level of scrutiny as if they were on a stage. They just don't know it.

C (6:57)

You've also got booby traps and stunts as your other of the five categories. So I gotta ask, looking at this, put ons fool's errands, kick me pranks, booby traps, stunts. Which one do you like to do the most?

B (7:12)

Myself, personally, I'm not a great practical joker.

A (7:15)

Okay. I'm.

B (7:16)

I'm too chicken. Mine have been very simple. People do. My husband likes to try and play tricks on me, but I usually outwit him. He's got me once or twice with it, and that's usually with a put on. So he will tell me a piece of news when I'm busy, busy doing something else on April Fool's Day and say, hey, did guess what? Did you hear whatever it was and if I'm not paying close attention, I might react as he intended by going, that can't possibly be true. Or you, you know, is, you know, an extreme reaction is usually what's, what's expected in that. But I'm, I'm, I'm not really much of a practical joker myself.

C (7:59)

Well, listeners, if you're a practical joker, we are here to hear your story. We want to hear your April Fool's Day pranks. Whether you prankster or like Moira, somebody tried to make you the target, give us a call and tell us about it. The number to call 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. We want to hear about any of your practical jokes, not just those reserved for April Fool's Days, either. It could be one among, among loved ones or friends or if it was a prank of quote unquote, poetic justice or just a bonding experience, give us a call, let us know. 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. And Moira, you know, as I mentioned just now, there are prank wars between two close friends on the other side of the spectrum that's used as a bonding experience. Pranks where the target is pretty remote from the prankster, where maybe they haven't even ever met. How are these kinds of pranks different in how they're shaped and their intended effect?

B (9:05)

Prank wars are really interesting because they become a contest, a competition. The idea is to, if someone, if you play a joke on somebody, you have to realize that then they have every right to get you back. It's a, it's a tit for tat. And that's what fuels the, the prank war. It just goes on endlessly. But typically people will look for jokes that are on the same theme. So for instance, I talked to some people here in Indiana who lived in a rural area where a lot of people keep chickens. Somebody started out by playing a joke on a member of their family that involved a chicken as a prop and that set off a series over some years of playing jokes on each other back and forth. But each one involved chickens somehow. And that becomes then part of the challenge. You have to do one better than the previous joke, but you have to stick with the theme.

C (10:04)

Yeah. Variations on the Theme. Like a piece of Mozart.

B (10:08)

Exactly. Yes.

C (10:09)

Well, you know, it's funny. Joining us now for a quick story, we have a caller. Please welcome Peter Gallagher, a comic strip artist and art teacher who lives in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. I think he might have some experience with that tit for tat idea. Peter, hi, welcome to the show.

E (10:25)

Hi, thank you for having me. Yeah, this definitely fits in that category. I think this happened back when I was in grammar school. My older brother, he was in high school, him and his friend went around to everybody, my other brothers and sisters, when we were asleep in the middle of the night. And this is before cell phones, they had a Polaroid camera. So they went into everybody's room and turned the light on and then took a Polaroid picture of us as we woke up angry. And they thought it was hilarious and it was pretty funny. But he had the pictures around for a while, so I started plotting my revenge. And my older brother, he was a good athlete. He played basketball, he ran cross country and stuff. But the one thing he loved, especially in high school, was his sleep. He loved his precious sleep. So I was like, let me try to get him somehow with that. So we had a bag of pretzels and it was like the end of the pretzels. So it was like crumbs and salt and stuff. So same thing. In the middle of the night, I went into his room and I quietly tiptoed in and sprinkled the pretzels and salt all over him as he slept. And I was thinking maybe it was kind of lame until the next day he told me it was the worst night of sleep he ever got. He tossed and turned all night so it seemed to work.

C (11:40)

And Peter, did it keep going on? Did it escalate after that?

A (11:43)

No.

E (11:44)

No. Well, we were brothers, so we would always do things to each other. But that was the end of that, that feud. I think I, I, I got my revenge for sure.

C (11:52)

Wow, Peter, thanks so much for the call. Moira, listening to that. Any, any takeaways from that? What would you call the variation on that theme?

B (12:01)

I've noticed that there are quite a few jokes like that that are played on people who are asleep. Anyone who is asleep with surrounded by people who are awake is fair game because they are, it's as if they are not quite playing by the rules. If I'm awake, you ought to be awake. So if you fall asleep, party, for example, and other people around, things are going to happen.

C (12:25)

All sphere in love and familial Prank wars, I guess. Let's go to Joanna in Dobbs Ferry. Hi, Joanna. Welcome to the show.

A (12:34)

Hello.

C (12:36)

Hi. What's your story?

A (12:37)

Hi. Well, I'm a dental hygienist, and every. I worked in White Plains for a group practice with a dentist called Dr. Manzi. And every year I'd prank him. And I always swear he'd never pranked me back, but he managed to. But one year, I had this big rubber rat, and I went in early and I shoved the rat under his desk so this sort of tail was kind of peeking out. And then I hid in the closet and waited for him and the office manager to come. And he came in the room, and I hear the chair pushed so violently back that it hit the wall with a crash. And he came storming out. And he said to the office manager, louis, you know, we got rats in here. At which point I came out. But, yeah, I really pranked them. Good.

C (13:25)

That was so much fun, Joanna, did you feel like that brought the office closer together?

A (13:29)

Oh, yeah, it was really fun. And I would swear that he would never prank me back, but he always managed to. Always managed to. Even though I was on the lookout, he'd prank me back.

C (13:39)

Wow, Joanna, thanks so much for the call. Happy there were not rats actually in the office. Really smart. And, you know, Joanna's call brings up the idea of humor as social value, I guess. Moira, what's the social value that practical jokes between friends can provide that just other kinds of humor can't or doesn't?

B (14:00)

Well, it. Practical jokes are particularly risky form of humor because they do involve making one person a target without their permission, without their knowledge. That's particularly risky. But pranks almost never happen solo. There's almost always a group of people around the pranker, like the people in your office or your clinic, who know what the pranker prankster is up to. They may help, or they may just be aware of it and support it and try to make and make sure that things stay within bounds within the local whatever the local idea of what's appropriate is. And just the process of going through that risky business or that risky play together seems to help bond people more closely.

C (14:48)

We're talking to Moira Marsh, who's the author of Practically Joking. We are talking about the arts and the social. Of the idea of, you know, pranking folks on April Fool's Day. What better time to do it? And, listeners, we want to hear your April Fool's Day prank stories. Whether you were the prankster or the target, whether it was in the office or between your brother. Give us a call to tell us about it. 212-433-969. That's 212-433-WNYC. We're going to be right back when we'll take more calls right after this. This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Kusha Navadar and we're talking to Moira Marsh, the author of Practically Joking and we're talking about practical jokes. Happy April Fool's Day, everyone. We want to hear your practical jokes stories. Maybe you were the prankster, may were the target. Maybe it's a prank that's still going on. Moira knows about all of the different categories these things fit into. We want to hear your stories and be able to, you know, dissect them a little bit. So give us a call. Text us 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. And Moira, during the break we got a lot of calls coming in so we're just going to go through a few. To kick it off, we've got Teresa in Sparta, New Jersey. Hey, Theresa, welcome to the show.

A (16:17)

Hey. Thank you. So my prank was my boyfriend was deathly afraid of snakes, but I wasn't. And we had a pond on the property so there were always snakes available. So one day when he left, I went out and caught a snake and I kept it, you know, so no, no snakes were harmed in this. But before he got home, I hadn't like, oh, tell me when you're gonna be home. So five minutes before he got home, I put it into an Amazon box, taped it up and gave it to him. When he came in, I'm like, oh, you got a package. And he opened it up and it was a lifestyle. Oh, my God. My kid, my kids were good at it, so they laughed. He didn't laugh so much and now he's my ex boyfriend, so I'm not sure how much that.

C (17:04)

So art, art comes first for you. Theresa, that's great. Thanks so much for that call and for that story. We've got Toby in Phoenix, Arizona. He Toby, welcome to the show.

E (17:17)

Yeah, hi. Thanks. I'm now in my 50s, but one of my favorite pranks I remember from college, my best friend was turning 21 finally and he was so excited to get into the local bars. I went ahead ahead of time to a strip of bars and told them all to reject his card. And sure enough, we went bar hopping one after another. Each one rejected his card as Being a fake, he got incredibly frustrated until finally the last one said, fine, come on in. And voila, the joke's on him.

C (17:50)

Wow, Toby, thanks so much. That's some dedication. We've also got Shelley in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey. Hi, Shelley. Welcome to the show.

A (17:58)

Hello. So my mother, who's now 87, her favorite day is April Fool's Day. And growing up, every. Every April Fool's Day, the night before, she would sew our underwear shut in one leg. And she would make sure, just in case you didn't take the top one, she would do two or three. And she'd do this to me and my sisters and my dad. Every year we'd forget and, you know, you're sleepy, and we'd fall over and joke was on us. But then she. I mean, growing up, she'd also do that. Gasoline on the toilet seats, put notes in our sandwiches. And then after we married, she started getting more elaborate. One year she put a crib in front of my house, and then she started putting signs up at her friends houses. One of the best was last year. It said, condo breakfast starting at 6am bringing. Bring your friends and pets.

C (19:01)

Wow, Shelley, thanks. Yeah, Shelley, that's a lot. That started off with sewing underwear, and it escalated to inviting people to your house. That's wild. Moira, you hear all of these. Theresa with the snakes, Toby getting his friend's ID rejected at bars, and Shelley with a lot starting with sewing underwear and one leg. Do any of those stick out to you as perfect encapsulations of a prank for you and maybe in a category that you talk about in your book?

B (19:33)

Well, a lot of them are the. The examples of the. The booby chat trap jokes, or the snake in the box, or even the sewing the underwear leg shot. Those work because they. We depend on. We do. We do so many things by. By rote, by routine. So when you. When you're putting your pants on in the morning, you don't think about it, you don't check, you just do it automatically. And one theorist has argued that when we act like that, we're actually kind of acting like robots. And a practical joke is a way to make. To point out to us that maybe we're being a little bit too robotic, not paying enough attention. Right. And then Teresa's boyfriend, who's afraid of snakes, she considers that a weakness. Often something that is considered a weakness or a fault with another becomes the subject of a joke that plays upon that weakness.

A (20:28)

Mm.

C (20:30)

And then they broke up. So then, you know, calling It a weakness? Maybe. Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe. A sensitive touch point for some folks. We've also got Chris in Brooklyn. Hi, Chris. Welcome to the show.

A (20:44)

Thank you. Thank you.

C (20:46)

So what's your story?

A (20:48)

My story is many years ago, I worked for an internist and part of my job was to collect urine samples, take them from the cup, put them in the tube, label them, and they would go off to the lab. One day we had a very difficult couple in and we knew them, we would call them the Hemlocks. And I, you know, as I usually do. But that day, you know, I happened to have some apple juice with me and I thought, you know, when you put apple juice in a Dixie cup, it looks like urine. So what I did, I put the apple juice in one of the cups and I came out to the doctor who is. We had a very good report, great sense of humor. And I held the cup And I said, Dr. Smith, whose urine is this? And he looked at me, you know, when he said, I don't know. So I tasted it and I, you know, did my lips. And I said, I think it's Mr. Hemlock's. And then that was it. He just looked at me, you know, and then I just lost it. And that was where it ended. That's it.

C (21:44)

Wow, Chris, that. You can't see our faces right now, but both Moira and I just have our jaws dropped. Thank you so much for that call. Moira, I saw you right when Chris started talking. You. You gave a big reaction. Talk to us about what that reaction was.

B (21:59)

Well, I was guessing that it was going to be the apple juice as urine trick. That's a popular one, but it plays with one of those things that is most fundamental and basic. You know, playing with ranks that are around subjects. Like, we started with farting at the beginning and now we've moved on to urine and also feces. There are jokes that play with all of those things that are very basic, fundamental things, but they are guaranteed to get a reaction.

C (22:26)

What do you think it is about those basic, you know, human functions that get such a universal reaction for humor and for pranks more specifically?

B (22:35)

They're primordial. They are. Speak to the part of our psychology that is. That is just the most primitive.

C (22:46)

When we were talking about some, you know, we got one caller who said, I put the snake in the box and then my boyfriend and I broke up. You've said that when pranking friends, you sort of have to be prepared to apologize if you go too far in those scenarios. What is it about the nature of that relationship that's been misjudged, that you might lend yourself or trip into that oh, I took it too far situation.

B (23:12)

It's a combination of things. I think playing jokes on someone that you don't know very well is tricky. You need to know your target very well, particularly for a tailored, customized joke like that one, because it's important to avoid the topics that the target cares very deeply about. And you're not going to know that necessarily unless you know that person very.

C (23:34)

Well as a scholar. Yeah, sorry, go ahead.

B (23:38)

It's, it's, it's a, there's a, there's a metaphor that, that is sometimes used. It's, it's about if you're, if you're making buckskin out of, out of deer hide, you have to work it and work it and work it over time until it becomes soft and supple. When it's soft and subtle, you can really yank and pull on it and it's not going to tear. But if you do it too soon, it will tear, it will break. It's the same with friendships.

C (24:04)

And it makes me wonder about when you've taken something too far or you call something that's just joking, I guess, quote unquote. But it's something else when you think about it through your, through your research. How do you look at the context to determine if something is, oh, I'm sorry, I took it too far versus no, this is a comment on you, and I'm passive aggressive.

B (24:24)

I guess there's a. There's a lot of passive aggressive in this material, for sure. And the, it can never be absolutely certain. That's the thing about humor. The humor, the just joking frame is, is always very ambiguous, very tricky. Maybe it's just a joke, maybe it's something more. Maybe the person who thinks it's just a joke is unaware of their unconscious motivations going on. There's so much built into it. It's. It's just never simple.

C (24:52)

What do you. How do you think it's been changed by social media? Like, you know, TikTok, Instagram, bigger audiences? Does that change the way that you'. Practical jokes evolving?

B (25:05)

Of course, social media means that the audience becomes enormous and. But it also means that the number of targets becomes even more enormous and you have no. You don't know anything about them. Correct. And so then, then you really have to. You're really relying on the anonymity, and that's not particularly new. If you were playing jokes on people that way, you didn't care how they react because they were enemies or they were just people that you wanted to distinguish yourself from. So Halloween pranks by kids on homeowners, for instance, you don't really care if the homeowners get annoyed or pissed off, but you do need to be able to get away and anonymity really helps with that because social media is all about anonymity.

C (25:47)

Yeah. We got time for one more call. Let's go to Peter in Fresh Meadows, Queens. Hi Peter, welcome to the show.

A (25:53)

Hi, how you doing?

E (25:55)

Great, sir, thanks.

C (25:56)

What's your story?

E (25:58)

When I was young, I was working in a kitchen in a restaurant in terrible conditions for very bad pay. And the kitchen would get back at me for jokes by putting chocolate powder like cocoa powder on my phone. And the phone was black, so I'd walk around the restaurant front of the house with just chocolate over my face and it looked ridiculous. So I got them back by taking an egg. If you break it in two places and blow out the inside, you can fill it with water. Then I go up and I have a real egg of one and fake. I just like smack them in the back with an egg. We'd be doing this back and forth all day. People out there mind working in the.

A (26:30)

Back of the house or restaurant.

C (26:32)

Oh wow, Peter, thanks so much for that call. Yeah, so we're talking about cocoa powder on the phone, eggs that are one fake, one real and cracking it, it's, it's all it seems like good natured fun. Moira, do you have any recommendations or go to's that you offer to people who might ask you, hey, I want to get in on this, but I want it to be playful. What are some easy ways for me to prank somebody safely?

B (26:55)

Well, first of all, know your target and second of all, don't make it anonymous. Let admit what you have done. Give them a chance to know that you were the one responsible and then be willing to take retribution. That that's a show of good faith.

C (27:11)

If you do that, what does retribution look like? Like what should people be prepared for in that sense?

B (27:16)

Well, typically, I mean, hopefully it means some of they're going to get you back with a joke. In turn, you need to be there prepared to be part of a start, the beginning of a joke feud perhaps.

C (27:28)

And has got to ask, has anyone tried to prank you yet today or do you have any pranks planned?

B (27:32)

No spoiler alerts, but not to my knowledge. Honestly I was, I've been working, I've been, just been working this morning and I hadn't even looked to see if there were any. If Google, for instance, they always do something for April Fool's Day. As far as I can tell to this year they didn't. But maybe I wasn't looking closely at.

C (27:49)

Well, for listeners who are interested, I wore a costume to work today. So if you want to see that, you can check out our Instagram later today. We'll have a picture of that out on there for you. We were talking to Moira Marsh, author of Practically Joking, also the library collections manager for anthropology, Folklore and Sociology at the University of Indiana. Moira, happy April Fool's Day and thanks for joining us.

B (28:13)

Thank you very much. It's been fun.

C (28:17)

Coming up after a quick break, Nona Faustin. She's a Brooklyn born and raised photographer whose work is currently at the Brooklyn Museum. The show focuses on her White Shoes series in which she poses in white stiletto heels on New York historical sites that have a historical connection to slavery. Nona Faustin joins me to discuss the show and her practice. Stay with us.

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All right, unc.

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