World's Greatest Pranks

World's Greatest Pranks
From the Tacky to the Well-Known

Alan Abel's pranks go back to the late 1950s with a widely reported bogu campaign to clothe horses. The slogan? "A nude horse is a rude horse."

Then there was the regular prank caller guy who starred on Howard Stern's radio show when his format was free. This man used to call into telethons and talk shows pretending to be a source until he got his contact on the phone - then he released his prank with both barrels.

The Jerky Boys came out with comedy tapes in the 90s called "Prank Calls" and followed them with sequels featuring numerous digits dialed to doctor's offices, construction companies, and other service organizations pretending to be anyone from a patient to a job applicant among others.

In 1996 Taco Bell allegedly announced they had bought the Liberty Bell much to the chagrin of politicians and the public and that they would be renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell.

All a hoax.

Last year a reporter squirted actor Tom Cruise in the face after pretending that he was getting ready to ask him a question. Joey Skaggs, a professional prank writer, had people convinced there was a such thing invented as fish condos. And the idea took off. Then there was the 1938 Orson Wells' radio broadcast - "The War of the Worlds" which had everyone scared to death, contemplating their mortality.

Author Kevin Trudeau who wrote books on how the medical and pharmaceutical industry was keeping secrets from consumers, making them sicker was recently exposed as a fraud and said to have served time in prison.

Remember the 1995 t.v. documentary "Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?" It involved whether an autopsy was actually performed on a supposed Martian aboard a 1947 UFO when it crashed in Roswell, NM. On April 1, 1957 the British media reported that the Swiss were enjoying a bumper crop of spaghetti. In 1976 several policemen in the U.S. posed as crooks and bought back all the stolen items criminals had taken.

You can go to a bait store, buy 100 crickets, release them under your target's door, and it'll be weeks before they stop chirping at night. Cheerleaders have been said to bake Ex-Lax chocolate chewables into brownies and give it to the football team or their opponent team before a big game.

And one year a Philadelphia radio station, WIOQ announced that a pet tax would be implemented to make up for the deficit.

By Terri Rimmer