Back in the day when I worked at places where writers were allowed to receive free promotional crap (mostly DVDs and vodka… so much bad vodka) from PR companies, I got all manner of bizarre stuff, the strangest probably being a box that allegedly contained a few of Troy Polamalu’s signature curly locks. But if I received a tiny unmarked safe with a note to “check your voicemail,” and which beeped when I tried to open it, I might have gotten freaked out enough to call the police. [More]
pranks
Anti-SeaWorld Pranksters Tweak Interstate Sign To Express Their Dislike Of Park
By 5.27.14
SeaWorld may have fallen just short of making it to this year’s Worst Company In America Final Death Match, but that defeat hasn’t stopped people who oppose the not-quite-a-zoo-not-quite-a-theme-park from letting the world know they think that SeaWorld, well… sucks. [More]
Domino’s Driver Sent To Deliver 20 Unwanted Pizzas To Man’s Ex Isn’t Amused By The Prank
By 2.27.14
On the one hand, there’s the flabbergasted look on someone’s face when 20 pizzas she didn’t order arrive at her door. On the other, she’s not going to eat all those and she certainly isn’t going to pay for it, and now the Domino’s delivery driver made a trip with all those darn pizzas for nothing and seriously, guy who pranked his ex-girlfriend? You just caused a pricy headache. [More]
Homophobe Restaurant Owner Shouldn’t Be Surprised His Eatery Now Touted As “Best Gay Club” On Yelp
By 2.10.14
If a local restaurant owner goes on local TV to talk about how he hates gay people and doesn’t want them as customers, it’s not a shock that people will get angry and boycott, protest, petition… the usual stuff. But in the age of Yelp, that owner should probably also expect to find that his business is now being written up online as the “best gay club” around. [More]
AT&T Ejects Party-Crashing T-Mobile CEO
By 1.7.14
While some at T-Mobile might still have some emotional scars from its failed engagement to AT&T, T-Mobile CEO John Legere has no such connection, having joined the company in 2012, after federal regulators nixed the marriage. Since then, the leather-jacketed MIT grad has occasionally taken to picking on the Death Star and its stuffy reputation. The latest stunt involved crashing AT&T’s private party at CES on Monday. [More]
Eric André Dresses Up As Drunk Ronald McDonald; Cartoon Network Ad Team Blocks It From Airing
By 10.16.13
Thinking back on all of the bizarre things that have aired on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim shows over the years, it’s hard to imagine what it would take for a segment to be so offensive or strange that it wouldn’t be allowed to air. But comedian Eric André says one rather innocuous McDonald’s prank just wouldn’t fly with the channel’s ad sales team. [More]
Drive-Thru Prank Proves Skeletons Can Still Make Adults Shriek Like Scared Little Kids
By 10.2.13 — Updated: 8.4.15
The drive-thru lane is no stranger to pranks — from Batman stealing customers’ grub to pranksters hacking into the system to scream obscenities at customers — but this particular brand of joke is pretty darn good. Mostly because it makes grown adults disintegrate into shrieking, terrified little children. [More]
Here Are Some Short Videos Of People Being Morons At Walmart
By 9.18.13
There are a lot of Walmart stores out there, many of them open all hours of the night, and some of them located in towns where the temptation of late-night buffoonery inside of a Walmart might be the most entertaining thing you can do at 3 a.m. Thankfully, we live in an age where such acts of sheer idiocy can be caught on camera and shared with the world. [More]
McDonald’s Customers Almost Kicked Out For Trying To Use Their Own Cutlery
By 9.16.13
A silly stunt at a McDonald’s in England has become much more popular than it ever should have after a staffer at the fast food eatery threatened to throw out customers who brought their own plates, tablecloth, candles, and cutlery to the restaurant. [More]
Either American Eagle Is Playing An Early April Fool’s Joke, Or Spray-On Jeans Are Real
By 3.22.13
When any clothing item appears to come in a can, one might reasonably assume that a retailer is messing with people. But if American Eagle is punking the public with its “AEO Skinny Skinny Jeans” as seen in a new ad on its site, it’s pretty darn early for April Fool’s Day. [More]
It Is Apparently Rather Easy To Suspend Someone’s Facebook Account Just By Saying They Are Dead
By 1.4.13
The process for “memorializing” a deceased user’s Facebook page has apparently been simplified to the point where all it takes to have someone’s page suspended is that they share the name of an actual dead person. [More]
Customer Tries, Fails To Convince Internet That Company Labeled Him A “Huge A-hole”
By 12.14.12
It’s one thing if a company or one of its employees goes out of their way to insult you, say by mocking your weight or calling you an “ugly itch” from “Ghettohood USA.” But it’s not cool to claim that a company insulted you when it just did exactly what you asked it to do. [More]
What Happens If You Try To Hold A Board Meeting In The Office Chair Department Of Staples?
By 10.25.12
Have you ever looked at the furniture set up in an office-supply store and asked yourself, “I wonder what would happen if I brought a group of people and tried to hold a business meeting here?” To be honest, neither had we, but that’s why we don’t run Improv Everywhere. The NYC-based group has staged events like the No-Pants Subway Ride and flooding a Best Buy store with ordinary shoppers wearing plain blue polo shirts to see what would happen. For their latest mission, they rounded up 24 middle-aged actors, put them in suits, and held a board meeting right in the furniture section. [More]
Pranking Coworker With Laxative-Laced Soda Not So Hilarious When Customer Buys The Drink
By 10.18.12
Punishing your fellow employee for being a notorious food stealer by lacing a soda with laxatives is one (awful) thing, but you better make darn sure a customer doesn’t end up with said drink. Unfortunately for one Family Dollar shopper in Kansas City, Mo., the employee-on-employee pranking spilled over into her life when she bought the Coke in question. [More]
Pranksters Prey On The General Public's Love Of All Things Apple By Pretending To Drop iMacs
By 8.29.12
Spoiler alert: There aren’t any actual iMacs being dropped in this video, so unlike the unwitting bystanders who witnessed these pranks in person, there’s no need to gasp. But you might feel a giggle come on watching pranksters from Awesomeness TV shocking strangers by tossing around iMac boxes on the street. [More]
Neighbors Resort To Prank-Playing In Attempt To Drive Out Squatter
By 5.30.12
Last summer, a home in the Palmer Woods section of Detroit became vacant when the homeowner walked away on the mortgage. Not long after, a moving van pulled up and a new neighbor moved himself in. Thing is, he wasn’t the new owner — and there wasn’t much the neighbors could do about getting him out. [More]
Chick Fil-A Is Totally Cool With You Stealing Its Topiary Cow
By 5.24.12
This is the time of year when high school seniors around the country celebrate the end to a dozen years of education by pulling pranks. Usually, at least in the 1960s sitcom world in which I live, this results in a lot of grumbled “kids today”s and a spike in the general level of fist-shaking from local business owners. But a Chick Fil-A in Virginia seems intent on breaking that cycle, by embracing the theft of its topiary bovine by local teens. [More]
Alleged Customer Sues Over 2010 Racist Walmart PA Prank
By 5.16.12
Loyal Consumerist readers and retail-watchers may remember the 2010 incident in which a 16-year-old took over the PA system of a New Jersey Walmart and announced, “Attention Walmart customers: all black people must leave the store.” The prankster had done the same thing a few months before, and was charged with harassment and bias intimidation for each incident. Now, more than two years later, someone has filed a lawsuit against the store over the incident. He claims to have been in the store at the time of the prank, and that the incident led to “depression, anxiety, anger, loss of sleep and appetite, paranoia, and antisocial tendencies.” [More]
