50-Year Anniversary of the World's Greatest Prank | Hacker News Reader

50-Year Anniversary of the World's Greatest Prank

articles.latimes.com

47 pointsjarin15 comments

"World's Greatest Prank"

Quite a hyperbole for a prank few have heard of and which was fairly limited in scale.

If I had to name one prank that had great impact and that is still famous around the world, it'd be Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds radio broadcast, which at the time had the entire nation riled up, believing that aliens were taking over the world.

http://www.paleycenter.org/the-greatest-halloween-prank-ever

Quite a hyperbole for a prank which was fairly limited in scale:

http://bigthink.com/ideas/24685.

Interesting read. From the article:

"[Hadley Cantril, a Princeton University psychologist] estimated that at least 6 million people listened to the program that October night. Of those, at least 1.2 million were frightened, disturbed, or excited by what they heard."

I can't name another prank that had such impact, can you? (OK, perhaps the one about Iraq having WMDs, but that was hardly funny.)

Exactly what I expected when I clicked the article.

As a Caltech alumni I'd like for a Caltech prank to hold the title of World's Greatest, but I'm afraid that should go to the Berner's Street Hoax. Here's the description from Wikipedia:

    The Berners Street Hoax was perpetrated by Theodore Hook in the City
    of Westminster, London, in 1809. Hook had made a bet with his friend,
    Samuel Beazley, that he could transform any house in London into the
    most talked-about address in a week, which he achieved by sending out
    thousands of letters in the name of Mrs Tottenham, who lived at 54
    Berners Street, requesting deliveries, visitors, and assistance.

    On 27 November, at five o’clock in the morning, a sweep arrived to
    sweep the chimneys of Mrs Tottenham's house. The maid who answered
    the door informed him that no sweep had been requested, and that
    his services were not required. A few moments later another sweep
    presented himself, then another, and another, 12 in all. After the
    last of the sweeps had been sent away, a fleet of carts carrying
    large deliveries of coal began to arrive, followed by a series of
    cakemakers delivering large wedding cakes, then doctors, lawyers,
    vicars and priests summoned to minister to someone in the house
    they had been told was dying. Fishmongers, shoemakers, and over
    a dozen pianos were among the next to appear, along with "six stout
    men bearing an organ". Dignitaries, including the Governor of the
    Bank of England, the Duke of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury
    and the Lord Mayor of the City of London also arrived. The narrow
    streets soon became severely congested with tradesmen and onlookers.
    Deliveries and visits continued until the early evening, bringing
    a large part of London to a standstill. 

    Hook stationed himself in the house directly opposite 54 Berners
    Street, from where he and his friend spent the day watching the
    chaos unfold.

That would be an impressive prank today. To pull it off in 1809 when it had to be organized by letter, each likely hand written, in a week, is astounding. Note the care in timing, getting similar arrivals to happen around the same time to magnify the absurdity of the situation. Pure genius.

Regarding the tastefulness of the prank:

"There's a fine line there but I think we stayed on the right side of it. It could have been obscenities or something in very poor taste, but we didn't do that. So I'm proud of that — that we acted responsibly and nobody got hurt."

It was clever, unexpected, and funny. Caltech lost by 10 points, so I'd say it was well done and all in good fun. I'm glad it could have been that way.

Caltech actually doesn't even have a football team. They did this in a game between Washington and Minnesota.

Thanks. So it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Rose_Bowl_Hoax

You know, I actually read it, but still...

A less hyperbole-filled write-up:

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Hoaxipedia/Great_Rose_Bow...

This website was mentioned in the LA Times OP without a link.

My favourite prank was by College Humor's Streeter, tricking his friend Amir into thinking he'd made a half-court shot for prize money:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI7AUgp5fPI

If by some chance you haven't seen this video before, watch for his reaction after the giant cheque is presented - it's priceless.

Really? I thought some of the other pranks in that serious were more impressive than that one. And the stakes seem to keep getting higher...

The TV series "Numbers" referenced this prank twice in separate episodes - once, used as one of Charlie's graphic analogies - the display reading "CHARGE" had been hacked to read "RETREAT" - and once at the climax to a show where Peter MacNicol's astronomer character led a cabal of students on a quest to hack the Hollywood sign to read "CALTECH."

People have pulled much bigger hoaxes and pranks, sure; but since they took place outside of the hallowed halls of academia, they can't call them collegiate pranks.

My last point: This is the same Lyndon Hardy who wrote "Master of the Five Magics," "Secret of the Sixth Magic" and "Riddle of the Sven Realms," the "three science fiction novels" referred to in the article, correct? If so, I knew the author had come from Caltech - but I'd no idea he'd headed this ambitious project until today. You learn something new every day.

Kudos to the poster of this link. Thank you.

Ok, can someone write that in English again?

American college football game. 2,200 people in a section of the crowd each hold a large card, dark on one side, light on the other. each of these people has an instruction sheet that tells them which way to hold the card for each of 14 'stunts' (as they appear to be called). See pic for an example of what this looks like (think b/w pixel art)

The prank was that 3 guys from one team used social engineering to figure out how this was done, and who had the instructions, then replaced the original instructions with 2,232 slightly altered copies.

Game gets played. First 11 stunts are as expected, but the 12th has the cards make up the logo of the opposing team (not the people with the cards), the 13th has the writing reversed, and the 14th says, big and bold, CALTECH

Cal Tech wasn't even in the game. They were just located in Pasadena (a suburb of Los Angeles), where the game is played every year.

This is similar to the way MIT has often "hacked" the annual Harvard vs. Yale game, once even planting a weather balloon under the field and inflating it during the game. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacks_at_the_Massachusetts_Inst...

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