40+ Genius Pranks We Wish We’d Thought Of First

Pranks are truly a heaven-sent gift. They’re fun and they allow you to be a little mischievous (usually) without any consequences. As long as you don’t get too carried away, of course. Plus, whether you’re just annoying someone for the sake of it, indulging in some celebratory pranks, or simply taking fun revenge on somebody, pranks are the perfect way to show just how much you appreciate and love your friends and family. They might not appreciate it as much as you do, but you’ve got to admit, it’s definitely worth it to see their reactions and eventually get them laughing. If you’re up for some prank ideas, here’s a list of some of the most brilliantly epic pranks that we absolutely wish we had thought of ourselves. 

This Is A Crime

There are only a few things in the world that are truly deserving of either some horrible punishment or a crown, endless praise, and glory. This prank right here, and the mastermind behind it, might just be deserving of both. 

It’s just so diabolical, so heinous, so sickeningly twisted that we bet even the prank gods are appalled, yet insanely jealous like we are that they didn’t come up with it on their own. We’re truly sorry for the poor soul who had to bite into that disgusting dish. 

An Experience They’ll Never Forget

The whoopie cushion is a classic prank tool that works no matter what age you are. Sometimes though, we need upgrades. And the perfect upgrade for this one is a chair horn. Think air horns but a lot more interesting.

Trust us, any poor soul who’ll be the victim of this will have an experience of a lifetime. They’ll surely never forget it, nor will all the other people who might temporarily lose their hearing and bearings. We want the video!

Messed With The Wrong Shopper

One should never mess with a seasoned shopper. If you’ve ever seen them on Black Friday sales, or at the release of the limited edition product they’ve been waiting for, you’d know exactly why you should remain on their good side. Apparently, someone missed the memo. 

We don’t even know how they did that but we must say, it is pretty satisfying. Thankfully, whoever owns that car can easily get themselves out of that situation. We hope it gave them a chuckle, because they now have a good story to tell.

Evil Genius

The subtlest of pranks are probably some of the best and evilest pranks out there. Victims really won’t know the Mentos are there until it hits them full-on in the face. In this case, we’re pretty sure it’s going to one heck of a surprise. 

If you’ll look closely, you can see that that ice isn’t just ice. And if you’ve been hanging around the internet for the past decade or so, you’d know that those would give a nasty little kick once the ice around them melts. Well played indeed!

Just Plain Mean

Have you ever tried opening an ice cream container with so much excitement only to be met with leftovers, fish, meat, or anything but that creamy delight? That sounds super disappointing, right? This prank takes that disappointment a lot further. 

It’s bad enough to discover that someone has eaten your ice cream and had the gall to leave the carton in the freezer for you to find but wiping it clean and replacing it with frozen water is just plain mean. 

Clever But Terrifying

There are some pranksters that kick up simple and easy pranks just for a good minute of laughs, and then there are those who really dedicate their time, effort, and resources into crafting that perfect prank. Just take a look at this one. 

It’s so well crafted that even we were momentarily confused by the hands coming from the seats. Now, just imagine how terrified all those other drivers or drive-thru workers will be when they see this. Hats off to this prankster!

Ssssurprise!

Public spaces should be a safe space for pranks, right? There are too many factors to consider so pulling off a prank can get quite difficult. Unfortunately, that’s where we’re wrong. There is no safe space anywhere these days, apparently.

We don’t know about you but if we see a snake anywhere they shouldn’t be, our souls would definitely be taking a quick exit out of our bodies, so this prank isn’t for us. For this one, we’d just love to watch, thank you very much. 

Soapless Soap

Have you noticed that sometimes, the smaller the issue is, the more irritating it can be? And it becomes even more frustrating when you can’t really figure it out. They can easily drive anyone crazy and we’re pretty sure that’s what this prank does. 

The right word for this one is sinister. Simply paint a bar of soap with clear nail polish then wait and watch as the victim tries to figure out why in the world the soap suddenly stopped working. They’ll get more and more frustrated by the second. Perfect, right?

Mint-Flavored Oreos, Anyone?

Anyone who dares desecrate the holy goodness of Oreos should have a special place in a certain fiery place all to themselves. However, we think we can let this one pass because of just how good their prank is. This one has no mercy. 

Just one bite could ruin Oreos for someone for a really long time. Just imagine, however, that your intended victim thought that the Oreo you served them was simply a new tasty, mint-flavored version of the classic? How many Oreos would you let them eat before telling them the truth?

Trust Issues Coming Right Up

We don’t really understand why kids refusing to eat their vegetables is such a relatable issue across the world. But there are actually tons of hacks out there to basically deceive kids into eating them. This one isn’t any different. 

It’s perfect, we’ve got to admit. Especially since there is still a treat involved, with the chocolate coating and all. But with the success of feeding them vegetables, you are risking giving the kids a lifetime of trust issues. Then again, vegetables are really important, right?

Grow Your Own Office Garden

The office can be a pretty daring place to pull a prank because, for one, it’s your workplace, and two, there’s often just too many people around. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible though. You just have to wait for the right moment, as this person did. 

One long vacation was enough to sow the seeds of loving meanness. Not only is it epic, but it’s eco-friendly and definitely original. And while it may cause some problems on their first day back, we bet whoever needs this keyboard would feel too guilty to rip out all those tiny sprouts. 

Cling Wrap Magic

Trust us, cling wrap is magical. Not only can you use it to wrap your half-eaten food, but you can also use it to cover dirty shoes, improve the effectiveness of ointments, keep your bananas fresh for longer, or annoy the living heck out of someone. 

That’s one neatly packaged car, alright. Hopefully, whoever owns it has enough patience and time to try and figure out a way to get it off efficiently without nicking their car one way or another. This is a fun weekend prank for sure.

Smells Fishy

There are gross pranks, and then there are pranks that are so gross they kind of make you want to rethink the consequences of the prank. This one right here is just downright foul. But we approve of it wholeheartedly.

Up until this point, we’d never known there was such a thing as a shrimp-scented spray. Regardless, that is one nasty game of dress-up. We can already imagine the face of the victim, and all we can see is dread and horror. 

Just One Bite

Few pranks could be quite so satisfying as dressing up a few onions as caramel apples, mixing them up with real caramel apples, and serving them to your friends with a giant grin on your face. This is a glorious one.

Even if you already know what’s coming, there’s still that element of suspense and surprise about who’ll be getting the fake caramel apples. And, of course, there’s also the thrill of watching the horror and disgust dawn on the faces of your victims. 

Happy Popping!

Imagine this. You’re just doing your usual stuff, and you need the bathroom, and this is what you find. Lucky, right? For someone who really needs to brush their teeth, or shower – or anything else – this is a nightmare.

We don’t even know how we would react if the one place we all expect to go for privacy and relief was filled with balloons. At least popping all those balloons would help relieve some of the annoyance one might feel.

This Is Just Cruel

Going home after a long day at work knowing that you have a treat waiting for you at home to enjoy while lounging in your comfiest pajamas and binge-watching Netflix is such a great feeling. That is, unless you come home to this. 

If it were us, someone would be in so much trouble for this one. It’s bad enough that they finished it all up until the last crumb. They didn’t even dispose of the container to hide their sin, but in fact laughed about it! Despicable.

The Alien Has Claimed The Snacks

Regardless of if you’ve seen the films, or have only seen pictures, there are just some creatures from films that can manage to terrify the living daylights out of anyone who sees them. They’re especially scary when placed in strategic locations. 

In this case, it’s a Facehugger from the Alien movie franchise. Trust us, even if you have seen the films a million times, opening the fridge to this while grabbing a midnight snack would certainly give you a real fright. 

Tower Of Sleep

We all have that one friend who can pass out in any situation and sleep through the world ending without a snore. It’s amazing how they do it. But when they pass out in the middle of all the fun, they’re the perfect prank targets. 

Seriously, though, this dude is one amazing sleeper. To keep that same position for his friends – and strangers – to stack those cups is pretty impressive. It’s not like he’s resting his head on anything. One move and everything will come tumbling.

All Eyes On You

Food is heaven. It’s our best friend when we’re at our best, and it’s also our best friend when we’re at our worst. It’s our comfort, and the one thing that will always be there when no one else is. We’re not sure about them having eyes staring through our souls, though. 

This one is a genius prank, though, and is perfect for those times when your roommates or friends keep stealing your food. Let the food judge them, or at least give them a very unsettling feeling as they attempt to commit their crime. 

Care To Explain?

Some pranks don’t need an explanation. All they have to be is annoying and unhinged enough to be able to confuse and annoy the victim, and you’ve got an acceptable prank on your hands. And unhinged definitely describes this one. 

For this one, all you’d need is some strong pieces of tape and the determination to ruin your roommate’s day, and you’re good to go. It absolutely makes no sense and it isn’t completely destroying anything, so your victim really won’t have anything to get too mad about. 

Anti-Fast Food

We know that fast food isn’t really great for our health, but we also can’t deny that it’s just so good. And once in a while, we get those strange cravings for some. Nothing can destroy hope for that oily goodness like this prank. 

When you’re expecting to sink your teeth into some warm, crispy, tasty nuggets, this would be the biggest disappointment. We’re not saying veggies aren’t good, but they just don’t compare. At least they’re just vegetables, though, and there aren’t any added toppings like say, a cockroach or a spider. 

Cotton Balled

Vehicle pranks should have their very own prank class. They’re not permanently damaging, but they can be excruciatingly annoying, or embarrassing, or both. And the best part is that there are so many creative prank possibilities you can do with cars. 

This one is so simple that we’re definitely keeping it in our arsenal. Simply dip balls of cotton in water on a freezing night and start cotton balling your friend’s car. As fun as it is throwing them on the car, it will be a lot more fun watching the vehicle owner spend hours trying to get them off in annoyance. 

New Cubicle For You

Some pranks are just so elaborate and take so much effort that you won’t even be able to get mad at it. Take this one, for instance. If we ever got this prank treatment, we think we’d just stare in amazement. 

These coworkers really thought outside of their cubicles for this prank, and it’s definitely worth it. Plus, they get extra points for the curtain. It makes the reveal a whole lot better and kind of makes us hope whoever uses the cubicle kept it up for a while. That’s an office treasure right there!

Make Them Shine

There are so many ways to show your coworker how much you appreciate them on their special day. You can give them food, you can get them a present, you can say some pretty nice words to them, and all that. But those sound a little bit boring, don’t they?

Birthdays should make people feel special. It should make them feel warm and loved. This prank could achieve all that. With just a little aluminum foil, you’ve made your coworker the star of the day. And they’ll never let you forget it!

Big NOPE

There are so many things in this world that no one can explain. It doesn’t help that pop culture loves exploiting such things for both our entertainment and horror. Just seeing a dark shadow flit by the corner of our eyes can terrify some of us out of our wits. Now, just imagine seeing this. 

Watching horror movies can already confine us to our rooms, but waking up from our sleep and rounding the corner and seeing this might actually make us faint on the spot. We would probably also developed very deep trust issues with whoever set it up.

Post It To Go

Pranksters who think up elaborate, unique, and creative pranks should really get an award. It takes so much resourcefulness, dedication, and craftiness to make one just like this one right here. Honestly, it can almost be called an art piece.

We can just imagine the process of this prank – from buying that bucket load of post-its, to painstakingly sticking them on one by one in a pattern on that entire car and we must say, it’s definitely worth it. That is one darn pretty car!

Cup Glory

You only get to graduate high school once, so why not go out with a bang, right? While some people would go for huge parties or outings, we think a great prank would do just as well to leave a lasting impression. 

This senior class definitely made an impression all right. Their prank is so inconvenient (and innocent), and doesn’t really make any sense, yet it’s so simple to achieve. And it’s so symmetrical that it can pass as a work of art. 

No Calls Allowed

If you want to annoy that one coworker without putting in too much effort, all you need is a couple packages of rubber bands and some time alone with their office phone. Trust us, it will take just one call to ruin their day. 

This rubber band on the phone trick might be old, but it is still so effective that we will never take it out of our prank arsenal. Let’s just hope whoever you prank with this one won’t have any important calls waiting for them that day, or you’re in for some trouble. 

Unlimited Reading

Redesigning a room can be quite an exciting experience, especially when you’re working with friends. Not only do you get extra hands for help, but you also get input from people who know you best. We’re not quite sure this is what this person had in mind when he asked his friends to help him redecorate, though. 

To be fair, though, it seems that they really had his best interest in mind. They might have been thinking, “what if he gets bored?” or “what if he runs out of things to read?” So voila! Hundreds of copies of the same issue of Country Living.

Fancy Light Decor

Do you remember all those arts and crafts things and projects they all made us do back in elementary school? A lot of us didn’t really pay any mind to them, but it seems that they were, in fact, preparing us to do something great. 

Even if you’re not the best artist or craftsman of the bunch, and no matter if your chosen insect has 6 legs or 10, we can assure you that once your victim turns on the lamp, you’ll be hearing results a few towns over. 

Office Supply Wars

We think to some extent, we’ve all lost some of our willingness to let people borrow our stuff because of school. As we’ve grown older, though, we’ve learned to deal with these kinds of things as adults, or at least some of us did. 

We keep forgetting that sometimes, adults are worse than kids. The perpetrator in this case clearly isn’t willing to admit their guilt and is full-on ready to fight. They got their message across loud and clear. Investigators and forensic experts may soon be needed. 

Please Fix The Leek

We’re a sucker for good old classic pranks. The better the pun, the better we like it. This one, in particular, has been floating around the internet for quite some time already, but that doesn’t mean it has lost its charm and effect.

No matter how old this prank gets, trust us, we’ll still be finding innocent victims who haven’t figured it out yet. Now, we’re wondering exactly how many times we can get away with this one before someone actually bonks us in the head with that poor leek. 

A Chick In The Bath

There are pranks that come from normal people who just want to have a good time, and then there are pranks that come from people looking to absolutely horrify, confuse, and annoy. This one would probably get them banned from someone’s room for life. 

This is probably not what you’d expect when your pal tells you that there’s a chick in the bathroom. The best part is that it’s so elaborate and deliberate that it’s really just begging for a major revenge prank. Hopefully, they got them back good. 

The Throne of Keys

When you play the game of office pranks, you win or you die. Okay, maybe not die, but you get it. If you have a coworker who is still obsessed with Game of Thrones, this little prank might perfect for them. 

With a bit of resourcefulness, and a dozen spare keyboards, you can replicate the Iron Throne and create them their very own office throne. If you want, you can even add that little flying dragon touch like this prankster did here.

Let’s Play A Game

There are very few crueler things than using someone’s discomfort in a time of need against them. In this case, it’s more than cruel. Not only did the prankster remove all signs of hope, but they only left them an terrible non-option.

The best part about this whole prank would probably be the use of Jigsaw from the Saw movies. It’s so accurate, given that whoever would gets trapped with no other option but duct tape as toilet paper would truly find themselves living in a nightmare.

Care For Some Croquet?

Pranks can easily go too far in the wrong direction. However, for this one, we’re not sure it’s entirely a disappointment for the victim. If it were us, we’d actually enjoy this room quite a bit more than we did before.

We would absolutely love to keep this for a while. Playing croquet every morning – or when we’re bored – without baking in the sun doesn’t seem so bad. Hats off to the prankster, though, because that fake grass job is flawless. 

Mail Surprise!

Delivering mail may seem like a simple job, but mailmen go through a lot in their line of work. If it’s not enduring harsh weather conditions, they’re be chased around by pets and so much more. So we get if they want to have some of their own fun once in a while. 

It seems this mailman got fed up with the games of chase he played with the barking family dog and decided to add a little something to his delivery. It’s either that, or it’s another one of the things the poor mailman had to endure in his years of service. 

Spider On The Loose

What is it about spiders that makes people so terrified of them? Sure, some of them could actually kill us, but there are also plenty of harmless ones. Whatever the case may be, they have always been a favorite prank tool. 

This prank isn’t as aggressive as dropping a fake spider on an unsuspecting victim, or placing it in someone’s lunch box. It’s even quite obvious, but we bet there still will be someone out there who’d take this quite seriously. So if you do choose to do this one, make sure to pick out your victim carefully. 

Hotdog Matrix

Finding food in the most unexpected of places can be quite a delightful surprise. It’s food. It can rarely go wrong, right? This scenario right here might not be the best example of that, though. This one looks to us to be the work of kids, or frat dudes.

Just staring at it makes us feel like we’re stuck in one of those Matrix scenes where everything suddenly stops and freezes in place. Let’s just hope that whoever’s sleeping in that room tonight loves hotdogs, or at least isn’t vegan. 

Hear Me Roar

If you really want to get revenge on someone, or if you simply really just don’t like them, this is the perfect prank to pull. It’s so absurd and yet so clever and devious that it guarantees your victim temporarily losing their minds over those calls. 

Just imagine being the victim of this prank and receiving random voicemails of people roaring at you in the weirdest ways possible throughout the entire day, then hanging up with absolutely no explanation. That’s sure to drive someone completely mad. 

Office Crime Scene

We’ve got to admit, there are some offices that seem like they’re on the verge of becoming a crime scene at any moment. There’s that undercurrent of tension that might explode. This prankster right here just made it come to life. 

If you think about it, though, the crime scene tape is somewhat accurate. Remember how that coworker dumped all their work on you, or how they just sat and chitchatted about everyone without doing any real work? Yep, those are crimes all right. At least in our book it is. 

Party Cup Domination

You can never have enough party cups at any party. Those things just disappear into thin air, and nobody even knows where they go. On the off chance that you do have tons of spare leftovers, what is there to do? Think, oh, just think. 

We can bet that whoever set these up had a pretty wild night beforehand. The terrifying thing is those cups seem to be filled with water, and well, if you just woke up from a great night of partying, that might not be the first thing you would notice.

Decked Out For Halloween

Halloween is one of the best seasons for pranks. There are so many opportunities to elicit the loudest screams and funniest reactions. This one, we think, won’t elicit either, but more a tinge of frustration, and a whole lot of wondering why they put up with such coworkers. 

Unfortunately for this poor soul, he’s getting more tricks than treats this year. Hopefully, no one hid anything actually terrifying under those webs that would really send them over the edge. We’re kind of hoping they did, though. Call us evil.

Door Paranoia

There are so many things to be paranoid about with doors. There can be a rat hiding behind there. There can be a spider on the handle. There could also be a thief waiting for you there. Worst of all, though, there could be something like this waiting for you. 

Surprises are nice and all that, but being greeted by these can cause a mini heart attack, and can leave you paranoid for a long time about doors. Still, it’s one satisfying prank to pull, and one that gets the best reaction out of people.