Practical joke device
A practical joke device is a toy intended to confuse, frighten, or amuse individuals as a prank. Often, these toys are harmless facsimiles of otherwise potentially disgusting or terrifying objects, such as vomit or spilled nail polish. In other instances, they are created as seemingly harmless items designed to humorously malfunction in such a way as to confuse or harm the target of a prank. The devices are frequently sold in magic or specialty shops, purchased over the Internet, or crafted for oneself. One notable joke device is the whoopee cushion.
Although commonly employed at events and gatherings, practical joke devices are sometimes seen in everyday life, for example as a mechanism of play by children, or among adult co-workers in a work environment. In addition to commercially manufactured practical joke devices, everyday objects have been converted into joke devices by purveyors of pranks.
Types of practical joke devices
Body parts
[Image:scherzbein.jpg|thumb|Fake leg]Artificial body parts can be, for example, attached on or under autos.
- Artificial arm, foot, or hand
- Jammed finger
- Oversized feet
- Protruding eyes
Clothing
Embarrassment
- Exhaust-pipe whistle tips
- Fart Machine
- Fart spray
- Itching powder
- Sneezing powder
- Whoopee cushion
Everyday objects
- Pen
- Camera
- Bitter candy
- Golf ball made of gypsum
- Beer mug with enclosed liquid
- Dribble glass
- Pythagorean cup
- Pack of chewing gum
- Water balloons
- Squeaking salt shaker
- Banana peels
- Foaming sugar cubes
- Ring
- Telescope with ink on lens
- Snake nut can
Excrement
[Image:Kunststoff-Kothaufen als Scherzartikel.jpg|thumb|Fake excrement]- Fake excrement pile
- Fake vomit
- Snot
- Soiled diaper
Fake animals
- A fake shark's dorsal fin to appear to onlookers as a live shark pursuing a swimmer at a public beach or pool
- Vermin: mice, rats, snakes, spiders, worms, etc.
- Partial stuffed toy animals
- *A stuffed-animal tiger's tail as a promotional gimmick for "a tiger in your tank"
- *Partial animals such as a half cat, designed to appear so that the rest of the animal is trapped in a closed/latched door or storage compartment
- *Roadkill animals or fake remains of injured animals. One such "Dead Dog Prop", billed as a "foam filled latex prop of a skinned dog with large tire track squished through its mid torso, chain attached for dragging purposes," was pulled from Sears, Walmart and Amazon websites a few days before Halloween 2013.
Horror devices
- Arrow in head
- Arrow and fake blood
- Nail through finger or head
- Knife in head
Liquids
[Image:Nagellack.jpg|thumb|Nail polish]- Fake blood
- Magic ink
- Stink bomb
- Broken egg with shell
- Fake spilled liquid with container, such as nail polish, chocolate syrup, red wine, etc.
- Squirting flower or camera
Smoking articles
- Lit cigarette lookalike device
- Bang-producing matches
- Exploding cigars
- Exploding cigarette inserts
- Cigarette burn sticker
- Squirting cigarette
- Lighters
- Everlasting ash
Toiletries
- Novelty soap
- *Soot soap
- *Blood soap
- *Butt/face soap
- Toilet paper
- *Printed slogans such as a John Wayne or Chuck Norris roll, "Rough, tough, and doesn't take poop from anybody"
- *No tear toilet paper
- *Various printed patterns: caution tape, crime scene tape, sandpaper, or cheese grater teeth
Documents and currency
- Fake lottery tickets
- Fake traffic tickets
- Fake or novelty currency
- *Coin glued to a sidewalk or bogus currency glued inside a toilet bowl where hapless finders will attempt to retrieve it.
- *Banknotes printed on one side only or one half of the page, so as to look valid when folded. Once unfolded, the remainder of the document is blank or carries a message or promotional advertisement
- *Fake denominations of currency such as the three dollar bill. The Smoking Gun reports a bogus-denomination $US200 depicting George W. Bush having been accepted at a Food Lion store; other reports list a Dairy Queen in Danville, Kentucky as a victim of this hoax. Another variant is the use of unrealistically large fictional denominations such as one million or a billion dollars.
- *Currency depicting recent incumbent politicians instead of historical leaders, usually casting them in an unfavourable light. A Pierre Elliott Trudeau "fuddle dollar" may identify itself as inflated and worthless currency, or a non-standard denomination featuring the presidential likenesses of Nixon, Bush, or Trump may present itself as unreliable, untrustworthy, or worthless as a means of parodying these figures.
- *Currency issued by fictional, defunct, or non-sovereign entities, such as a reprint of the now-worthless Confederate dollar or a parody "Quebuck" purporting to be issued by Québec separatists.
- *Currency issued on non-standard media or marked on its face as "funny money" issued by counterfeiters.
- Camouflage passports from fictional nations or planets.
- A bogus charge card entitled "Major Credit Card" and purporting to be "for major purchases only".
- A bogus charge card whose name and branding is a clear parody of an existing, well-known card and slogan. A Yakov Smirnoff book cover depicting a Russian version of American Express with slogan "Don't leave home" is one example.
Others
- Joy buzzer
- Bullet hole or glasscrack
- Covert TV Clicker. These differ from standard universal remote controls in that they blindly, without interruption, send the turn-off code for every make of television in sequence. No attempt is made to determine which is the valid code or provide any useful control other than turning the TV off.
- Hot candy
- Cheap inflatable dolls. Inflatable sheep or goats are manufactured solely as a practical joke item.
- Pie
- Chinese finger trap