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No Its not the Invasion of the tackiest neighbors from hell on higher education, just 1,000 plastic flamingos at the U. of Wisconsin.
IT’S ALL FUN AND GAMES
Crazy student pranksters sabotage campuses
ll\ Mike* Mnt r, / lit Hailgvi Herald. I . ol Wisconsin
They lurk in the shad
ows, scheming oi
nefarious deeds and
descending on unsus
pecting campuses. Thev sal><>
tage university computers,
deface campus property and
harass administrators.
Hlaik fair paint anti (hr theme from
fusion Imfituablr air, of course, optional —
usually irserved lor those special strikes
Hut when puling oil Irgrndaiv college
pranks one thing is certain: it's gotta be
big
And big certainly is what California
Institute of Technology pranksters had in
mind when they attarked the HOl-LY*
W< H )l) sign with visions o( sc hool pndr m
their heads In Mas IW7, as the centennial
of Hollywood appioarhrd. students at
Caltech derided to altei the sign to sa\
something a bit more... scholarly. In the
middle ol the night, the students used plas
tic sheeting, nylon ropes, duct tape and
(limbing rcpnpment to Hailstorm the leg
endary landm.uk to read (-M I H H
Since 1902 when a drinking club at Yale
T tricked temperance advocate Carry
Nation into [rosing foi pictures with them
as dies smoked and held steins of Irccr, col
lege students have persisted in hoaxing
thru stem administrators anti ra< h mlin
Students alwass seem Milling to lest thru
brain power it u Mil! irsult in a laugh ratlin
than a grade
Man Rouse, dean ot students at the 1
ol Wisconsin, s.iss pranks air an important
outlet toi student expression 'I must dil
Inrntiale hrtMerii main jous pranks and
having tun I don’t discourage hannlcss
ones at all. The Statue ot l aliens Mas one ol
the liest events mt’vc ever had '
In HI79. the I’atl and Shovel Parts Mas
elected to head the Wisconsin Student
Association after promising — among
other things — to waste students money,
change everyone's name to Joe Smith (vi
professors could know each student by
name) and bring the Statue ol lalierty to
Madison. They made good on then
promises, constructing a lads labcrts mIio
seemed to have been dropped in frozen
lake Mendota.
She Mas a 22-foot tall head front the
budge of the nose upward and an arm 40
leet tall from wrist to the up of the torch
Claiming thes had purchased it from a
finannalls strapped New York, the parts
said a helicopter transporting the statue
(flopped it, sending it crashing through
the ice. After an overwhelming victory
again that fall, the Patl and Shovel crew
planted more than 1,000 pink plastic
flamingos on thr (ampus anil threw a toga
|>.irt> for 10,000 people, during which
Aninuil Home |i,iriri John ltrloshi phoned
in Im support.
Although ihr I'.ul and Shovel party had
their detractors, thr humor they brought
to campus was welcomed 'In fact, if
(heir's anything we could use more til
among our students, it is more gentle
humor," Rouse savs.
In an attempt to till this dearth, ot at
least stimulate students to action,
prankster Nnl Steinberg has authored the
mist hiei-makri s biblr, if At All I'outble,
lmvh<ra (iuu The hook of ('jollege iAxmks
In Involve a Cow, thr majority of the
painstakingly dotumenlrd pranks occur at
small, elitist s< hoots like Harvard l- and
Yale “People have to think they're sproal
to do pranks, it you're just some |oe Schmo
happy to get into st liool and get your
degree and then grab a job, you're not
going to commit any pranks because
they're not going to occur to you.*
Steinberg says. “You also have to have the
leisure tune to say, 'The Dome is going to
look better as a... tit." In past years the
(treat Dome at thr Massat husrtts Institute
of Technology has been doctored to
resemble a birthday c ake, a jack-o'-lantern
and. perhaps in a commentary on the sex
lives of Ml'I males, a female breast.
But MIT's antics only begin there
“Foil also have to have the
leisure time to say, ‘The Dome is
going to look better as a... tit."
Steinberg says that during the years tin
s< IiihiI lias formed a fierce prank-commit
ting rivalry with (-litre It. While (laltechers
were entering a McDonald's contest I 2
million times, MIT undergrads weir
mvrnling new forms ol measurements like
the Bruno (the indentation caused when a
piano lands on com rele). While ( allei h
pulled the (.teat Rose Bowl Hoax (cltaitg
mg the lltpeard display to read “Caltet h"
on national television), Ml I caused a giant
weather balloon to hurst through the turi
at the 1 larvald-Yale football game
But the times they are a-changin' That
smell user at MI 1 is not the devious burn
ing ol midnight oil ol the 1 c< hnologs
Hackers \ssociation (the resident "prank
club") but ol i hemn al reactions as stu
dents - gasp — study " I his is the right
place loi pranks," s.ns undeigtadtiate
Rruvrn 1 eamei “It it’d happen anvwheie
it'd lie Mi l But people have lieen pretty,
fioring."
Strinlierg is dismayed In this l.u k ol dev
dish dediiation. “I think students forget
that they're not inventing the wheel." he
savs " I "hey don't have a sense ol tradition,
ol their place in history."
In Invohf a Cow, Steinberg lists six rules
to pranking I he sixth rule recommends
the inclusion ol a bovine, but most impoi
tanliv. the first rule is ‘You have to at tualiv
do it."
Remember (hut.
Bui viiih- pranking lives on as students
lake to campuses with their shenanigans
I he liny Southern Minnesota town of
Northliekf proves a veritable treasure trove
of triekeiv With St. ( flat and (larleton, two
hlieial arts sc hoofs, situated less than two
miles ai loss town from eat ft othet. the |m»
vitalities lot prankishness seem endless
At St Olai last May "someone sent a slip
to all of the seniors saving they were short
one class, and the (registrar's] office was
mobbed.’ savs student (ihtts Raster.
Registrar John Treoem amends Kasiei s
storv. ‘Actually only f>0 of our 7?0 gradu
ates received a fake notice,’ he said “I
drought it was funny. About half of die lid
fainted, and then showed up at the regis
trar's nflitr in a state of absolute terror...."
Ac toss town at (jrlelun, pranking is con
sidered just 'taking care of business."
President Stephen R. lewis reserved him
self a place in history wtdi his handling of
the demands of a 1991 group named
RAI.SK — Replace All Institutional Symbols
with KJvis. After kidnapping tire American
flag and unfurling one hearing The King,
they demanded ‘the leader of our commu
nity perform an Klvis impersonation.*
lewis obliged with a tear-inducing rendi
tion of ‘Mound Dog" at a council meeting
Venerable institutions like Cwleton
seem conducive to pranking, lewis says.
"Part of our message to students when
they arrive is take issues seriously, but don't
take yourselves seriously. We do try lo havr
fun here; contemplating the purposes of
the universe all the time can be a bit
restraining.’ »