My favourite harmless prank I've heard of was done by this girl whose dad was a geologist, and they'd go on day hikes with his geologist friends/co-workers and when she got bored on them she'd habitually pick up a random rock and go ask him what it is, and one of them would explain what kind of a rock that is, how it probably got here, and usually some notions of the more unusual features the rock had, if any.
And she had a friend who had once gone on a tourist trip to Iceland and brought back a volcanic rock. So she borrowed the rock and took it with her on the hike, and after two randomly picked up "hey dad what rock is this", she presented the volcanic rock, in the same fashion as all the others.
3 minutes later there are five middle-aged and older men circled around this mysterious rock, all agreeing on what it is, but not why it is. They keep asking her questions, where did she find it? Were there any other rocks around there that looked like it? Was it like this on the ground? People walking past the group try to stretch their necks to see over the geologists' shoulders to see what's the source of such amazement.
And in the end she couldn't take it anymore, burst into laughter and confessed. The geologists agree that it was pretty clever.
Batman isn’t a mask; It’s a leash. In this essay I will—
I've noted before that my favorite punchline on Tumblr is "hang on, gotta look something up/okay that's funny."
Let me explain why:
It is a way to say "I don't get it" without blaming the joke or the teller.
It is a tacit admission of ignorance without shame or judgement.
It assumes responsibility for acquiring the knowledge the respondent doesn't already have.
It cues other people who Don't Get It to do the look-up themselves, allowing them to get that full impact of Getting It without derailing the post with explanations.
It gives subsequent readers, whether or not THEY got the joke, a little frisson of good feelings when they realize that someone else is now In On The Joke.
It not only makes the original joke funnier, it gets funnier the more often it's used.
world war 3 was on the line, jason
Just Tim and Damian finishing each other sentences
And them just teasing their big brother
Experience: Learning the right way to connect the dots.
"Come see the many looks of Princess Zelda throughout the years!" image from Nintendo Game News