How to Throw an April Fool's Day Prank Party

Children love April Fool's Day. Who wouldn't love a day dedicated to fun little pranks and foolishness? Cater to your inner child by throwing a prank party this April Fool's Day. Break out the food coloring and squirt guns, because this is will be one party to remember.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Because this party is based on a day of trickery and mischief, invite any children that you know to the party. Any young-at-heart adults also should be granted an invite.
2. Now whether you want to tell your guests that this is a specific April Fool's party, or simply keep the prank aspect of the party in the dark, is up to you. If the majority of your guests are children, then you might consider advertising the party as a specific prank party to get them excited.
3. On the invitations have a theme of well-known comedians, such as Robin Williams and Dane Cook. Search for images of these comedians to include onto the front of your invitations.
4. At least two or three days before the party, take a trip to your local magic, joke or novelty shop. Purchase numerous different kinds of prank items, such as whoopee cushions, jars of exploding snakes, Mexican jumping beans and dribbling glasses. You might consider putting together your gift bags from items at this shop. Try to gather a good selection of different kinds of prank items for your guests.
5. Also of interest to children are optical illusion items and how-to magic tricks. Purchase one or two larger items, such as a magic trick kit, to have as prizes.
6. Figure out how many prizes you wish to give to your guests. You might want to have a prize for the most pranks pulled, the person pranked the most, the most creative prank, etc. Try to have at least two or three different categories for winners.
7. The day before the party, make sure to buy any food and drink you want to serve. If you have any prank food that will make mouths change color, make sure that the party food will be able to conceal the prank foods.
8. Also, buy two packs of food coloring to use in the party food. Consider making foods, such as blue mashed potatoes or green chip dip, to spring onto the children when it’s time to eat.
9. Purchase gift bags that are opaque so you can fill them with different prank materials and no one will be able to see what selection they received. Also buy small note pads and pencils. Buy enough so each guest will receive one.
10. The day before, make the surprise ice cubes. See the related articles section to learn how to make these color-changing ice cubes. Since these ice cubes work best in opaque drinks, consider buying a dark soda or a milky smoothie drink that will conceal the colored ice cube.
11. When your guests arrive, give them each a bag of the prank material. Tell each guest that they are to use the items in their bag to prank other guests and to make a mark in their notepad for each successful prank.
12. Set a time limit in which the pranks will occur.
13. Let your guests know about the different competition categories. Whoever pulls the most successful pranks or whoever pulls the most creative prank, etc., will win a special prize.
14. Offer your guests drinks so you can slip the color-changing ice cubes into their glasses.
15. Let your guests figure out what they want to do in order to prank someone. Possibly have a movie playing in the background to distract other guests while someone sets up a prank.
16. Try your best to keep a sane head while the chaos of the party ensues. Periodically check up on how everyone’s tallies are stacking up.
17. Don’t forget to jump on the prank bandwagon. Keep a secret stash of prank material for yourself so you can participate in the pranking.
18. When the time limit's up, poll everyone to figure out the winners of the different competition categories.
19. Present each winner with one of the large prizes.
20. At the end of the party, thank everyone for joining you in making April Fool's Day a time of merriment and mischief.

Tips & Warnings

• Set rules down for the party so the pranks don’t get out of hand. No pranks that will hurt anyone physically will be tolerated. Pranks that will permanently damage someone’s hair or clothing will also be frowned upon. These are examples of some ground rules that you may want to set down before the party begins.
• Think about setting out whoopee cushions on some of the seating. Hide them under certain cushions of a couch.
• You might also want to slip in dribbling glasses into the regular glasses.
• If you don’t have a joke shop in your area, many shops have catalogs available online.
• Many of the prank materials require water and plastic strip caps to work. Make sure you have all required materials available.