April Fooled

The great comedian and social commentator Lenny Bruce was hounded unmercifully (as all houndings seem to be) over his desire to express himself onstage in the ordinary language of the people. He was hauled into court so often that he started to believe he was the victim of unjust persecution. But he still could turn a joke, as when he suggested that "one of these days, a guy with a camera and a microphone is going to come out from behind some curtain and say, 'Wow, Lenny! You've really been a good sport! This whole thing has been a huge practical joke, and you played it just great!'"

Lenny was referring to a TV show called "Candid Camera," in which average people were filmed having practical jokes played on them. Practical jokes. The phrase has the word "joke" in it, but it's not always funny, depending on whose face is getting plastered with a cream pie. Hitting a stranger with a pie? Not all that funny. That's why the revered and beloved "Jackass" movies and shows work so well - for the most part, they get each other with pies and locked portapotties on giant springs and rooms to crawl through while nekkid and dodging mousetraps and bullfighting while blindfolded and I don't know what-all else. Sure, the foil is some stranger when Johnny Knoxville climbs a tree on a golf course and lets loose with an airhorn just as some golfer swings, but that's a golfer! Is there any other sort of person who's just begging for a good pranking than a golfer?

High school was always a fertile field in which to plant practical jokes. I remember a lot of us bringing in alarm clocks and stashing them in our lockers, setting them to go off during class. Or signing up for Library Study under the name "Richard E. Normus." Or rolling someone up in the wrestling mats and dropping me off in the girls' locker room, a Trojan Horse, if you will. I mean dropping "him" in the girls' room. Him, not me. I wasn't there. (ahem.) 

April Fool's jokes can be elaborate, and take hundreds of people working in concert to bring them off. As an example, the state of Georgia, where one would suppose that the leaders want as many people as possible to vote, recently came up with some bogus laws meant to make the public believe they were trying to limit voter turnout! Because the governor, who once appeared on television as the younger brother on "Those Doggone Kemps," a short-lived sitcom on the CW, was able to act like he was serious, the public actually believed that the Georgia Legislature made it illegal to give a person who had been standing in the southern sun for five hours, waiting to vote, a bottle of water.

In this recent photo, members of the Georgia legislature's republican caucus meet outside after lunch to plan their next humorous stunt.