Student pranks are an integral part of our undergraduate mythology, the stuff of cartoonish legend, oft parodied on our TV screens with horses in the dean’s office, late night drunken defacement’s of historic university monuments and the like. But, as Mark Twain once so wisely opined: Truth is often stranger than fiction and so in that regard, let’s take a trip through history and attempt dig up some real life student legends. Brave heroes who went above and beyond the prankster call of duty. Individuals who shook off the surly bonds of mischief normality and custard pied the face of God. The architects and ringleaders behind the greatest ever student pranks.
The Sacred Cod Heist
When: 1933
Where: Harvard University
The theft of bizarre and often pointless items by university students is more or less par for the course as student pranks go. In fact, some would argue that you haven’t truly attended university unless you’ve stolen a traffic cone at least twice. However, the 1933 “cod-napping” as it’s now universally known, was by far the most audacious.
The Sacred Cod is a four foot, eleven inch wooden replica of an Atlantic Codfish which hangs from the ceiling of the House of Representatives chamber of the Massachusetts State House. In 1933, members of the Harvard Lampoon, Harvard University’s humour magazine, cut the Cod down from the ceiling and escaped with it in an unusually large florist’s box equipped with protruding decoy lilies.
In what is perhaps one of the most bizarre overreactions in history, Massachusetts officials were reported to be “shocked into a condition bordering on speechlessness” by the theft, “some legislators holding that it would be sacrilege to transact business without the emblem of the Commonwealth looking down on them”. Police went so far as to comb through the Charles River, and upon discovering that a Lampoon editor was flying to New Jersey, had the plane searched upon landing.
Eventually, the codnappers buckled under the pressure. Following a mysterious call received by Harvard official Charles R. Apted, a meeting was arranged in the Boston suburb of West Roxbury. The cod was handed over by two men with collars up and hats pulled down, who pulled up in a car and then sped away. After repairing a few broken fins, the Cod was eventually re-hung in the house chamber, six inches higher. The state officials theorized that nobody would now be able to steal the Cod without the aid of the step ladder. Unfortunately, in 1968 the Cod was stolen again. Using a step ladder..
The Great Austin Seven Prank
When: 1958
Where: University of Cambridge
One sleepy summer day in 1958, 12 Engineering students at the University of Cambridge pulled off what is generally considered to be the greatest student prank of all time.
The band of twelve, led by their ringleader Peter Davey towed a clapped out Austin Seven through Cambridge and managed, through the use of an A-shaped crane, to hoist the vehicle onto the roof of the 70ft high Senate House.
The group used the May Bumps weekend as a cover, theorizing that most passersby were likely to be drunken rowers.
Divided into three precise teams, the plan was nearly foiled when a collection of observant rowers noticed the car hovering 40ft in the air. They were able to resist the charms of the women in the ground team, who attempted to distract them by hitching up their skirts a couple of inches, and had to be fobbed off with the excuse that the Austin was a tethered balloon.
In the aftermath of the prank, Gonville and Caius College dean, Rev. Hugh Montefiore, publically denied he had any idea as to who the culprits were, but secretly sent a congratulatory case of champagne to the staircase of Davey and co.
Police, fire services and civil defense units battled to remove the Austin Seven for an entire week before taking it apart with blow torches. The prank continued to baffle authorities until 2008 when an Oxford reunion dinner of the conspirators was held and the full plot revealed, securing Davey and his gang’s proud place in Student Prank History.
The Flash Mob Job
When: 2011
Where: University of Toronto
When a collection of Toronto Engineering students (I know, they don’t half seem to be a pesky bunch) sat down for their finals two years ago, none of them had any inkling that they were about to star in a YouTube sensation. Well, all except for the number of them dotted around the room who were preparing to pull off a meticulously planned and extremely brave flash mob style prank.
Just before the test was due to begin; music began to fill the hall. As the examiner looked around in confusion one student stood up on his seat and launched into the opening verse of ‘One Day More’ from the musical Les Miserables.
Shortly afterwards, other students positioned at strategic locations joined into what swiftly became a well-choreographed performance of the song in front of a stunned exam hall.
The examiner, initially irritated by this unexpected development soon lost control of the situation and eventually joined in, giving his own rousing rendition of the chorus.
Something tells me that under other circumstances this could have gone much, much worse for the perpetrators.
The Lake Liberty Project
When: 1979
Where: University of Wisconsin
1979 was a year of radical political change. In Britain, Margaret Thatcher’s reformist Conservative government was elected to lead Britain, for better or worse, into a new era.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, the University of Wisconsin was experiencing its own kind of political revolution, with the student government being taken over by the now infamous Pail & Shovel Party, whose radical platform consisted mostly of using the student government’s budget on outlandish pranks.
The magnum opus of these madcap, political radicals was the installation the head and right arm of a fake Statue of Liberty on frozen Lake Mendota during the extreme weather conditions of that year. The off the wall nature of the idea and the sheer level of determination that went into it, not to mention the fact they seemed to have eerily foreshadowed the plot of The Day After Tomorrow twenty years early means it earns a rightful place on our list.
The Boulder-dash
When: 1960s (at some point)
Where: University of Leicester
This prank, which occurred sometime during the 60s at College Hall, University of Leicester, proved so infamous (or difficult to remove) that it’s been commemorated with its own memorial plaque.
During renovations to College Hall the University rediscovered the large boulder which had at some point been rolled into the courtyard by a number of male students and thrown into a pond.
The boulder has remained in place ever since, even when the pond was in-filled and planted during the 90s.
To commemorate the prank, the redevelopment will not result in any movement of the boulder, and a plaque will be installed celebrating the boulder’s history.
Reasons for the prank remain sketchy, but it’s suspected as College Hall was all-male at the time it may have been a result of a particularly escalated show of machismo.