April Fool’s Day Is No Joke to Real Pranksters

While one might think April Fools’ Day would be like Christmas for those who pull pranks for a living, the practical joke community is actually quite divided on the annual day of deception.

Count Alan Abel —  who’s been pulling pranks since 1959 when he tricked the ‘Today Show’ as a representative for the “Society for Indecency For Naked Animals” — as one who shuns the first day of April.

“April 1 is not a day to put on pranks,” he told Huffington Weird News. “You can’t get away with it. People have their antenna up. They’ll know right away.”

Joey Gatto, host of TruTVs ‘Impractical Jokers,‘ agrees, but for slightly different reasons.

“It’s too obvious a choice,” Gatto explains. “It’s a built-in excuse. A true prankster doesn’t need a safety net. Doing it on April 1st takes away the surprise.”

Not all pranksters feel this way, however. In fact, Gatto’s co-host James Murray is up for the April 1st challenge. “Really, it’s the perfect day to do a prank because you don’t have to apologize to anyone,” Murray argued. “I wish we could do every episode on that day.”

Our take away from this debate is that being a professional prankster would be pretty awesome. Although we suspect the only way to go pro in pranks is to first master April Fools’ Day, warts and all. Get out your fake spiders and novelty vomit, folks.

[via The Huffington Post]