April April! There are at least four – not sufficiently documented – explanations for the origin of the custom of hitting others on April Fools’ Day. We don’t want to stop you with them, after all you have a mission this April 1st.

But! Always remember the golden rule when fooling around: Don’t seriously harm anyone. The April Fool’s joke is only good if everyone laughs after a short phase of anger. Superglue on the toilet seat is one of those jokes that goes too far. And certainly also transparent film stretched over the toilet bowl. Unless you clean up the mess afterwards. So much for the safety instructions. Now we can get started!

Print this silhouette of a beetle on white paper at about thirty percent size.

To be scary, the printed beetle should be about four inches long. Then cut out the bug and glue it to the inside of a lampshade of your choice and turn on the lamp. Ask your victim what that dark spot is on the lamp. The rest is history. Here’s an example:

Stick a note on the friend’s car that you want to surprise with an April Fool’s joke. It reads, “Unfortunately, I damaged your car while pulling out. Here’s my claims number,” followed by a friend’s phone number, which of course shouldn’t be on the victim’s contact list.

If the victim then calls and asks where the scratch is supposed to be, you can get creative or solve the April Fool’s joke.

Imagine you could send a friend a photo of their car in flames. Of course, the image should only be edited and its trusty pile of tin shouldn’t actually burn. There is an app for that too.

Yep, you read that right. The Dude Car Prank Pro freemium app is available for Android. “Dude, your car!” is the name of the counterpart in the Apple Store. If you send the edited photo, you can write something underneath it like “but that’s not your car, is it? Your license plate was different, I think.” But please solve the prank as soon as your victim texts back and don’t let the desperate vehicle owner run to his car first.

The usual April Fool’s jokes have also found their way into France, but one tradition has survived: Here, children in particular make paper fish and then stick them on the back or buttocks of friends, teachers or parents. If they later notice the sticky fish, the children call out “Poisson d’Avril”, which roughly translates to “April fish”.

Why it has to be a fish can no longer be proven today. But even today, the April fish is still a nice, harmless alternative to the sometimes crude, run-of-the-mill April Fools’ jokes. Time for Germany to adapt it. How about an “April Dachshund”?

How would your friends react if you were suddenly pregnant? You can test it out by googling ultrasound pictures and posting them in your WhatsApp status. Like this Twitter user:

For example, if you know the pin code of your partner, you can rename one of his contacts: Change your name there to the name of his dentist, his insurance company or another important name in the contact list. Make a few calls from your smartphone without your partner noticing.

If he or she later sees that, for example, “the dentist” has called ten times and calls back tensely, your prank victim will call you without knowing it. Then you disguise your voice and mimic the dentist – followed by an “April, April!”

By the way: If April Fools’ Day is too much work for you, but you still want to tease others, we have a treasure trove for you:

With this April Fool’s Day joke for the office, you can fool many victims with just one note. Print out the following notice:

Dear Colleagues,

on Friday the voice function was installed on all printers in our company. Now proceed as follows when printing:

You can always get a few colleagues with it (please do not print this sentence).

This prank for April 1st is done quickly. Buy Brussels sprouts or something the size of a candy that you know your victim will find gross. Then all you need is individually wrapped pralines, such as Rocher, in which Brussels sprouts, for example, fit well. Remove the chocolate, put in the Brussels sprouts and close the packaging again. “Fancy chocolates?” In the same league: replace the filling in the sandwich biscuit with mustard.

If you don’t mind the effort, you can also peel an onion, skewer it on a stick and cover it with chocolate icing. “Chocolate apple” homemade …

Maybe your roommates want to make themselves some tea or coffee with sugar before they leave? They will get tea or coffee, but will notice a salty note instead of a sweet one. That’s because someone swapped the sugar in the shaker for salt.

Coke looks amazingly similar to soy sauce, especially when you add mineral water for fizz. But that’s just in passing.

Well then, now you know what you have to do. After you’ve fired off your April Fool’s jokes, let us know about the reactions in the comments!

This article was first published in April 2022.