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Camp Pranks

Most of the following camp pranks were conceived of and played out while I was a counselor at an overnight summer camp for youth, ages 7-12. Many more come from visitors who have submitted their own camp pranks. Several of these jokes I still use to this very day. Practical jokes helped the counselors last through the grueling weeks of the job and are responsible for some of our fondest memories during our time at camp. I attended the camp, for 6 years as a camper, and always enjoyed the jokes the counselors played on their fellow staff and on us. Although some of the jokes I mention were played on the children, and at first may sound cruel, former campers have told me they look back and appreciate their camp experience. We also never played jokes on campers we disliked, or those who we thought would suffer long-term damage by our camping pranks and gags.

I have heard from other counselors that the camps they worked at were also breeding grounds for practical jokes. I believe this phenomenon comes about for a variety of reasons, some of which include:

- You are living with and working with others so closely you begin to know their daily patterns and routines and can anticipate their next move, thus having control over one of the needed elements in any great joke, timing.

- Access to living quarters of other counselors makes for easy placement of materials involved in jokes.

- Counselors are usually very young, a little immature, and carefree. If a pie is pushed in their face they may chase you but they won’t request you be fired.-

Visitor Submitted Camp Pranks

X-lax Surprise Camp Prank On my grade 8 end year trip we went camping. The girls wanted to get the boys good. So what we did was made brownies and put x-lax in them. The boys were eating them all the way to the camp. When we arrived at the camp, we hid all the [...]

Bush Dive Prank

Several bushes and pine trees that lined the roads and trails of the camp I worked at. Frequently as a camp prank, we would push one another into these bushes and trees. The best time to get another counselor was when you first woke up in the morning and were making your way for breakfast [...]

Shark Attack Camp Prank

Every child who has swam in a lake or the ocean, where you can not see to the bottom of the water you are swimming in, has been startled when something bumps their leg or body. Some may think for a brief moment that a monster or large fish is attacking them and panic, until [...]

Mud Bath Camping Prank

This camping prank is another form of the gag that I call “Hose Off” (discussed in Chapter 3, Irritating Jokes). Just beneath the sandy layer of the camp’s swimming area rest a layer of goopy muck. The muck was a combination of mud, clay, small pebbles, and decaying matter that smelled quite rank. Occasionally, as [...]

Push Into Water Camp Prank

The camp I worked in had a large rectangular pier, where we would watch the children swim, boat, and play at other water sports. Not all the counselors would be wearing their bathing suits during the designated water activities (and no, they were not naked). Those foolish enough to venture onto the pier dressed in [...]

Scary Old Man Camp Prank

Old Man Tinkum Scary Camp Prank Part of the camp experience was being treated to a scary story and being frightened by counselors and other campers. It was a tradition to take campers to the outskirts of a nearby cemetery and tell them the story of old man Tinkum. Old man Tinkum was supposedly a [...]