Camp Pranks

[BrentAllen]

We used to do this around the campfire - kind of a cross between a prank and a skit(mid-1970's era). I learned it at a church lock-in.

 

We took all the Scouts who had not "kissed the King's ring" away from the campfire. One by one, they were blindfolded and led to the campfire. They were instructed to kneel and kiss the King's (SM) ring (a neckerchief slide). The blindfold was removed, and there sat the SM with a bare foot and a neckerchief slide on his big toe! The Scout thought he had actually kissed that slide, until the next Scout was brought in and kneeled. Just as he was about to kiss the slide, the SM stuck his hand down over his foot, with an identical slide on his finger, which was kissed instead of the one on his toe. The previous Scout saw what had happened, and there was a "gotcha!" moment. This was repeated until the last Scout was brought out. He was usually chosen to go last because he was the biggest prankster. He didn't get to see the step repeated, so he thought he had kissed the slide on the toe - at least he did until someone told him the real story.

 

[frank10]

Best one I've ever pulled was on an other ASM... Jim O was ASM for our troop and the DE for another district. He alwas planned to be at camp with us but would get pulled at the last second and have to do something district related back at the office. Since we were at his councils camp he couldn't bluff them. He'd call ahead with the latest arrival time which would often be pushed back again and again.

 

One year he was finally going to arrive at camp durring Wednesday lunch. As he entered the dining hall scouts at each table started pointing and yelling "there he is". I had gotten in earlier and plastered photos of him on each milk carton.

 

For years he would re-tell the tale of that day with a huge smile. And pride of knowing we cared where he was.

 

Jim passed on last month, but where ever he is, I'll think of him when ever I pass the milk in the dining hall of camp Curtis S Read.

(Rest easy Jim, You've done your hour.)

[Lisabob]

Wingnut, would that be Jim Olszewski by any chance?

 

Lisa'bob

[knottyfox]

Wingnut,

 

What a wonderful story! I am sorry to hear of your lose.

 

Knotty

[AwHeck]

We had a prank played on our troop by another troop - this one involving leaders rather than scouts. We are in the foothills outside of Denver and our troop tagline is "The Mountain Troop" This is painted on our troop trailer and used elsewhere by our troop. One camporee, we were camping near a neighboring troop. The area they are from is generally a bit higher in elevation than the area we are from but everything is relative. At this camporee, our SM was looking at our trailer and called me over... seems the other troop had taken some cardboard and covered up the "Mountain" portion of our slogan, writing "Valley" on the cardboard. The two of us chuckled over it for a bit. When we saw some leaders in the other campsite, we walked up to them to return the crdboard - explaining that since their troop meeting is at the bottom of a steep hill, they were more properly called the Valley troop. WE all had a good laugh over this... somehow, though, we ended up with the cardboard and we kept it in our trailer for quite a while as I recall.

[frank10]

Lisabob,

Yep, That's him. He was a real friend and I'll miss him, but I'm glad to say the last time I talked to him I took the time to tell him what he meant to me and how he had helped make me a better person. Neither of us knew he was sick at that time, it was just something I always wanted to tell him and finally found a chance to say it all.

I sent you a copy of his obit.

 

All - Sorry to bring this thread down, if there was any point to my post it was that this kind of stuff can make for long term friendships.

[knottyfox]

You did not bring it down! Thanks for the post.

[grampye]

Wingnut, your kind of seriousness is encouraged here. Sorry for your loss.

 

OK, maybe one more to test the waters....

 

This was back in the early '80s. For a while my Scouts had this skit they would do called "Swami". A line of them would enter and sit cross legged in a row. An "interpreter" would announce that the great and all knowing Swami was going to tell fortunes. A Scout with his head wrapped in a towel and wearing a bathrobe would then enter and sit at the end of the row next to the interpreter.

 

The "Swami" would converse briefly in gibberish and in a sing-song voice with the interpreter who would announce that the great Swami wished to tell someone's fortune by reading the bumps on their head.

 

A volunteer would be chosen and placed seated on the ground before the Swami who would examine their head. He would then converse again with the interpreter who would announce the "fortune".

 

Next, after another brief exchange, the interpreter would announce that the Swami wished to tell a fortune by reading a palm and again call for a volunteer.

 

The third time, the Swami wished to read a foot. The volunteer would be placed before the Swami who would remove the guy's shoe and sock, hand them to the Scout next to him, and begin examining his foot. The first Scout in the line would examine the shoe and then pass it to the next and so on.

 

When the shoe had reached the end of the line, the Swami would confer with the interpreter who would announce the fortune - "You are about to embark on a long and difficult journey." - just as the last in line threw the shoe dismissively over his shoulder into the woods behind him.

 

OK, that's the rough outline. We had done this a few times at camp-o-rees so everyone knew what to expect. We were at a camp-o-ree at a site of a small lake and the campfire was on the shore. The boys came in and sat with their backs to the lake and went through the routine. When it came time to chose the last "volunteer" they picked the Scoutmaster of one of the other troops in our town. He was wearing some pretty nice hiking boots and kept glancing apprehensively down the line as his boot was handed from boy to boy.

 

The boot reached the end of the line, the fortune was told, and something flew through the air and landed with a splash in the lake.

 

Afterward, when he'd got his boot back from the Scout at the end who had tossed the log over his shoulder he told me - "As I watched that boot disappearing down the line I kept telling myself "I know these guys - they wouldn't do that to me" but when I heard that splash, I wasn't really so sure."

 

[Lisabob]

Heh, small world. Jim was my godfather. My parents worked with him on staff at scout camps (where else!?) when they were all still teenagers. Well if there are two things I know about Jim they are that he loved scouting and that he loved a good joke. The milk carton gag must've been right up his alley and I can just see him laughing about it now.

 

Lisa

 

Sorry everybody - the temporary thread highjacking is done!

 

 

[SSScout]

Oh, the regrets and the lessons learned.

 

I well remember "Swami" who knows all and tells too much, all by smelling your shoe...

I set up the skit in the usual way.But we neglected to pick and plan for an appropriate fall guy,, So my Scouts ( I was SPL)went ahead and let the AUDIENCE pick out the fortune receiver. A Troop from the inner city pushed forward a TF who willingly provided his shoe. At the end, the shoe chukker THREW the shoe into the woods. And I mean THROW. Yep, it was a real expensive sport shoe. Our whole Troop went looking for it. Never again like that...

 

HOWEVER... I have never failed to elicit laughs with "The Ugliest Man in the World" and we ALWAYS pick out the appropriate fall guy. A DE or DD or best stuffed shirt we can find. They dare not refuse, even if they recognize the skit! Goes like this, if you are not familiar....

 

Man is led onto stage with big box over his head. Introduced as the "UGLIEST Man in the World". So grotesque are his features that the Army uses him to test the bravery of the soldiers, etc... One look is enough to freeze the strongest nerve!! (play it up good) So you get a "set up" to squint under the box and he faints dead away. Do this a couple of times. The stage is strewn with casualties. Finally, you get the 'chosen one' to come up ("I know Mr. Smith is up to the challenge!"). And when HE peeks under the box, the UMitW falls over dead.

 

Then there was the actual snipe hunt we organized...but that was a church camp...

 

[packsaddle]

This is similar to the 'gray area' thread in many ways. And I've had to make more than one apology for ill-considered actions by the boys (they apologized too).

 

What I like about Brent's skit (kissing the king's ring) and the 'ugliest man' skit is that both of them have rather harmless, clever twists that everyone enjoys, even the uninitiated 'target'.

This summer, I informed the boys that ANY prank they decided to do must be cleared by me first. So they did one anyway without clearance (stealing another troop's sign). By coincidence, someone else also pulled a prank on that troop the same night by plugging their toilets. Guess who found themselves clearing the drains....hopefully learning a lesson in the process...and returning the sign as well.

 

But moving the bed to the roof of the dining hall is potentially dangerous and could cause expensive damage to the roof material. The camp made it clear to the leaders that we would be responsible for any damage as a result of a prank. Fair enough.

 

The risky element of pranks is that they usually involve a deception of some sort. And deceptions always might lead to an unexpected unpleasant situation. If the deception preys on someone's weakness or is dangerous, I join Fscouter's opinion. If it involves an outright crime (theft or destruction of property, for example) I condemn it as such. If it merely at pokes fun at me, I have thick skin - no problem. I just encourage them not to do it to anyone else.

 

[grampye]

Our leadership guys were really good friends with the SPL of another troop in town. One year he was not able to attend summer camp with his troop and we offered to have him spend the week with us.

 

Towards the end of the week while he was out of the campsite his "friends" removed the troop numbers from his uniform and replaced them with ours.

 

I wish they had been able to pull it off, but unfortunately they messed up the sewing job and the sleeve was tight when he put it on. I can only imagine the ribbing he would have gotten when someone from his troop noticed his "defection".

 

 

[evmori]

We are Troop 1. Some years back, Troop 2 from a different district was at summer camp the same week we were. Troop 2 had a sign as part of their gateway that read

 

Troop 2 2nd to None

 

We knew a lot of the Scouts & adults in the Troop & we decided to prank them! We made a #1 & one night we snuck over to their site & place the 1 on top of the N in None so the sign now read

 

Troop 2 2nd to 1one

 

They never notices until they were breaking camp Saturday morning!

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[milwscout580]

This is more of a skit...

 

A few years ago, the camp rented a slush puppy machine for the trading post. The trading post manager was a girl. Our former SPL (aged out) was still attending camp, and he spent a lot of time in the trading post that week, talking with the TP manager... So a few of us decided to make up a skit about this...

 

"slush Puppy Lovin'"

 

Basically one of us was dressed like the girl, one like the former SPL, and I was myself (sort of a geek... I can admit) (oh, by the way, it was funny becuase the girl had long hair so we took some hemp rope and frayed it to look like hair..) anyway, the former SPL would come and talk to the TP girl every day, and on the "last day" of camp, he asked her to come back to the city on her day off for a date. Well, she says, no I already have a date. He asks who, and then I walk in with some weeds (flowers) and say,"are you ready, honey?"

 

It was funny, and all the Scouts liked it. He was kind of mad the rest of the night, but he got over it and laughs about it now. Every year since then everyone jokes about him and the slush puppies... "hey, ________, are you gonna go get a slush puppy?" he laughs now...

[C-BOLT]

Haha, there are some great pranks in this thread.

 

Here are some that I have both done, and received in my days of scouting. At summer camp, on the first day when we are doing our medical checks, the older scouts ALWAYS tell the first years that they have to get a shot. My first year it scared the crap out of all of us, and we continued the tradition for a few years. Well, one year, one of the scouts started crying and asked the leader if this was true. Now normally, the leaders knew all about this, and always loved it, however this scout told the wrong leader. I was one of the scouts involved, and the leader (who was new to the troop) completely went off on me. That leader pretty much disgraced himself at that point, to this day, none of the scouts have respect for him.

 

Another prank, in each campsite there was usually a flagpole that went unused, so occasionally we would send a scouts sleeping bag up there.

 

I will be completely honest here, I was one of the scouts that in my younger years overreacted to a prank. An older scout put my sleeping bag up the flagpole, and well, I didn't like him much to begin with, and I'm sure he didn't like me. I ended up calling him out one day, and we "went at it." Although I received a harsh lecture, the guy never messed with me again.