The legendary and sometimes feared holiday of April Fools’ Day is here and perhaps students should start putting their guard up.

April Fools’ Day is known for its jokes, but more sinisterly known for outrageous pranks. These pranks can range anywhere from hiding in your roommate’s closet until he or she gets home and abruptly burst out of the closet with a scream, or more elaborate pranks like the legendary YouTube prank of tearing a hundred phonebooks apart and flooding a roommate’s room.

YouTube is a virtual guide for anyone who wants to be a prank artist. Some of the most entertaining and most viewed videos on YouTube contain pranks and often the much funnier pranks gone wrong.

Take the legendary Halloween prank of putting a mask on and posing as a giant stuffed zombie or monster on your porch to scare would be candy-seekers. The YouTube version of the prank is not taken too well by the young man who goes by the door and the unfortunate owner of the household is met with a punch to the face during his failed scare attempt.

The legendary cast of “Jackass” performs some of the most outrageous pranks ever seen. The recent DVD release of their box office hit, “Jackass 3D,” gives audiences the ability to see these jaw-dropping pranks.

The movie starts off with star and co-founder Johnny Knoxville hiding a giant, spring-loaded hand to slap other stars as they enter a doorway. The ultimate giant hand prank is pulled on unexpected Bam Margera who also had the treat of six bags of flour taped to the same giant hand.

Margera is later brought to tears when he is tricked into falling into a pit where the “Jackass” team then drops a giant tub of snakes into the pit.Snakes happen to be Margera’s biggest fear.

Great pranks do not need the budget of a Hollywood movie or a legendary cast of wacko’s like in “Jackass.”

The legendary senior prank has been a staple for any graduating class of high school students for generations. Whether it is a keg of root beer for the class picnic, an organized rally, jumping into the schools pool, or the hated and overused stink bombs, high schools have seen every form of prank imaginable.

Now that the day has come, the wit and shear tenacity of would-be prank artists comes into being. Perhaps a new YouTube sensation will be the result of the holiday or maybe just a lot of angry and frightened victims, only time will tell.

Seamus Riley can be reached at 581-2812 or

denverge@gmail.com.