Free Republic

This is the shocking moment a 21-year-old YouTuber prankster's stunt went badly wrong when a deliver driver he was targeting pulled out a gun and shot him in the chest. Video shows Tanner Cook, 21, who runs the Classified Goons YouTube channel, harassing Alan Colie as he picked up a food order at the Dulles Town Center mall in Sterling, Virginia, on April 2. Cook can be seen following Colie around the mall while thrusting his phone in his face as it plays the bizarre phrase, 'Hey dips**t, quit thinking about my twinkle' multiple times using a Google Translate app....

A serial prankster's luck has ended in a moment of poetic justice when he was punched to the ground and shot after attempting to film himself scaring a pedestrian. Vladimir Tzapaev runs a YouTube channel which showcases videos of himself dressing up in costume and jumping out at young women walking the streets at night. But his latest prank - all of which was caught on film - backfired spectacularly when a young man refused to be cowed and fought back.

A California man wants divorce outlawed. John Marcotte has filed for a ballot initiative to protect traditional marriage in the state of California as an extension of the work related to Proposition 8, the voter-approved constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between one man and one woman. In essence, Marcotte's project would legally ban divorce. "Marriage is an important and sacred institution, and I'm just trying to safeguard it in really the most direct way possible," he states. He says he needs the help of California's registered voters in acquiring "700,000 valid signatures, which likely translates into 1,000,000 [signatures] total."...

ORLANDO, Fla. — Authorities say a prankster persuaded a married couple to smash their Florida hotel window after falsely telling them the room had a gas leak. Police say a person claiming to be a front-desk clerk at an Orlando hotel convinced the couple to break a wall mirror and use a lamp to punch a hole through the wall. The couple also threw a mattress out the window, but a hotel manager came to the room before they could jump. The manager told the couple there was no gas leak. The prank cost about $5,000 in damages. Police say...

<p>MILWAUKEE — Someone hung a mannequin from the top of a 1,200-foot television tower and authorities said Saturday that the culprit may now have radiation poisoning.</p> <p>Police were called to a tower of WDJT-TV in Milwaukee at about 9:30 a.m. Saturday, department spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz said in a news release.</p>

Many a visitor to New York's Museum of Modern Art has probably thought, "I could do that," but a graffiti artist has gone one step further. A British graffiti artist who goes by the name "Banksy" smuggled in his own picture of a soup can and hung it on a wall, where it stayed for more than three days earlier this month before anybody noticed. The prank was part of a coordinated plan to infiltrate four of New York's top museums on a single day. The largest piece, which he smuggled into the Brooklyn Museum, was an oil painting, 61centimetres...

<p>March 17, 2004 -- LEST anyone think Mel Gibson lost his sense of humor with his gruesome depiction of Jesus Christ's death in "The Passion," the legendary prankster inserted some private jokes. Only people who speak the dead language of Aramaic will get the gags. For instance, one line in the subtitles has Jim Caviezel's Christ saying, "Take care," when, in Aramaic, he is saying, "Take care of the laundry." Meanwhile, the picture book of the movie was released yesterday and has already shot up to No. 2 on the Times best-seller list.</p>

Pressing for Accuracy A Prankster's Media MissionJuly 12 — Did you ever hear the story about the brothel for pets? Or the report on the business that sold apartments for fish? The stories had something in common beyond their wackiness: they were fictions created by master prankster Joey Skaggs. In a campaign to push for more accurate reporting, Joey Skaggs has made a career of pulling the wool over the eyes of unsuspecting journalists. Skaggs, a self-described satirist, has been yanking journalists' chains for more than three decades. He's fooled television networks, wire services, newspapers, magazines, and radio stations around...