Ha Ha Ha April Fools! Life and Times of the April Fool Email Prank

In the mid to late 1990's, it seems that email forwards were flying in and out of people's inboxes as breakneck speeds. From urban legends that cautioned recipients about the newest crime scheme or obscure illness, to pleas for help for missing children, dying kids and other stories that tug at the heartstrings. At some point, someone discovered that, hey! If email is cool, an April Fool email prank would be even cooler!

And the fun began.

One of the most famous (and probably one of the funniest) email pranks is the St. Patrick's Day Hoax. First discovered on 3/19/2001, this hilarious little email that eventually became a popular April Fool email prank goes something like this:

Subject: St. Patrick's Day Irish Virus Alert E-mail Body: Top o' the mornin' to you. Bejesus! You have just received the "The St. Patrick's Virus". We don't have too much programming experience, so this virus works on the "honour" system. Please forward this email to everyone on your mailing list and then manually delete all the files on your hard drive. Thankin' you in anticipation for your co-operation. Paddy

What makes this even funnier is that McAfee listed this joke email on its website as a hoax, complete with instructions on removal "Ignore or delete this email and do not forward it to others.

Another popular type of email prank is the prank download. You can go to any prank software download site and load your April Fool's Day arsenal. Try a fake virus. A really fun download site is RJL Software at http://www.rjlsoftware.com/software/entertainment. They also offer a hilarious prank that emulates installation of standard software but with a twist. Found at http://www.rjlsoftware.com/software/entertainment/pirate/ it makes the process appear as if the victim is installing pirated software! At the end a message pops up that the authorities have been notified. You can send it to them and then enjoy the show.

Email Pranks for Free at http://www.emailpranks4free.com/ allows you to send prank emails to your unsuspecting victims. It has many presets to choose from and lots of ideas for some of the greatest April Fool email pranks ever or you can create your own. If you want to prank you friends and have a little fun, this is the place to do it.

Finally, you can send a hilarious fake email that will have a sender email address - one that you provide. You can make it anything you like, as funny as you like, and the laughs will go on and on. Visit Fake Send at http://fakesend.com/ and create your own funny fake April Fool email prank.

As social networking climbs in popularity, it seems that the days of email forwards are waning somewhat. There aren't really as many forwards as there used to be "back in the day." Is the April Fool email prank becoming a lost art? Let's hope not! Let us all hope that we never have to go without those funny little stories or jokes in our inbox that brighten our day and make us smile, not just on April Fool's day, but any of the other 364 days of the year as well.