Pranking strangers is easy. Pranking your own family is a tactical problem, because these people know where you sleep, they have photographs of you from 2009, and at least one of them is holding a grudge from a Christmas you no longer remember.
So here is the family briefing. Target by target, what works, what escalates, and exactly how far you can push each one before somebody starts a group chat you are not in.
Dad: The Easiest Target Alive
Dad is not a challenge. Dad is a formality. He will laugh at a noise he has heard four hundred times and then tell people about it at work.
The correct opening move is the Fart Machine with Remote taped under his chair. Not the sofa. His chair. The one nobody else is allowed to sit in. Fire it once during something he is concentrating on, then never again that evening. He will check the chair. He will check underneath it. He will find nothing, because you moved it, and he will bring it up unprompted for eleven days.
If you want a present rather than an ambush, the Best Farter Ever Mug is the highest scoring gift in the entire shop, because it is rude and affectionate at the same time and he will use it every single morning while pretending he does not find it funny.
Mum: Proceed With Extreme Caution
Mum is a different sport. Mum invented consequences. Mum can end this with a look.
Everything smell based is off the table, because it will land on soft furnishings and soft furnishings are her jurisdiction. What works is short, harmless and immediately over: the Fart Whistle from across a kitchen, once, while maintaining total eye contact and complete innocence.
You get one. Take the laugh and leave. Do not go back for a second. People have gone back for a second.
Your Brother: No Rules Apply
The only relationship in the household with no ceiling. Whatever you do, he has already done worse, and if he has not he is about to.
This is where Realistic Fake Dog Poop belongs, ideally on a carpet in a house that owns an actual dog, so that the dog is arrested for a crime it did not commit and cannot testify about.
The Remote Control Rotating Poop is the escalation, because it drives itself across a floor making noise, and there is no version of a person discovering that which is not funny.
For the long game, give him the Emergency Survival Set in front of other people, ideally with a straight face and no explanation. It contains spare underwear and a hazmat bag. He will have to open it in front of everybody. That is the gift.
Your Sister: She Will Get You Back Harder
Assume retaliation. Plan your prank around surviving the response rather than winning the exchange, because you will not win the exchange.
Go for something that resets instantly: the Self Inflating Whoopee Cushion on a dining chair. It is over in a second, nobody has to clean anything, and it is very hard to build a serious grievance on top of a whoopee cushion.
Alternatively, hand her a Prank Gift Box. It is small, black and gold and looks exactly like jewellery until the moment it very much does not.
Teenagers: Impossible To Impress, Very Possible To Startle
A teenager will tell you nothing is funny. A teenager will also jump a clear foot in the air at a noise from under their own desk, and then immediately film it for their friends, which is the outcome you actually wanted.
The Fuggler Sound Effect Toy is perfect here because it triggers on touch, which means you are not even in the room when it happens and cannot possibly be blamed.
The Mini Fart Blaster fires actual smoke rings with lights and sound, and we have yet to meet a person of any age who was handed one and gave it straight back.
Grandparents: Yes, Actually
People assume this is the line. It is not. Grandparents have been telling the same joke since 1974 and would be delighted to be included in something.
Keep it gentle and keep it printed. The Rude Birthday Card gets read out loud at the table by the recipient, which is the ideal delivery mechanism, and the Magic 8 Ball will occupy an entire room across three generations for the length of an afternoon.
What does not work here is anything with a smell, anything requiring a battery they will not replace, and anything that makes a person sit down suddenly. Use judgement.
The One Category To Leave Alone Indoors
Sprays and bags at a family gathering is where good afternoons go to die. Not because they are not funny, but because the house belongs to somebody in the room and that person is about to find out what an enzyme cleaner is.
If you must, take it into the garden with Extra Strong Stink Spray, use one burst, and accept that Smelly Fart Bags have no off switch and never have had. Outdoors, adults, open air. And never at anyone with asthma or any breathing condition, never near food, and never at somebody who has already told you they hate it. That is not a prank, that is just you being a bit much at a family event.
Christmas: The Superbowl Of This
Everybody is trapped in one room for nine hours and legally required to open things in front of each other. There is no better environment on the calendar.
The move is the escalating stocking. Start harmless with Tiny Hands. Add a Funny Toilet Paper Roll, which is a present and a bathroom ambush in the same object. Finish with the Fart Survival Set, which arrives as a proper tin with a printed protocol card and looks unnervingly like real emergency equipment.
And for the secret santa, the winning strategy is not buying something bad. It is buying something people will fight to steal, which in our experience means Toilet Golf, every year, without fail, in every office in the world.
The Aftermath, And The Group Chat
Two things to remember when the dust settles. First, the best family prank is the one everybody retells, including the victim, which means it has to be recoverable. Second, whatever you do this year sets the floor for what happens to you next year.
Choose accordingly. Dr. Gasman has been ruining family occasions responsibly since 1999. Browse the full FartMart range and get your ammunition in early.
