Alligator Pranks. You’re Doing Them Wrong.

Public Domain Photo by Ginger L. Corbin, US Fish and Wildlife Service. Use of this photo does not imply Ms. Corbin or the USFWS supports the pranking of alligators.

Remember that Weeds episode where Mary-Louise Parker got spanked? Yeah, I don’t either, and I mighta just dreamt it, because when you search “weeds spank” on YouTube all you get is this strange video of a college girl getting spanked with a weed whacker while on Spring Break. In my day, all we had were wet T-shirt contests.

Anyway, Mary-Louise apparently needs another spanking, not because she pranked her costar Bruce Willis on the set of upcoming action movie Red, but because she did such a lousy job of it. I’ll just let Stuff.co.nz tell it:

Mary-Louise persuaded actor John Malkovich to take Bruce out for lunch, while she put the alligator in a cooler and hid in his shower to wait for his reaction.

However, Mary Louise was disappointed to discover the animal was so small it failed to frighten her rugged co-star.

“It was more like a bloated lizard,” Mary-Louise told the New York Daily News.

Okay, here’s where she went wrong. Alligator pranks just aren’t funny. I come from a long line of Vaudeville performers. Well, maybe not a long line, exactly, but I did watch Hee-Haw with my Dad when I was a kid. I’m also an expert on alligators. Well, maybe not an expert, but I did once complement a Texan on his alligator-skin boots, just before he punched me in the face. So trust me on this one: I know what I’m talking about.

Alligator pranks just aren’t funny. Unless they’re in Japanese. Then they’re effin’ hilarious.

Just look at Figure A. WRONG. NOT FUNNY:

See? And here, figure dos:

Funny, right? Or, at least, not quite as stupid as an American alligator prank. George Burns & Gracie Allen knew that. That’s why they never did alligator pranks — because they didn’t speak Japanese.

However, alligator pranks don’t have to be good-natured fun. They can also be child abuse! Feast your eyes on the Blair Witch Project of Alligator prank videos, made that much more reflexive because someone actually videotaped their TV. This is intended to be an incisive comment on scaring your children with alligators.

Americans, just say no to alligator pranks — that, or learn Japanese.

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