What’s the Best YouTube Prank Channel?

Where are the best pranks on YouTube? I’m partial to amateurs, so I’d say my favorite YouTube Partner pranksters are Edbassmaster (just look at this) and Jack Vale. I also spent much of the weekend binging on the epic battle between girlfriend and boyfriend on PrankvsPrank (the modern Spy vs. Spy). Prank vs Prank’s “Wet T-Shirt Prank Gone Wrong” is my favorite, and it makes me squeal with laughter.

If you like more commercially produced content, however, here’s one you might not have discovered. JustForLaughsTV are short and mostly physical-comedy pranks (read: international potential). The apparently French Canadian show has been posting a few new pranks each morning lately, and its YouTube channel is at under 70K subscribers… I’d predict that to be at 300K plus in months. A nice player on the hahaha.com website displays many of the micro pranks.

They’re far from subtle, mind you. They each feature dangerously campy music, a laugh track and almost insulting pantomime explanation of the prank to viewers (which to me steals some thunder). But the tight editing and great tight shots of the “victims” is rewarding. And even if you don’t like the old goatee man’s “theater like” acting, you’ll dig the brunette who pops up occasionally wearing yellow.

What the channel reminds me is the criticality of explaining a prank (like we did in “Farting in Public” but failed to do in “Itchy Butt Prank“). I like to plunge people into an awkward scene, but the viewers generally want to be “in” on the prank… and what might seem obvious to the creator is not to the viewer.

Laughing is a cue that works even if it’s a laugh track. The off-camera muffled giggles in “Farting” make an audience feel more like a participant than a distant viewer (this was quite an accidental discovery and I’m reluctant to “force” it). You’ll notice EdBassmaster has a giggler in the car for his “Just Look At It Prank,” and her laughter makes it genuinely funnier. The best part of “Prank vs Prank” is the maniacal laugh of the couple when they’ve powned the other. Watch this “Girlfriend Wears Mario Pube Prank” and listen at 1:28 to Jesse and 1:46. The breathless spasms of laughter contrasted with his girlfriend’s scream is hysterical.

Prankster be warned, however… a forced laugh is very detectible and toxic.

Pranks follow predictable format and require no language skills (or brain)

7 thoughts on “What’s the Best YouTube Prank Channel?”

  1. Watching the news and the traffic lady said ‘ things are better now that the storm has passed and the intermittent wiping’ and the first thing that popped into my head was my son’s ass.

  2. alright. well. I don’t know if this is wack or not (Internet wise, that is) but I have no idea anymore if this video I made about a mime is actually funny. I really think it is, and you don’t have to check out the link below if this is a horrible way to get people to help, but if ya want to see something that could be hysterical, PLEASE check this one out.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91G2OvNcYHc&feature=channel_video_title

    if you don’t like it. cool. no worries.

  3. Noah, you do realize this is a comment forum where people cruelly tear down each others egos, dont you? Just sayin’.

  4. Noah, I think Sukatra forgot to add the phrase “not heavily frequented” when referring to the comment forum.

    Kevin, you know I do all this work, I bring you tasty treats, a video concept actors and cameramen, then you take forever and a day to edit it and it’s still not right. 😉 Honestly, I think the real success here is the fact that some people got to make a video with you , which was the perfect capper for them for their weekend in Philly. They don’t really care how many views it gets or anything like that, it was just the experience of it all.

  5. We just started about a month ago and already have quite the following, allowing users to submit their own pranks to feature on our channel. We’re based in Los Angeles, CA and we devote our days to finding some of the best pranks the world has to offer. PrankHub is the one place on YouTube you can find the best, most creative, and funniest pranks on the internet. Think you have a good prank video – send us a link in an email, who knows, maybe we’ll even buy it from you. After all, we buy videos.

    prankhub@gmail.com

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