Johnson Smith Catalog Item #30

[From the 1950 catalog. Click to enlarge.]

I can see this prank being really popular in the Middle East nowadays. "Gotcha, Ahmed [Isaac]! You really thought the Israelis [al Qaeda] had rigged your car!"

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Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Comments

It would result in a jail sentence here now. No sense of humor about bombs in the US since 9/11. I could see it resulting in a punch in the nose back then even.

Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 08/07/13 at 08:09 AM

That's why Family members would send their wives out to start the car in the morning.

Posted by KDP on 08/07/13 at 10:10 AM

I remember these! They weren't 'bombs' and in !!KaBOOM!! they just smoked and whistled.

Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 08/07/13 at 10:40 AM

My father's prank as a kid about 70 years ago was to stick a potato in a tailpipe, which would eventually back up with exhaust and blow out with a big backfire. When he told this to me as a kid, it seemed to me a waste of a perfectly good potato. Now it seems like "What if the potato didn't blow out? Ha ha, you just died of carbon monoxide poisoning!"

Posted by Bill the Splut on 08/07/13 at 02:48 PM

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