About

The Wooden Spoon Prank is a practical joke disguised as a turn-based endurance game in which two participants duel by striking each other's head with a wooden spoon in their mouths, though in reality, the targeted victim is smacked in the head at full force by a third person secretly holding a wooden spoon.

Origin

One of the first references to the wooden spoon prank can be found in a scene from the 2001 Christian comedy romance film Extreme Days, in which one of the main characters is tricked into playing the game at a diner. Several years later, it quickly began to spread on YouTube^[1] following the release of a New Zealand energy drink commercial in in March 2007.

Spread

On February 15th, 2010, a metal spoon version of the prank was posted to Ebaum's World.^[6] On April 22nd, 2010, YouTube user ottogunn uploaded a video titled "Wooden spoon trick – Sleifaratriðið" featuring three brothers from Kópasker, Iceland performing the trick. As of June 2013, the video has accumulated more than 4.3 million views.

Throughout 2010, the Icelandic brothers' video was highlighted on a number of internet humor and culture websites, including BuzzFeed and FAILBlog among others. On March 5th, 2011, the website woodenspoonprank.info^[4][5] was created with a mirror upload of the Icelandic brothers' version, receiving more than 64,000 Facebook likes within the first three months.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

Search queries for both "spoon prank" and "wooden spoon trick" had their first peak in March of 2007, correlating with the Lift Plus commercial being uploaded to YouTube. It's largest peak came in march of 2011, the same month that the domain woodenspoonprank.info^[4] was registered.

External References