Tiny Ohio town freaked out by Mario prank

by Vladimir Cole { Apr 2nd 2006 at 5:18PM }

The residents of a tiny Ohio town called the bomb squad when they started discovering "suspicious packages" littered throughout the town on April 1st. It turns out that the packages were the result of an April Fools prank in which five girls from Ravenna, Ohio (a town of approximately 12,000 residents) placed 17 cardboard replications of the iconic Super Mario Brothers power-up cubes throughout town, according to news stories carried in local papers (1, 2).

How friggin' ridiculous is it that a town of 12,000 residents is scared that Osama bin Laden snuck in overnight and placed bombs wrapped in gold wrapping paper in highly-visible public places?
How long until Ravenna Police Chief Randall McCoy makes a run for mayor on the back of his successful defense of the town against teenaged terrorists? McCoy was quoted as saying that the Mario-themed blocks "could be deadly," (according to the Record Courier). His office "will be working with the Portage County Prosecutor's Office regarding possible criminal charges" according to the Beacon Journal.
Why were other fun-lovers throughout the country able to carry off successful versions of the same exact prank without some opportunistic politician-cum-police chief making a bomb scare out of it?

In response to the Record Courier's story, Ohio resident Janice Cochran wrote, "I think these girls are old enough to no [sic] better than to pull a joke like this with all that is going on in the world today. Leaving suspicious packages is enough to scare the dickins [sic] out of anyone."

[Thanks for the tip, Adam]

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

rocko @ Apr 2nd 2006 5:26PM

"I think these girls are old enough to no better than to pull a joke like this with all that is going on in the world today. Leaving suspicious packages is enough to scare the dickins [sic] out of anyone."

ITS A CARDBOARD BOX FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!

next, a little girl is going to call the bomb squad because somebody gave her a "strange looking box with wrapping paper" at her birthday party.

Good job ohio, because of small stupid towns like that, I'm bumping you down to my 49th favorite state. Just be lucky you're not Idaho.

frenchtoast @ Apr 2nd 2006 5:26PM

Grow up and don't be so stupid Small Town America

Munk Tae @ Apr 2nd 2006 5:26PM

Yeah.... .....

Wow. I am stupified.

Clay @ Apr 2nd 2006 5:29PM

April Fools. I mean, come on. And who doesn't know about those boxes? Seriously! Jeez.

Bo @ Apr 2nd 2006 5:35PM

Cardboard boxes should so be banned. They could be used for malicious purposes!

Jason @ Apr 2nd 2006 5:37PM

That's it we are now relocating all the people of Ravenna to West Virginia. Better yet Canada.

I live in a small town in Ohio of 1200 people. If this happened here and our "authorities" were this stupid I would slap them.

Justin @ Apr 2nd 2006 5:42PM

This is the kind of out-of-touch mindset that results in people like Bush getting (re)elected. Who the hell _doesn't_ know the Super Mario bricks? They're almost as well-known as Pong...

... along those lines, I work at a school. I made a Pong clock to hang on the wall, and it is absolutely wild that there's a huge amount of game-playing kids that have no idea what Pong is!

Ace_ofspade @ Apr 2nd 2006 5:43PM

I don't think anyone until now knew this town existed. It's a target why?

KingBigos @ Apr 2nd 2006 5:44PM

"Girls attempt real-life version of video game"

Yeah..ok there.....yeah..

Sagan @ Apr 2nd 2006 5:47PM

Americans...

Don @ Apr 2nd 2006 5:52PM

Firstly, how stupid is this?! Once proven it was a practical joke, the cops should have discredited the town, not the teens. In my opinion, it was a wonderful prank. In truth, it was innocent enough (and they have no proof of mens reas). The teens meant no harm, or at least they can't PROVE otherwise.

Mark D. @ Apr 2nd 2006 5:57PM

There's no way in hell we're taking your retards, Jason :P

Matty Cakes @ Apr 2nd 2006 6:08PM

Americans indeed. We're the only country afraid of cardboard boxes... and they're going to try to incite criminal charges? That town really needs to open their eyes to reality.

This incident only adds to the notion that our country is scared shitless of everyone and anything, including ourselves.

fagan @ Apr 2nd 2006 6:09PM

Why don't you stop making pointless attacks on others Jago(like me now, maybe i'll get given a -!)

Jeez, seriously that was a throwaway comment and you go at him like that, you still wondering why you have 6(maybe 7 by now) minuses?

Asz @ Apr 2nd 2006 6:09PM

While this is a harmless prank, and admittedly anyone who lived through the 80s and 90s should have known instantly what these were, it doesn't change the attitudes of small town America. People are much more conservative there, are a lot less adept at pop-culture. Ideas (like Terrorism and obviously Videogames :) can influence people from any part of the globe. I'm not surprised that a small town would blow this out of proportion; after all theres much less real news to report.

HotShotX @ Apr 2nd 2006 6:10PM

Hey, "No bomb, no crime". Fuck off small town no one gives a shit about.

If you're worried about unknown packages appearing in your town, then that makes your mailman a terrorist. I say we do this exact same stunt year after year until right-wing Americans learn to pull that stick out of their ass.

Joystiq, be sure to update us if anything happen's to these girls. Maybe Jack Thompson would like to say GTA made them do it.

~HotShotX

foxhaze @ Apr 2nd 2006 6:11PM

Damnit, this is just what the gaming industry needs. More idiots passing the blame to video games.

This is what we get from the mid-west.

Neko Tsukimi @ Apr 2nd 2006 6:12PM

Wow... I thought Nintendo was the word for video games like up until recent and all those people talking about Nintendo were familiar with Super Mario Brothers...

I guess not... I would think anyone who was alive and not in a coma during the 80s would look at them and think "Oh! Mario!" Maybe the girls should have gone a step further and made the boxes play the Super Mario Brother's theme. Might have waken their memories up.

Momus @ Apr 2nd 2006 6:13PM

I know where they got the idea for this prank!

http://www.qwantz.com/posterchild/

This has been up for about a year, now. I meant to go out and do it, but never got around to it.

nugnug @ Apr 2nd 2006 6:14PM

Uhh Momus. That link is already in the post. ;)

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/04/02/tiny-ohio-town-freaked-out-by-mario-prank/

Greg2k @ Apr 2nd 2006 6:17PM

"I say we do this exact same stunt year after year until right-wing Americans learn to pull that stick out of their ass."

And left-wing Americans don't do stupid shit, right? Give me a fucking break...

Ryan @ Apr 2nd 2006 6:17PM

http://www.ci.ravenna.oh.us/

Here, let them idiots know how silly they truly are. I did.

Momus @ Apr 2nd 2006 6:21PM

And I was so proud of myself, too�

Dylan H @ Apr 2nd 2006 6:22PM

Are you calling 12000 people a "tiny" town? The nearest town to where I live has less than 2000 residents...

SetupWeasel @ Apr 2nd 2006 6:23PM

Mark D., the retards won't leave. There are too many Freedom Canadians up there.

vc @ Apr 2nd 2006 6:25PM

Yeah, I Dylan. =)

I should have called it a mid-sized village perhaps.

Jago @ Apr 2nd 2006 6:31PM

But like I said, I can MAYBE see why people would get concerned about this. I mean how often do non-gamers see gold boxes with black question marks on them? But if the authorities go to the length pressing charges then that is pretty pathetic.

ZekeS @ Apr 2nd 2006 6:40PM

So ... I guess the reaction would only have been warranted if it was a POW block, huh?

lolersticks @ Apr 2nd 2006 6:43PM

Umm, it was a Fark April Fools joke.

Get over it.

ck @ Apr 2nd 2006 7:06PM

I used to live in a small town in Ohio in the middle of nowhere (about 10,000 pop.) and I would hazard a guess that the same reaction would happen there as it did here. Although I don't think the kids would be that clever to do something like that where I grew up.

To rocko - And I'm sure this would happen all over the U.S. - Wisconsin, New York, California. Just because it's in Ohio, don't stereotype the midwest as a bunch of conservative rednecks. This is more of a phenomenon with small towns than Ohio.

dsub @ Apr 2nd 2006 7:13PM

My aunt lives in Ravenna, I've been there several times...it's hardly a "small town" it's a suburb of Cleveland, OH. I live in Columbus, OH, but yeah...

If they press charges I could see this getting thrown out of court faster than you can say nintendo. They've done nothing wrong. What would they charge them with? Insighting Panic? They had no intention of doing so, and as long as they can prove that they're joke was perfectly harmless, which it was, they have nothing to worry about.

Meanwhile, the politicians and residents of Ravenna who flipped out, should be rounded up, and sterilized. America doesn't need them spreading they're stupidity around.

Rare Hare @ Apr 2nd 2006 7:31PM

ok.. yes, i think this entire ordeal was silly and blown way out of proportion by the local authorities.

BUT, i'm starting to get a little pissed at all of you saying "oh, stupid small town rednecks" and "idiot small towns no one gives a shit about".

as a young child, i lived inb Kansas City, Missouri. when i was 5 years old, my dad went nuts and tried to kill my mother with a tirechecker in our basement. needless to say, after she got out of the hospital we moved. we moved to a town called Easton. IT was tiny. we lived there a couple months before moving to Rodeo, New Mexico. Rodeo is a tiny town near the border. by tiny i mean middle-of-the-desert-half-mile-long town.. it had a populationd of SEVENTY-TWO, including me and my mother (but it had a museum). about two and a half years later, we moved to a small town in Alabama (where i live now)that is way smaller than 12,000 people. far less than half that.

my point is, i've grown up in small towns. i'm also articulate and well-spoken. i don't think "it could happen here".

just because you've lived in the city your entire life, don't get sucked in by the the way little, backwoods areas are portrayed on TV. we're not inbred, we aren't missing any teeth other than those knocked out while doing something productive like splitting wood or bucking hay bails... and most of us could probably kick your pansy city-boy asses (not to say that there aren't tough people in the city, or that i don't still love the city).

PLEASE, just know what you're talking about before putting in your two cents. the problem spoken about in this article isn't a redneck thing or a small town thing.. it's a stupid people thing.

DKH @ Apr 2nd 2006 7:37PM

It's obvious these weren't bombs. All bombs are clearly labeled as such and are carried by men who wear signs around their necks that say "I am a terrorist."

I mean, Jeez- how stupid can these people get for forgetting such simple facts?

Brandon @ Apr 2nd 2006 7:40PM

I live in Ohio too, although Cleveland not Ravenna, but I've been to almost 40 states including Cali and New York, and there just as stupid and full of hicks as any state, so how ignorant is it to stereotype this as a mid-west problem. Right-wing scare tactics work on people of every state.

lolersticks @ Apr 2nd 2006 7:45PM

Again: It is NOT REAL

Dave @ Apr 2nd 2006 7:45PM

The same kind of thing has been happening all over America. If you haven't read any similar stories since 9/11, then you haven't been paying attention.

All you need to be a "terrorist" in America:

1) A box or bag

Reality @ Apr 2nd 2006 8:12PM

Of course if it was a real bomb then people would be screaming the opposite. Ranting on how its stupid to even touch a package you know nothing about. None the less, I don't blame them playing it safe but the girls should only get a warning at the most. They didn't harm anyone. Just made a joke that was taken wrong. And maybe littering...something like that.

Angelo @ Apr 2nd 2006 8:12PM

All right, many of you are jumping on the bandwagon and being irrational. For the record, I am a gamer, but I'm just trying to point out... well a point that some of you don't seem to be grasping.

April Fools or not, this COULD have turned out to be a bad situation if it wasn't a bunch of girls pulling a prank. They left suspicious packages with question marks on them all over town and in front of important buildings. What if they really were bombs? How would the townspeople know if they haven't been exposed to Nintendo or Mario? Like the Ohio resident, Janice Cochran, implied... they should have thought about what they were doing.

Does this mean the girls should be brutally beaten to death or thrown in prison? Of course not, but they should be subject to some penalty, like community service to teach them a lesson. But I know there is the possibility of some old geezer who thinks our generation is just full of morons and "young punks" will try to be the parental figure and blow it out of proportion. I don't care if they were just cardboard boxes, they honestly scared those people.

ErbilT @ Apr 2nd 2006 8:23PM

#36

Were you a kid once????

Wow, this is stupid.

No, it's really stupid!

The girls should be given medals for causing this much of an uproar over such a silly and stupid thing. Seriously, the attention given to this is absurd.

The adults in that town really need to lighten up. This is why the rest of the world thinks that all americans are uber-paranoid morons.

Cable @ Apr 2nd 2006 8:25PM

im suprised that a town of 20000 didnt have one gamer that couldnt recognize the mario box

Dave @ Apr 2nd 2006 8:26PM

Scaring people is easy, Angelo. Have you considered the possibility that the fault lies with the easily frightened?

Also, this kind of thing has been happening in "big cities", college campuses, and airports all over America--and all it takes is a bag left unguarded or forgotten. I don't think the fault lies with the people in this small town--but in Americans all over the country.

Don @ Apr 2nd 2006 8:28PM

What I find most comical, is how people are somehow shifting canada into this. Why?! I'm a canadian, not that it's a pride I have, but it's a fact. As mentioned, this isn't about small town stereotypes, or distaste for another nation. This is an issue with american people being so worked up, that they panic at the sight of a box. And to prove it's no distaste for americans, Canada is on the very same seat. I just don't think that most americans realize how much alike canada and america really are. If you ask me, the terrorists have already won. If small towns are scared stiff by a few boxes around the town, then we are toast.

For me, common sense would have clicked in.. "Oh, right... april 1st"

Hardwareguy @ Apr 2nd 2006 8:40PM

How long till the ESRB retroactively gives an M rating to Super Mario Bros?

jonat3 @ Apr 2nd 2006 8:50PM

Sheesh. Don't try to rationalize this, because it's just a disgrace and an example of extreme stupidity. People should try to use their brains for once. Even if they haven't been exposed to Mario, they should have known that it was a prank. I mean, who in their right minds would even think that terrorists would even bother with such a small town? Not to mention that THE DATE should have been a dead giveaway.

Big C @ Apr 2nd 2006 8:53PM

I would like to meet these girls. I would shake their hand and congradulate them on a job well done. Those boxes looked exactly like the orginal question mark blocks. Very nicely done. I would also like to slap this town upside its collective head. Were these boxes blowing in the wind, as they appear to be? Then that should have been Clue One that they were empty cardboard boxes.

It will be interesting to see what Wacky Jacky Thompson has to say 'bout this.

"Super Mario made me do it"

Cowlix @ Apr 2nd 2006 8:56PM

I think this same thing happened a few years ago with an "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" prank, which may be kind of understandable, but MARIO???? Come on people, why would fat, jolly guy in red ever want to hurt you? Do they feel the same way about Santa Claus??

ninjacat11 @ Apr 2nd 2006 9:01PM

Come on, Ravenna. This is just RIDICULOUS!!!

ryan @ Apr 2nd 2006 9:01PM

To #37

It COULD have been a bad situation if they were actual bombs, but every brown paper bag left anywhere COULD be a bomb. Hell, there could be a bomb in your refridgerator right now. People could get scared of anything, just because someone's irrational fears cause them to freak out about something that was clearly innocent doesn't mean those girls should face punishment. It's about criminal intent, not public idiocy.