Funny surprises that liven up birthdays. Prank ideas that get everyone excited.
When you think, “I want to celebrate the birthday of a friend, family member, or partner!!” how would you celebrate it?
If you feel that “just a normal celebration isn’t enough,” you probably want to try a surprise or a prank, right?
So in this article, we’ll introduce plenty of surprise and prank ideas that are perfect for birthday celebrations!
We’ve picked out not only heartwarming surprises but also lots of playful prank-style ideas, so please use them as a reference!
Funny surprises that liven up birthdays. Hilarious prank ideas (1–10)
Celebrated in a TV emergency bulletin
When an emergency alert pops up on TV, that sound makes you instinctively look, right? Imagine watching TV with friends when an emergency alert appears—only to display a message celebrating the target’s birthday.
They’d probably be so surprised they wouldn’t know what was happening for a moment… It’s not the same as the celebration itself, but it would be a fun way to kick one off.
A candle that relights itself even after being extinguished
It’s a surprise using candles that relight themselves even after you blow them out.
They emit a few sparks, so people who know them might catch on, but no matter how many times you blow them out, they’ll definitely come back to life.
These stubborn candles—often compared to “weeds” for their resilience—make an even bigger impact the more of them you use.
A gift ticket from inside the sweets
Even if it’s a birthday, many people feel a bit shy about handing over a thank-you letter as is, don’t they? For you, I recommend this fun surprise using sweets.
With this prank, you tuck a thank-you note inside a box of snacks or candy and give it to the birthday person.
These days, there are also services that let you design your own snack boxes, so be sure to take advantage of them!
Exploding balloon cake
Do you all know about “balloon cakes”? They’re often used for birthday pranks.
You inflate a balloon, spread cream around it to make it look like a cake, and then ask someone to “slice it.” The moment the knife goes in… bang!! It pops.
It’s a quick and easy prank, but the cream goes everywhere and the room can get pretty messy.
It can also dirty people’s clothes, so choose your target carefully.
It might be just right for pranking family or your significant other!
100 Surprise Birthday Pranks
I want to pull a prank for a birthday! But doing something big is hard…
In that case, how about setting up several simple pranks? If you pull one and then say, “There’s more to come!”, the other person will be on edge wondering when the next one will happen and what it will be, and they’ll have fun with it! This video introduces lots of easy pranks anyone can do, so be sure to use it as a reference.
They’re all pranks you can laugh about afterward, so no worries!
caricature mask
If a bunch of identical faces were lined up wearing look‑alike masks, you’d be shocked, right? Let’s pull a prank with masks like that.
Here we introduce masks that are truly made by taking a mold with plaster.
Since you have to keep the plaster on for 20–30 minutes, it’s a pretty high hurdle; if that’s too hard, an easy option is a mask printed with the star’s face.
The more people you gather, the more surreal and impressive it gets (lol).
A prank where you drop a cake right in front of someone
Speaking of birthdays, you can’t go without a birthday cake, right? In this prank, you bring a cake saying, “I made it myself,” get them all excited, and then drop it right in front of them! The person of honor will probably be really shocked because they were so happy.
But don’t worry—we’ve also prepared a proper cake, and the one that gets dropped is just a decoy made to be dropped (lol).
If you reveal the prank by bringing out the real cake to the shocked guest of honor, they’ll probably be several times happier than if you had just presented the cake normally!