WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., April 1, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On April Fools' Day, Cindy Gendrich's Wake Forest University students may have an advantage when planning practical jokes. In the theater professor's first-year seminar, "Why Do People Laugh?" they have serious discussions about what causes giggles and guffaws. Practical jokes are not a guaranteed way to generate laughter, Gendrich said.

Philadelphia police say officers were forced to fatally shoot a homeless man who had been repeatedly making prank emergency phone calls. Police said the 59-year-old homeless man, whose identity was not released, used a call box at a Municipal Services Building concourse to repeatedly phone police Friday only to immediately hang up the phone, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Saturday. Two police officers were dispatched to the downtown location following the 40th prank phone call and the responding officers soon found themselves chasing the homeless suspect. Police spokesman Sgt.

A pair of New Mexico fast food workers were hoodwinked by a prank caller into stripping to their underwear and breaking the restaurant's windows, sources said. The sources told KOAT-TV, Albuquerque, that the two male What-A-Burger employees received a phone call Monday night at the restaurant from someone claiming to be a representative of the fast food chain's corporate office. The caller told the men to test the fire suppression system and warned them to shed their clothes after they were covered by the yellow powder released by the system.

Six high school seniors in Brookfield, Wis., will not be at their graduation ceremony because they built a swing set on their school's roof, an official says. Superintendent Matt Gibson said the Brookfield East High School students were arrested for the senior prank and received three-day suspensions that will include Saturday's graduation event, Milwaukee's WTMJ-TV reported Friday. Nate Hoaglund, one of the students punished for the prank, insisted the joke did not result in anything being damaged.

Victims of a prank at a New York elementary school say the experience was no laughing matter -- it was itchy. At least one victim from the apparent prank at Public School 345 in Brooklyn described the itching sensation caused by the mysterious powder left on school seats as uncontrollable, the New York Daily News said Friday. The itching was terrible, the unidentified victim said after Wednesday's incident.