Top 10 Neopets April Fools Jokes through the Years

     #10 Y23 - Introducing….Neovision!

     Introducing the newest streaming business……Neovision+*! Released just last year for the low starting price of 1 NP/month, there is content available for everyone. Fans will enjoy the sports package which includes coverage of the Altador Cup, Gormball Championships, Deckball Championships, Battledome fights, Food Club contests and even Dice-A-Roo tournaments. Like regular Neopets, a premium version exists for an additional fee which would remove ads.

     Another feature gives the ability to watch movies and shows simultaneously live with Neofriends. With a top subscription, The Wheel of Extravagant Plan (named after the wheel only the richest Neopians spin), users receive early access to exclusive Neopets show content: Doctor Roo, The Kreludorian, Spookynatural, Cobrall Kai, Neofriends and Gossip Grarrl.

     *Any similarity to other streaming services and shows are purely coincidental

     #9 Y19 - Befriending Dome

     TNT declared Y19 the year of friendship with the release of the Befriending Dome. Like previous pranks, this year also saw the beloved Battledome replaced with a rather silly “upgrade”. Rather than fight another pet, the Befriending Dome was significantly more pacifist and allowed users to talk, make friends, give compliments, have friendly competitions and much more. With a high enough friendship level, users could advance to the elusive rank of “Best Friend” (no advantages to achieving this title were listed). While the Battledome would be gone, the training would not go to waste - pets with high strength could help their friends carry heavy things, pets with high movement could help their friends run quick errands, and pets with a lot of intelligence could write great poems for their friends!

     In addition, a new paintbrush poll was released which gave users a choice between three new colours: Inverted, Blurry and Marshmallow. While the results were close, the winning choice was MarshInvBluDo! Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), this brush was never released.

     #8 Y6 - Quiguki Armageddon

     Y6 was a year where TNT decided to put their creative thinking caps on! The staff had multiple ideas for pranks that started with an addition of their own growing card game. The new set, called Quiguki Armageddon, was added to the Neopets trading card game.

     Additionally, staff announced that support for content in Spanish, Chinese, French, Italian, Korean and Japanese had been renounced in favour of Latin. Latin was certainly an interesting choice as it is a ‘dead’ language - there are no native speakers in the present day. It was a confusing change in direction for the site! Obviously, Neopets’ large foreign language player base did not receive this news very well. The following day, users were relieved as this proposed change was revealed to be a joke and the idea was aborted.

     However, this year’s most iconic addition was an avatar that was released on April 4th when the prank was taken down. This avatar has been released every year since and is a staple of April Fools day festivities on the site.

     #7 Y13 - A Mysterious Illness

     Y13 had us all worrying for the health of our pets! Neopians logged in to see that their pets had come down with a mysterious illness - revealed to be Scourgies - and it was spreading fast. Pets became visibly with strange black and pink blobs all over their bodies. In an attempt to slow the growing pandemic, certain parts of Neopia became quarantine zones. The Neopian Pharmacy became a headquarters for updates and research. A miracle breakthrough was discovered mid-afternoon: by wearing one of the following items Neopets would be cured for approximately 30 minutes (a very short-lasting immunity):

     Blazingly Hot Soup

     Freezing Cold Ice Pack

     Haphazardly Placed Splints

     Indistinguishable Healing Goop

     Magical Healing Slorgs

     771,449 pets were infected during the course of the one-day pandemic, but all was well by April 2nd as the illness disappeared as quickly as it had come.

     #6 Y7 - New Pet Designs

     This Y7 prank really had TNT put their artists to work! Dozens of new pets were designed and shown to Neopians. The staff, true believers in democracy, allowed Neopians to vote on which of the options would become an actual Neopet! While the day was intended as a prank, the Llamameeah (who won the user vote) was later released as a species we all know and love today - a Gnorbu. Eight of the other designs were implemented not as pets, but as petpets! Recognize the Calabar, Carmariller, and Urchull? Look no further than April Fools Y7 for their origins.

     According to an insider source, Donna, cofounder of Neopets, many of the designs were supposed to become actual Neopets but weren’t released. Take a lot for yourself to see what Neopets could have looked like!

     #5 Y4 - The Pant Devil Strikes Neopia

     In Y4, TNT decided to make sure Neopians knew exactly how devious the Pant Devil could be. Upon logging in, Neopians were horrified to find all hard-earned items were all gone from their inventory and safety deposit box! All those hours saving up for a special stamp or Battledome item only to discover that the Pant Devil had swiped it in the night….surely it must have been a bad dream? Luckily it was, and all the items were returned the next day. It’s said that this dreadful event led to a demand for Pant Devil Attractors which were released a few years later.

     #4 Y16 - Your New Job as a Neopets Foster Parent

     In Y16, the elderly Dr. Death decided to retire after a long career. Unfortunately, with no replacement available, the pound was now closed effective immediately. With no pound, users would be randomly selected to ‘volunteer’ to save the unfortunate pets that did not have loving owners. If a user received the event, they would notice a new Neopet on their account. These were actual pets that had existed in the pound and otherwise functioned like normal pets - you would still have to feed them if they were hungry! The event could happen multiple times to the same user so the pets would keep adding up, as there was no limit on the number of pets one could (perhaps unwillingly) foster.

     There were a few catches - the mysterious pets could not be painted or customized. They however could be morphed with a morphing potion (such as those from Kauvaras magic shop). Secondly, because the pound was, well, closed, the pets could not be abandoned either.

     There was a contest where Neopians voted for a new pound director. Nominees included: Bug Eye McGee, Count Von Roo, Rosie and Kreludan Defender Robot. While Rosie won the contest, Dr. Death unretired after midnight and took over the pound once again while Rosie became the new face of the Pound Chat neoboards.

     #3 Y8 - NeoCharge

     For Y8, the National Neopian bank took over Neopets! A special tax was implemented to reduce inflation in Neopia. This system, dubbed “NeoCharge” made users pay to use the site - anywhere between 3 to 75 NP per page load! Some of the different charges included:

     Petpages - 75 NP

     Neomail - 15 NP

     Guild Messages - 12 NP

     Games - 12 NP

     Neoboards - 8 NP

     Random - 3 NP

     There are rumours that wealthy users on the neoboards were holding competitions to see who could accumulate the most debt (we thank them for their efforts to help pay Neopets server costs!). The consequences for not paying were dire: Neopians could lose their items, Neopets, or lose access to parts of the site. Luckily, Neopoints weren’t deducted right away. TNT generously gave users up to one week to work relentlessly in the games room to earn their stripes back!

     #2 Y12 - Prank your Neofriends!

     For Y12, TNT put the power in the hands of Neopians - they were given the opportunity to prank their Neofriends! Some of the options were:

     Changing one of their pets to a “pile of soot” (a possible petpet laboratory zap!)

     Having their pet become a random colour and species

     Throwing a pie on the face of one of their Neopets (shown in their customization)

     Having slime all over one of their Neopets (also affecting the customization)

     Select users who had a pie thrown on their pet later got a prize from TNT - “I Love Pie Background”. TNT planned ahead and went out of their way to make sure to maximize the amount of Neopians who fell for this prank! They filtered out specific words on the Neoboards to prevent users from spoiling the joke. Some examples of filtered words include: pie becoming danger, prank becoming ignore, slime becoming twilight and 3.14 becoming numbers.

     #1 Y14 - Everything is Broken

     Our top prank happened on April Fools Y14, when Neopians woke up to see what seemed to be the Neo-Apocalypse! Buying or trading items became a nightmare with the prank affecting the shop wizard, trading post, and auction house.

     The Shop Wizard became extremely dizzy and was unable to help Neopians find the items they needed - well at least the way that they were used to. Shop wizard searches began showing incorrect prices (some characters, colours and even emojis!). Other times, instead of searching for the item Neopians were trying to find, other items would show up. Occasionally the Shop Wizard was unable to even find items for sale, explaining that they were all priced at 0 NP!

     The trading post wasn’t in any better condition. Jhuidah the Island Faerie was replaced by Hoka the Tyrannian Kacheek, who clearly had little to no experience to qualify him for the job. On top of that, Hoka appeared to only speak Tyrannian, confusing most Neopians who aren’t fluent in the language. To make a bit on a trading post lot, offers were limited to dung items and up to 1,000 NP. If this wasn’t bad enough, some Neopians noticed that Hoka would inadvertently offer their Neopets on the trade! The auction house took a page out of the trading post and was only showing “dung” items.

     The elaborate prank affected more than just the commerce centres of Neopia. The Secret Laboratory frightened Neopians as it began zapping the wrong pet. Later, staff announced that Neopians were allowed only 3 instead of the maximum (at the time) 4 pets. Users had to make a difficult decision to pick one of their pets to abandon by the end of the day. If they didn’t make a choice, staff threatened to pick a random one to be pounded! Finally, Neopians received spam neomails all day long from random users with promotional messages. The neomail-man certainly had his work cut out for him as many users tried to block the spam mails - which made things worse because instead of a moment of relief they got even more spam emails from another random account! Overall, we consider this day the peak of chaos, confusion, and hilarity. The best of Neopets April Fool’s pranks.

     What does TNT have in store for us this year? We can’t wait to find out. Do you agree with our list? Feel free to write in and share your thoughts on your favourite Neopets April Fool’s day prank!