Harvard–Yale Football Rivalry - Pranks

Pranks

The Game is an inviting target for pranksters. For example, in 1961 in New Haven, The Harvard Crimson student newspaper distributed a parody of The Yale Daily News with a headline saying that President Kennedy would attend. At the Bowl, the President of the Crimson (Robert Ellis Smith) donned a mask of President Kennedy, had friends dressed as a Secret Service man and a military aide, and walked on the field before the game as the Harvard Band played "Hail to the Chief". Thousands of early arrivals and sports writers were fooled by the prank. President Kennedy, a Harvard graduate, was listening to the game on the radio in Hyannisport, according to later news reports.

Prior to The Game in 1933, Handsome Dan II, Yale’s bulldog mascot, was kidnapped (allegedly by members of the Harvard Lampoon). Then, the morning after a 19-6 upset by Harvard over Yale, after hamburger was smeared on the feet of the statue of John Harvard that sits in front of University Hall in Harvard Yard - a photo was snapped of Handsome Dan licking John Harvard's feet. The photo ran on the front page of papers throughout the country.

In 1962, Harvard Band members marched through New Haven, playing their instruments at 3 a.m. much to the chagrin of the New Haven police.

MIT "Hacks"
Perhaps the most famous exploit was carried out at Harvard Stadium during the second quarter in 1982, when a Harvard score was immediately followed by a huge black weather balloon, previously installed under the 45 yard line by students from MIT as the letters painted on its side proclaimed, slowly inflating until it exploded, spraying talcum powder over the field (Harvard won, 45-7).

For the 2006 Game, MIT students secretly replaced the "VE-RI-TAS" insignia on the Harvard Stadium Scoreboard with an insignia that read "HU-GE-EGO".

On November 18, 1990, during the third quarter of The Game, MIT students carried out a less surreptitious assault. As a kicker prepared for a field goal, a rocket shot from the field over the goal posts, hanging an MIT banner. The rocket was launched using 480 feet of wire that ran underneath the field. A headline the next day in the Boston Herald read, "MIT 1 — Harvard-Yale 0; Tech Pranksters Steal the Show" (although Yale won the actual football game, 34-19).

In 2006, two streakers with MIT painted on their bodies attempted to run around the field during the game. One made it the length of the field before being caught and dragged off the field; the other was tackled by security about ten steps out of the stands.

During the pregame show in 1992, the Harvard marching band attempted to "X-out" the Yale Precision Marching Band while the Yale band stood in its traditional Y formation; however, the Yale band caught wind of this plan and, as the Harvard band marched onto the field, shifted its formation into a large H, thus making Harvard X itself out.

In 2004, Yale students handed out placards to some 1,800 adult Harvard fans; when raised, the signs spelled out "WE SUCK". Harvard won that game 35-3.

In 2012, the Game was hosted at Harvard University. During tailgate the Yale prank group the Pundits had an anti-Harvard banner skywritten via plane.