Adelaide University Prosh Day pranks of old
WHATEVER happened to those famous Prosh Day pranks in Adelaide? Hanging cars from bridges, kidnapping fast-food restaurant mascots — or even radio or TV announcers, here’s how uni students used to prank Adelaide.
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WHATEVER happened to those famous Prosh Day pranks in Adelaide?
Students at the University of Adelaide have celebrated Prosh for more than 100 years during Orientation Week in February with some famous and even infamous stunts.
The most legendary happened in 1971 when engineering students suspended an FJ Holden under the University Footbridge.
Of course it’s important to realise that the tale becomes more grand with each telling but a witness account went like this; “Under cover of the early hours of one Friday morning, a group of volunteers pushed the FJ Holden under the bridge next to the water on the southern bank of the Torrens. The car was lifted using beams and lifting gear attached to a small hand-operated crane on the footbridge.
“The crane, with car attached, was then pushed out to the centre of the bridge.
The car was firmly secured to the bridge using a large chain. The crane and volunteers then quickly disappeared into the night and were never found.”
The prank is still part of student folklore.
Then there was the famous kidnapping in 1966 of TV personality Ernie Sigley.
The stunt created front-page news headlines when students set up their own pirate radio station aboard a boat and planned to broadcast from “international waters” off the coast of South Australia.
Early in the day Sigley was abducted from his home in Kingswood and taken by car to Cape Jervis where a rowing boat took him out to the “pirate radio station”, a 130-tonne, 20m-long tuna fishing boat.
According to the press reports, students planned to transmit Radio Prosh programs into Adelaide throughout the day. However, the one small thing they had overlooked was that none of them had any technical knowledge of broadcasting equipment. The “radio station” failed to transmit any signal and when the wind rose and the seas became uncomfortably rough, seasickness led to the project being abandoned.
Ernie was returned to his home the next day in good spirits.
In fact, kidnapping of well-known personalities remained a theme for Prosh Days through to the 1990s and as recently as 2005 when ABC radio personality Peter Goers was snatched from his office by two students dressed as an elephant and a pig, and held hostage until Aunty donated an undisclosed sum to Oxfam’s Save the Children Fund.
The outrageous, often funny stunts of those years have dwindled to a few very carefully planned and sanitised acts in more recent times. According to Adelaide University sources, public liability worries and time and work demands on students have meant the slow demise of the once notorious event.
Plus it’s more difficult these days with terrorism and hijackings constantly in the news to pull off pranks that could be seen to endanger or jeopardise members of the public.
Former students are adamant that the ingenuity of Prosh Day pranks of yesteryear will never return.
They tell of comical events such as the team of construction workers who were warned by an anonymous tip-off that students dressed as policemen would shortly be arriving to disrupt their work.
The police department was similarly tipped off that students dressed as construction workers were illegally obstructing traffic. A heated confrontation ensued where both parties were convinced that the other was not legitimate. Students stood by and watched the fun.
There were hospital bed races through the CBD, bubble bath and dye in the Victoria Square fountain, grease smeared onto the tram lines at the Wayville overpass, cars parked on Britannia roundabout, MTT buses hijacked, the goalposts stolen from the Adelaide Oval and flour and water bombs thrown during Prosh Day parades.
In the 1970s, a group of students donned overalls with fake Westfield logos on their backs, walked into the Marion Shopping Centre and took a life-size Colonel Sanders from Compass Court. They later demanded a ransom from the fast food chain for his safe return.
The traditional Prosh Ball was always the finale to the day, although most who went tended not to remember very much about the night. Alcohol flowed, bands played and everyone had fun.
Over the years Prosh raised many thousands of dollars for charity, although its fund raising activities would sometimes tread a fine line between benevolence and downright blackmail.
Similarly the fun pranks at times carried political overtones and on occasion bordered on the downright dangerous.
Today it is generally agreed that in the current climate of political correctness, fear of litigation and social media pressure that the Prosh Day pranksters may have well and truly had their day, but it will always remain a cherished part of the University of Adelaide’s history.
Bob Byrne writes every day for the Adelaide Remember When blog on Facebook and at adelaiderememberwhen.com.au