What's the most clever thing you have seen de-faced

One drunken weekend many moons ago, some friends and I found ourselves crashing at a really seedy joint in Tijuana called the Hotel Felix. However, some the neon on the sign had gone out and a few letters were missing, so the sign said "Hot lix".

Signs missing letters are great too, so often leading to poop or sex humor.

"WOMEN'S CLOTHES HALF OFF" has always been an attention getter for me.

There are desert towns called Moron(go) Valley and Yuc(ca) Valley that beckon to every adolescent prankster, and are as often as not "touched up"

There is a very odd restaurant (It may be gone now) on old Rt 66 in Seligman Az. The restaurant actually has a sign that sez "Burgers, Fries, Dead Chicken"
The owner drives a old car from the '30s with the roof sawed off, and a back seat full of old fake Christmas trees.

I found a cachet of street signs which begged to be reintroduced into the wild after a bit of touch up.

The cross walk man signs, (like those shown with the surf board sticker)
flipped 90 degrees, a flying saucer added above the man, then a bit of overspray white for tractor-beams are easy mirth.

I also have a Tree City USA sign which I hope to put up in Bonneville Utah...some day

[ Edited by: Gigantalope on 2004-08-29 17:24 ]

My favorite is the neon sign at Tommy's Joynt in SF offering "HOT CORNED BEEF COCKTAILS". I've always presumed that the cocktails were a separate item, but a friend from out of town read it all together.

This past weekend I saw a sidewalk sign in front of a yet unseen business that read "Fiery Output", with some decorative flames. Imagine the disappointment to discover it was a copy shop, which ended all the high-class burrito jokes we were making.

I'm the one who turns the boxes of Upside-Down Cake Mix upside down on the grocery store shelves. Such a scofflaw!

[ Edited by: ZebraTiki on 2004-08-29 19:45 ]

I can't believe I didn't think of these guys earlier!

San Francisco's own Billboard Liberation Front:
http://www.billboardliberation.com

It's all coming back to me now! I went to see Clarence Clemmins at a pretty small bar a few years ago, and I cant remember the lead singer of the opening band, but their name was " & The Nakeds", so the sandwich board out front read "Tonight Only! & The Nakeds, w/ Clarence Clemmins!"
"The Naked Clarence Clemmins!"
Actually, now that I think about it, he had on a great Aloha Shirt. Who woulda thunk?

I just remembered about a sign a friend of mine altered from "Wednesday - Steak and Cocktails"
to "Wednsday - Steak and Cockateils".

quote

I'm the one who turns the boxes of Upside-Down Cake Mix upside down on the grocery store shelves. Such a scofflaw!

Such is the barbaric splendor of Jackassery as an artform!

Several District Attys dine at a place I know near the Hall of (in)Justice, and are frequent users of the condiments.

Watching them, I noticed if the mustard squirted is clogged, they won't open it, nor will they poke it to unclog...they squeeeze harder. (just like in court.)

...a tiny piece of napkin and a pre-loosened mustard cap spells trouble for Mr. stuffy powerpants.

Oh the memories...haw haw haw...Ooops, I filled my bag.

[ Edited by: gigantalope on 2004-08-30 08:53 ]

While out going to garage sales last week I saw a sign someone had nailed to a light pole near a school. Someone wanting to sell a musical instument wrote: FLUTE FOR SALE

Of course that was not anything unusual and I had almost driven all the way past the sign when I realized someone had added the word "SKIN" so the sign now read: "SKIN FLUTE FOR SALE" I laughed all the way to the next intersection. I thought the next ambitious grafittist could add another sign to the pole offering a "PINK PICCOLO" for sale too.

Speaking of Santa Cruz, Chongolio has probably seen this one: At the corner of High Street and Storey Street, someone always takes a black marker to the r in Storey to make it look like an n, so you're at the corner of High & Stoney. The people I knew who lived in the house on that corner made sure it was true as well.

When I was in high school, I worked for a Korean owned deli. Each day I put the lunch special on the chalkboard, and Wednesdays were Korean style spare ribs day (Kal Bi). So, I'd always write:

Today's Special:
Korean Style Ribs

Try a little "Seoul Food"!

My boss didn't think it was funny. :(

According to poular demand,

The most clever thing I have ever de-faced is, Tiki Central!!

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

Edit. POPULAR!! DOH!

[ Edited by: revbambooben on 2004-08-31 22:13 ]

I just got the shivers...

There is a little alley in SF (around the corner from Fedex) called "Heron." Someone occasionally adds an "i." It's really a great spot for soing heroin. :roll:

Mariki, that cracks me up...I forgot about defaced signs that become land marks.

High and Stony, that sort of thing would get funnier each time it got fixed by the city and re-done.

It reminds me in Downtown San Jose, the "T" has been missing from "Mac's Coctails" I't been like that forever.

Does anyone remember Winston Cigarettes' ad campaign from 10 or 12 years ago which featured an image of a Winston package and a slogan in big black letters? One of the slogans was "BUCK THE SYSTEM." Despite all of those billboards being fairly inaccessible ones on the tops of tallish buildings, several around here were inevitably defaced to make the "B" into an "F". That made me happy.

oh my gosh!
I totally forgot about the older In & Out bumper stickers that read
"In & Out Burger"
People would cut out the B and the R; then In & Out changed the bumper stickers.

You can totally tell I was raised in the OC, fer sure!

Dangergirl, those stickers were great!

Nobody would have ever put one of the ugly things on thier car without cutting it up first.

The tests for if you are still a So-Cal is
Flea Market or Swap Meet
"Take 101 North", or "Take THE 101 North"
"Taqueria", or it's all "Del Taco"
and lastly is all bottled water Sparkletts?

I was trying to think of old-school defacers...like roll models to pranksters...the Egyptians put lots of trash talking in thier ceramic art...but I think the prize has to go to the Cerne Giant. (who himself has been defaced by Christian do-gooders.

http://www.sacredsites.com/europe/england/cerne_giant.html

OK pranksters, who has pulled the hair off a mannequin at a department store and then stuffed it in the shirt or even better into the pants to leave a bald headed mannequin with overflowing chest hair or full bodied pubic mound?
We had a mall across the street from our high school. It was a common site around lunch time at the Topanga Plaza. That and pickles stuck to the ceiling.

Chongolio

-- I believe that our Heavenly Father invented the monkey because he was disappointed in man."
... Mark Twain

Come explore http://www.lost-isle.com

[ Edited by: Chongolio on 2004-08-31 19:44 ]

on department stores:
a friend of mine once slipped a condom into a pair of children's jeans hanging in the children's section of a department store. later, he was filled with remorse and went back to take it back out. or so he said.

on So Cal:
Not only did I tour the local Del Taco every year in my Girl Scout's troupe, but the young heir of Del Taco ran a red light and t-boned the van of my next door neighbors, then fled the scene in a drunken stupor. Because of his name, the police conveniently forgot to test his BAC until the next day. My neighbors were in neck braces and everything - NOT cool. And I used to love those crunchy tacos...

However, I would never confuse an authentic taqueria (salsa and pickled jalapeno bar, Lengua on the menu, nobody speaks Ingles) with a Del Taco or Taco Hell. Even Rubio's seems too "huerta" for me.

One of these days I'm going to tuck dollar bills into the G-strings of the mannequins at Victoria's Secret. :D

Heres a new one I just came across. There is some seawall work going at the cliffs of Pleasure Point. There are signs up saying:

Caution unstable cliffs.

Somebody has fixed them all up to say:

Caution unstable locals

Which makes more sense because they are probally the more dangerous of the two.

Chongolio

-- I believe that our Heavenly Father invented the monkey because he was disappointed in man."
... Mark Twain

Come explore http://www.lost-isle.com

[ Edited by: Chongolio on 2004-09-01 13:30 ]

I just remembered another one.
At the Strybing Botanical Garden in SF there's a section named the Scent Garden. Right next to the sign for the Scent Garden was a 8' tall stick in the ground that once propped up a tree. At the top of the stick was a nasty looking, filthy old sweatsock.
"Scent Garden" indeed!

I used to work with a guy from Minnesota. He told me how it is taken for granted that, at an early age, boys from the 'Land O' Lakes' learn how to cut and fold butter cartons in such a way as it appears that the familiar kneeling indian girl is holding her bare breasts in her hands. Sounds like the sort of thing passed down from father to son!!!

I live around Columbus Circle in NYC and at the entrance there to Central Park, there is a huge memorial to the USS Maine. Part of the elaborate display includes a stone sculpture of a mermaid like on the bow of old sailboats. One morning I was returning from jogging in the park when I noticed that someone had placed a bright orange bikini top on the mermaid. I just about died (wish I had a camera on me).

You kind of have to picture this, but I just got back from Australia and there is a problem with autos hitting these huge birds they have called Cassowarys. (That's probably spelled wrong, but that's what it sounds like.)

Anyway, there are many caution
signs with Cassowarys on them similar to our signs with deer. There are also speed bump signs that simply have a straight black line with a hump on it. (a little like a deflated bowler hat.)

So...people put a little head with a beak at one end and little feet at the other end and it looks like a dead Cassowary.

Should have just taken a picture. After reading through all this it's not funny anymore.

Spy-tiki

Cassowary (sp?) birds rule! They are not to be trifled with...people think, oh a goofy colored turkey, and jump in with them in Zoos...often resulting in a dirtnap. They use that bone on thier head like a hachet. They have killed more than one drunken zoo snooper.

I always thought those signs were Emu...but one flightless bird looks pretty much like the rest.

good tale!

I lived near a desert town called Morongo Valley while I was growing up. It was an odd town. The type of town that's the middle ground between two larger towns with nothing but a gas station, bar, and a couple cafes. Population of 5 type of a thing. Well for whatever reason, they had this huge sign that must have cost them the complete town budget for the year that had your typical "Welcome to....Morongo Valley" on it. Well one night some bored desert folk decided to change that there sign to read the following:

"Welcome to Moron Valley"

Dear son of Mothera...you gotta admit, that's a hard sign to just drive past. (No disrespect intended to you or your home town)

I got written up in the newspaper and interviewed on TV for sticking two pieces of tape at the end of a word on a sign once. Some person even made up T-shirts ripping off my humor and sold them!

I have to scan the stuff into the computer though to share it.

It was a few years ago and a bridge in VA was closed for repairs and ended up clogging the Intercoastal Waterway and stranding boaters on both sides. I added a "T" to the end of "Waterway".

Not mine, but the guy over at cockeyed.com has done some good def.. errr modification pranks.

Has anyone mentioned http://www.ilovebacon.com yet? They have TONS of this stuff.

Of course, no one can do this stuff better then the folks at MIT:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0262661373/qid=1094854058/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/103-3050287-1714221?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

And of course we can't leave out the definitive book from Re-Search; the classic book "Pranks".
http://www.researchpubs.com/Blog/?page_id=13&category=11

[edited to update link]

[ Edited by: hakalugi 2009-04-04 10:56 ]

Caltech has been involved with some legendary pranks...

Around 20 years ago, they hacked into the scoreboard during the Rosebowl and changed the teams to Caltech and MIT. Caltech was winning. :D

Hakalugi, your mention of that book is great! I had forgotten about that one. It features Lemon Grove's own Boyd Rice very prominently.

Is he famous for anything except pranks? His antics with the Police Substation, and with Taco Bell, are gems.

Thanks.

I saw a good one today, funnily enough through in glasgow, where somebody had stolen the letter "C" from the CANAL BAR's frontage.

My paycheck.

someone always manages to remove a couple of digits.....

I saw this a few blocks from my house today; now I know why they're "The Loyal Order of Moose." I'd be loyal to a lodge too with perks like that.

[ Edited by: tikijackalope on 2004-09-17 04:34 ]

~ 1976 - College students alter the "HOLLYWOOD" sign to read "HOLLYWEED". ~

just the other day I saw a tampered sign at a redemption center.

it was supposed to say LARGE LOADS WANTED.

they changed it to LARGE TOADS WAN7ED.

..sb

Since Matt Groening gets most of his character names from Portland landmarks and streets, it only makes sense....

More Portland Classics
Budget Motel on Interstate

Hannigan's Tavern on Belmont...a truck hit the sign so only "VERN" lit up..they left it that way so it's now called "The Vern".

There used to be a bar in Edinburgh called the BLUE LAGOON. Until the "LA" disappeared one night: THE BLUE GOON.

This was not vandalism, part of the sign had malfunctioned and it was fixed shortly thereafter...but a couple of years ago, the "L" in a newly-installed BIG LOTS sign went out, and at night the sign could be seen to read "BIG OTS"

There used to be a grocery store chain in So Cal a long time ago called Big Bear Markets

The signage read BIG BEAR (big red letters).

But the second B seemed to regularly stop working .... as kids we thought shopping at "BIG EAR" was hilarious.

I made this plaque during a stint as a sign maker on Oahu and expected it to be removed overnight but it was there nearly a year.

Duke Paoa Kahanamoku — A lifetime of highlights

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer

What would Hawai'i be without the surf? And what would surfing be without Duke Kahanamoku?

There can be no doubt that Duke — the man Surfer magazine anointed Surfer of the Century in 1999 — is bigger than life.

After a 9-foot statue of the legendary athlete was unveiled in Waikiki 12 years ago yesterday, many people weren't all that surprised by the 4-inch bronze plaque that read "Actual Size."

In truth, Duke was a mortal 6 feet 1, and the plaque referred to the 16-foot surfboard featured in the sculpture.

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2002/Aug/25/ln/ln05a.html

and I didn't intend for the sign to be for the board and enjoyed watching tourists to do a double take.

Near here is a town called Sweetwater, TN. I was heading along the highway and saw a sign with distances and someone had scraped off part of the name. Seemed odd. Took me a minute to figure out why.

SWE_TWAT_R 12
was left. I guess they were in a hurry and didn't get all the other letters scraped off.

That and seeing a sign borad that stayed for over a week that used to advertize PERMS $12 changed to SPERM...