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Pasadena to take up a research fellow position in physics. He got a ticket to the game and a seat on the 50-yard line through his father, a
Rotarian with connections to the committee that oversaw the annual Rotary float for the Rose Parade. He just happened to be aiming his camera in the right direction as the cards flipped up into position. Whitehead loaned his slide to Caltech's Public Relations office, and a black and white photo of the prank was published on the cover of the January 1961 Engineering and Science. Whitehead then put his slide away for 52 years. Not until he was tracked down recently by Lee Molho and agreed to donate the slide to Caltech did his original see the light again."
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national telecast. The announcers and the stadium fell silent for several moments before breaking into laughter. As the
Washington band marched off the field, the cheerleaders did not give the signal for the fifteenth and final image. The Huskies were unaware that the Caltech students had not altered
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The single original color photograph of the live prank, a
Kodachrome slide, has just been donated to the Caltech Archives, along with full documentation of how the stunt was executed, thanks to the tireless efforts of alumnus and Lloyd man Lee Molho (BS 1963). The donation from Molho and Whitehead
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One conspirator told how a dozen Cal Tech students obtained a sample of instruction cards to be attached to rooters' seats and had 2,232 phony cards printed. Instructions on the colors of the cards were changed in three stunts. Then, Saturday night, when the
Huskies went to Disneyland, two Cal Tech
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Monday evening I got a note from
Shelley Erwin, head of the Archives and Special Collections at Caltech, telling me that the original Kodachrome slide had been tracked down and donated to her archives, and pointing me to its online story: "The photographer, Bruce Whitehead, had just arrived in
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On Card Stunt 10 the
Washington cheering section was to have held up cards showing "HUSKY" in black letters on a yellow background, but "CAL TECH" came up. Then the word "Huskies" was spelled backwards and a beaver's head—representing Cal Tech—appeared where the Husky's head was supposed to
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At halftime on
January 2, 1961, the Washington card stunt was executed as the Caltech students had hoped. NBC cameras panned to the section raising the flip-cards as they uneventfully displayed the first eleven designs.
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in script to gradually appear from left to right (starting with the capital "W"), but it ran backwards (with the small letter "n" appearing first). Other sources say that the routine intended to spell out
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The prank has been described as the "greatest collegiate prank of all time" and received national attention, as the game was broadcast to an estimated 30 million viewers across the United States by
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The plot was hatched by undergraduates from the
California Institute of Technology—who told of it but insisted on remaining unidentified—and involved more than 170 man-hours of work.
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What one conspirator described as "just a good idea for a practical joke" fouled up three
University of Washington student card stunts between halves of the Rose Bowl football game.
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The card stunt was photographed by Rose Bowl attendee Bruce
Whitehead, who provided a black and white photograph to Caltech for publication. In 2014, Whitehead's original color
110:. One author wrote, "Few college pranks can be said to be more grandly conceived, carefully planned, flawlessly executed, and publicly dramatic" than the Great Rose Bowl Hoax.
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includes artifacts and documents that reveal the full story of how the prank was carried out. They will form the Great Rose Bowl Hoax Collection at the Caltech Archives.
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dorm rooms where the Washington cheerleaders were staying and removed a single instruction sheet from a bedroom. They printed copies and altered each page by hand. On
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The hoax was planned by a group of Caltech students in December 1960, subsequently known as the "Fiendish Fourteen". Their leader was 19-year-old engineering student
286:, Caltech students built a large white "PASADENA" sign overlooking the stadium. Just before halftime, they turned on lights on the sign which spelled out "CALTECH".
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The game resulted in a 17–7 victory by the Washington Huskies, their second straight win at the Rose Bowl. The practical joke was detailed in the next morning's
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by that score in the third quarter. The students also altered the scoreboard to rename the game, "The Beaver Bowl" in reference to the Caltech and MIT mascots.
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159:; Lon Bell, later chief executive of Amerigon Inc.; Harry Keller, later CEO of Smart Science Education Inc.; and Allen Berman, later a project manager at the
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The twelfth design modified the design of a husky into that of a beaver (Caltech's mascot) but was subtle enough that the audience did not notice.
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122:. They felt that their college was ignored up to and during the Rose Bowl Game, though the school's teams often played in the
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To discover the details behind the Huskies' show, Hardy disguised himself as a reporter for a local Los Angeles high school (
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a few miles from campus. The students decided to use Washington's flip-card show to garner some attention.
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was inspired by this one. A group of students altered the scoreboard to show Caltech leading its rival
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students entered the dormitory where the Washington cheerleaders were staying and swapped cards.
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One conspirator said the plot involved substitution of 2,232 phony rooters'-instruction cards.
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345:. Alumni Association, California Institute of Technology, 1982. Accessed 12 March 2006.
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If At All Possible Involve a Cow: The Book of College Pranks
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The fourteenth design, however, was an unmistakable prank.
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481:"Caltech Pranksters Strike BCS Title Game at the Rose Bowl"
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slide was discovered and donated to the Caltech Archives.
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was displayed in big block letters on a white background.
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took the field to lead the spectators in the stands in a
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Another hoax reminiscent of the Great Rose Bowl Hoax is
457:. California Institute of Technology. December 22, 2014
378:. The Museum of Hoaxes, 2002. Accessed 9 December 2007.
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392:. Pasadena, California. January 3, 1961. p. 16.
197:. Regardless, it was dismissed as a simple mistake.
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408:"To see if it could be done," said the conspirator.
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388:"Unscheduled Card Stunt: 'Huskies' In Reverse".
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504:collection at the Caltech Archives
306:Crowe, Jerry (December 26, 2010).
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97:California Institute of Technology
87:, the Huskies led 17–0, and their
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1460:Affiliated research organizations
502:Great 1961 Rose Bowl Hoax Records
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248:A similar hoax by Caltech at the
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548:History & conference tie-ins
338:The Great Rose Bowl Hoax of 1961
233:alongside coverage of the game.
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1178:denotes the game was played in
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1645:1961 in sports in California
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140:The students broke into the
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1630:Hoaxes in the United States
1477:Kerckhoff Marine Laboratory
1379:Rose Bowl Game Broadcasters
358:. St. Martin's Press, 1992.
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16:1961 college football prank
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1507:Table Mountain Observatory
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151:Some of the helpers were:
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566:College Football Playoff
375:The Great Rose Bowl Hoax
262:Illinois Fighting Illini
219:covered the game for an
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79:were pitted against the
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1512:Thirty Meter Telescope
1497:W. M. Keck Observatory
1190:Durham, North Carolina
208:Reaction and aftermath
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1389:Great Rose Bowl Hoax
256:38 to 9. It was the
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1492:Palomar Observatory
1253:Tournament of Roses
1399:BCS TV & Radio
1307:Rose Parade Themes
1282:Rose Parade Floats
576:Big Ten Conference
487:. January 7, 2014.
426:Pasadena Star-News
343:Legends of Caltech
131:Dorsey High School
77:Washington Huskies
75:. That year, the
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354:Steinberg, Neil.
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1297:Rose Palace
1272:Rose Parade
1263:Rose Parade
485:caltech.edu
258:UCLA Bruins
217:Chick Hearn
157:Sandia Labs
135:cheerleader
1609:Categories
1348:Rose Float
1302:Rose Queen
290:References
273:2004 prank
238:Kodachrome
186:Washington
171:See also:
93:card stunt
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1362:Rose Bowl
602:1903–1915
562:(stadium)
560:Rose Bowl
461:March 20,
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213:Mel Allen
167:Execution
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1205:denotes
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282:For the
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114:Planning
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67:American
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555:History
277:Harvard
202:CALTECH
195:SEIKSUH
191:HUSKIES
101:CALTECH
61:at the
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1554:People
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1330:Floats
57:was a
1277:Bands
590:Games
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1487:LIGO
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