Dunwoody’s April Fool prankster is back.
Night owls and early morning commuters were greeted with a sign at the Mt. Vernon Shopping Center at the corner of Jett Ferry and Mt. Vernon Road that said “Coming Soon! Oasis Goodtime Emporium Strip Club.” It proclaimed that the new establishment would have cold beer, alcohol and naked women.
While the sign was taken down around 9 a.m., it garnered a lot of comments on social media channels, populated with people who “got it,” and others that didn’t.
“At least it’s not another bank or urgent care,” one person commented, while others welcomed back the prankster, who hadn’t participated in several years in what has become a favorite Dunwoody tradition.
So far, nobody has publicly taken credit for the sign.
There have been some pictures posted on social media for the last few years, featuring obviously digitally doctored Dunwoody landmarks. One of them was a picture of a trailer at Peachtree Middle School that proclaimed that a new Buc-ee’s location was coming to Dunwoody.
Another doctored photo posted today on social media channels proclaimed that Buc-ee’s would be relocating to the former Burger King location in Dunwoody Village, which led to several jokes about some of the its most popular food offerings.
In 2021, the prankster and his band of deviants placed several signs stating Dunwoody Club Drive would be repaved starting soon, and to expect delays.
The paving project, after months of delay because of cold weather, had just been completed.
“Only a Fool would be out so late at night, but a Fool’s work is never done,” according to an early-morning communique sent to the media. “After the lengthy, drawn-out process of paving Dunwoody Club Drive, it seemed like the right time to re-surface the road while the pavement was still warm. Fool & Company enjoy poking a finger into Dunwoody’s muffin top of homogenized emotion.”
In 2009, one tricksters posted a sign on Dunwoody Club Drive near Deerfield subdivision announcing the construction of “Happy Heli-Hunting Grounds,” featuring a shotgun-wielding woman hanging out of a helicopter and a “client” blasting away at a fawn and small rabbit.
“Blast ‘em from on high,” the poster proclaims. “Fun for the whole family.”
In addition, in front of the CVS store on Mount Vernon Road near Jett Ferry Road, a sign picturing a scantily clad female in a yellow bathing suit advertising “Bikini’s Adult Show Bar” had residents either laughing or worried about the impact of such an establishment on their home values.
The prankster behind “Bikini’s” is responsible for several other memorable April Fool’s signs in the past, including “Bling After-Hours Nightclub,” “Dirty Vernon’s Adult Bookstore,” and “Amigos Among Us – Dunwoody’s Day Labor Destination.”
The April Fool jokester caught Dunwoody’s attention in 2005 with a double-sided, five-foot banner erected in the same location of this year’s sign. It announced the upcoming opening of “Adam & Steve’s – An Alternative Lifestyle Wedding Chapel,” complete with “extensive gardens, waterfalls and old style Roman bathouse [sic].”
Some people didn’t take too kindly to it, and nobody heard more about it than Dunwoody resident John Marshburn, whose cell phone number was prominently emblazoned on the sign.
He received more than 100 calls or messages that spanned the spectrum of emotions – some thanking him for providing them a hearty laugh, others critiquing his use of color in the sign, and still others attempting to book the facility.