This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
From YKTTW:
Idle Dandy: Do we have anything for the Practical Joke War plot? I've seen them on Cheers, Murphy Brown, Saved By The Bell, Growing Pains and many more. There seem to be two varieties: a series of unrelated but escalating pranks, or repeated reversals of one prank. Being a splitter at heart, I'd love to call the latter Zany Scheme Chicken thanks to someone's brilliant addition to Counter Zany referencing the Friends ep "The One Where Everybody Finds Out."
The prank war plot is different from Zany Scheme because the scheme is usually done to achieve some specific outcome, where pranks are pulled just for pranks' sake.
Seth: That trope is covered by Escalating War
Idle Dandy: Yeah, that's the unrelated pranks one. I'm going to pull the trigger on Zany Scheme Chicken for the reversals-on-one-prank version.
