Minecraft Joke mobs: Looking back at the ridiculous April Fools mobs

Minecraft has a long history of April Fools jokes, adding unique and fun features that wouldn't fit or make sense in the main game. Some of the best examples of these features were the Ultimate Content Update's infinite dimensions or the One Block at a Time Snapshot's massive increase in difficulty. However, some of the most interesting additions are the joke mobs in the snapshots.

Listed below is every joke mob that has ever appeared in Minecraft, along with what makes them stand out from the game's regular cast.

Minecraft Java Edition 2.0's mobs

Redstone bug

Redstone bugs were silverfish reskins colored redstone red rather than the stone gray silverfish. This is the only difference, as redstone bugs are identical to and have the same behavior as regular silverfish otherwise.

As conveyed by the name, they were associated with redstone. Any bug or error within a redstone system would cause one of these bugs to spawn on the error spot, indicating Minecraft's most advanced farms and redstone builds could quickly become deathtraps to an unprepared engineer.

Horses and Ponies

Horses and ponies are one of the more cursed Java Edition 2.0's mobs. Horses were regular cows in what appeared to be a zip-up horse costume. Ponies, on the other hand, are regular pigs in a similar costume. Minecraft's horses wouldn't be officially added until the next update. This was simply a referential nod to them, but the costumes are just creepy to look at.

Pink Wither

Oh, what a cute couple you two are! byu/Cmac0801 inMinecraft

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The Pink Wither was an inversion of the regular Wither boss, commonly seen as Minecraft's most dangerous mob. Pink Withers were attracted to sugar, and their attacks would restore health to affected mobs rather than damaging them. These attacks also applied bone meal effects, meaning the Pink Wither could grow grass, flowers for crafting Minecraft's dyes, or even player-planted crops.

They would spawn with one head, with sugar-growing heads, making their support effects stronger. Players could spawn one with pink wool and a flower pot rather than a series of wither skulls and soul sand.

Diamond Chicken

Diamond chickens were a rare variety of regular chickens. They were colored a shade of blue rather than white to distinguish them from other chickens. Rather than laying eggs as usual, diamond chickens would do one of three things: explode, lay lapis lazuli, or lay diamond.

Love and Hugs mobs

Smiling Creeper

Smiling creepers were a passive variant of regular creepers. They dealt no damage and were unable to destroy blocks when exploding. Instead, they burst into poppies that players are unable to pick up. This made them more of a creepy nuisance rather than a real threat.

Creepers are one of vanilla Minecraft's most underdeveloped mobs, not having seen a major overhaul in years. Thus, these April Fools variants are a blessing and a curse. It's nice to see what Mojang can come up with, but frustrating that the vanilla creeper has no variants.

Love Golems

Love golems were a variant of iron golems. They replaced iron golems as the mob that villagers would spawn, and they were a true manifestation of the villager's pacifism. Unlike regular iron golems, they would not attack monsters or players. Instead, they would wander around freely. Players could create them the same way they created iron golems.

They were pink with a massive red heart on their chest to make them stand out from regular metallic iron golems. Unlike regular iron golems, love golems don't drop iron, meaning they would be useless in a Minecraft iron farm.

Returning mobs

The Pink Wither is one of the few joke mobs to make multiple appearances (Image via Mojang)

The Pink Wither mentioned previously as being originally added with the Java Edition 2.0 snapshot, also made a second appearance in the Love and Hugs joke update. This isn't surprising, and the bright coloration and friendly faces made for a natural inclusion.

The Vote Update's mobs

Ray Tracing

Ray Tracing was a joke mob meant to look like an additional player. Named after the lighting technology that has taken Minecraft by storm, ray tracing, this mob had a "joined the world" message along with a slew of custom idle, death, and despawn messages to enhance the illusion of an additional player.

An interesting note about Ray Tracing is that if the game's language is set to French, they can only say "Omelette du Fromage," a reference to the same joke from Dexter's Lab.

Moon Cow

Another new mob from The Vote Update was the Moon Cow. Moon cows were identical to regular cows, save their appearance on the update's joke moon dimension. Additionally, they were blue rather than brown, wore glass helmets, and could only walk backward.

They would drop glass bottles, regular glass, bones, or cheese on death, meaning they were useful mobs to farm. They could only be found on the moon, which players could reach by going above Y = 700 in the overworld.

One Block at a Time's mob

Mars

Mars was a unique dog within the One Block at a Time April Fools snapshot. Unlike the new wolf types introduced with Minecraft 1.21, Mars was only obtainable by using a name tag to name a tamed wolf "Mars." It could not be found randomly. This unique mob was dark brown and looked the most similar to the new woods wolf.

3D Shareware v1.34's mob

Nerd Creeper

The nerd creeper was similar to the smiling creeper as another joke creeper variant. They would spawn naturally if players activated the "NEEEERD" cheat code and were nearly identical to their vanilla counterparts, save for the unique skin and a new drop.

This new drop was the gimmick item of 3D Shareware v1.34, known as 3D. It was a consumable that caused an image of the development team to flash on the screen when used.

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