The five boys had the audacity to tamper with doughnuts, stuffing them with chocolate-flavoured laxative pills. They then handed them out to 19 fellow students.

Only when a health teacher was offered a bite and noticed something strange about the snack was the prank uncovered.

Ambulances were swiftly dispatched to Sequoya middle school, although no pupils fell seriously ill, and parents were invited to collect affected pupils.

Jenn Morris, 14, told Newsday that the boys had told her the doughnut was a birthday gift. “I considered them my friends,” she said. “I won’t be talking to them for a long time.”

The pranksters admitted they had copied the practical joke from an MTV programme entitled High School Stories: Scandals, Pranks and Controversies, which gave a practical demonstration using adult actors.

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the incident was the heavy-handed response by police, who sent more than a dozen officers to the school. The boys were arrested and charged with second degree tampering with a commercial product, before being suspended indefinitely.

The incident suggests that US police really are like those on The Simpsons: they do take doughnuts very seriously.