Known for his pranks on friends and co-stars, Aamir Khan's April Fool's Day joke misfired with none of his friends or associates willing to smile it away.

When a whole lot of Aamir's friends drove to Film City Mumbai after getting an invite from him to a special screening of his latest "The Rising" April 1, none were prepared for the empty venue that greeted them.

What made it worse for many who had driven several kilometres to reach the place, was that the 40-year-old actor was nowhere in sight to greet them.

Instead, there was Aamir's business manager Ashish who had to laughingly take the brunt of many angry invitees, clamouring to know why they were subjected to such a lowdown joke and why the actor himself was missing.

In fact one of the "special" invitees, a production controller from an avante garde unit called Aamir up and gave him a mouthful.

Says a director friend of Aamir, "If I had to play an April Fool's joke it would stretch to Dimple theatre, not all the way to Film City which is miles and miles out of town and very hard to reach. And Aamir should also have included himself in the laugh-trough.

"They didn't mind the joke that much. But the fact that he was not there at Film City to receive his guests really hit them hard. Really, the joke hasn't been appreciated at all."

Aamir Khan's favourite prank on the sets used to be to pretend to read his co-stars' palms and then spit into it. Now of course he's a 70 million rupee hero. The pranks have progressed accordingly.

It was Aamir's penchant for pranks that had cost him his friendship with Juhi Chawla, though they have patched up now.