Posted on 04/01/2007 8:25:31 AM PDT by 69ConvertibleFirebird
Thu Mar 29, 4:19 AM ET
From television revealing that spaghetti grows on trees to advertisements for the left-handed burger, the tradition of April Fool's Day stories in the media has a weird and wonderful history.
Here are 10 of the top April Fool's Day pranks ever pulled off, as judged by the San Diego-based Museum of Hoaxes for their notoriety, absurdity, and number of people duped.
-- In 1957, a BBC television show announced that thanks to a mild winter and the virtual elimination of the spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. Footage of Swiss farmers pulling strands of spaghetti from trees prompted a barrage of calls from people wanting to know how to grow their own spaghetti at home.
-- In 1985, Sports Illustrated magazine published a story that a rookie baseball pitcher who could reportedly throw a ball at 270 kilometers per hour (168 miles per hour) was set to join the New York Mets. Finch was said to have mastered his skill -- pitching significantly faster than anyone else has ever managed -- in a Tibetan monastery. Mets fans' celebrations were short-lived.
-- Sweden in 1962 had only one television channel, which broadcast in black and white. The station's technical expert appeared on the news to announce that thanks to a newly developed technology, viewers could convert their existing sets to receive color pictures by pulling a nylon stocking over the screen. In fact, they had to wait until 1970.
-- In 1996, American fast-food chain Taco Bell announced that it had bought Philadelphia's Liberty Bell, a historic symbol of American independence, from the federal government and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell.
Outraged citizens called to express their anger before Taco Bell revealed the hoax. Then-White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale and said the Lincoln Memorial in Washington had also been sold and was to be renamed the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial after the automotive giant.
-- In 1977, British newspaper The Guardian published a seven-page supplement for the 10th anniversary of San Serriffe, a small republic located in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semicolon-shaped islands. A series of articles described the geography and culture of the two main islands, named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse.
-- In 1992, US National Public Radio announced that Richard Nixon was running for president again. His new campaign slogan was, "I didn't do anything wrong, and I won't do it again." They even had clips of Nixon announcing his candidacy. Listeners flooded the show with calls expressing their outrage. Nixon's voice actually turned out to be that of impersonator Rich Little.
-- In 1998, a newsletter titled New Mexicans for Science and Reason carried an article that the state of Alabama had voted to change the value of pi from 3.14159 to the "Biblical value" of 3.0.
-- Burger King, another American fast-food chain, published a full-page advertisement in USA Today in 1998 announcing the introduction of the "Left-Handed Whopper," specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new burger included the same ingredients as the original, but the condiments were rotated 180 degrees. The chain said it received thousands of requests for the new burger, as well as orders for the original "right-handed" version.
-- Discover Magazine announced in 1995 that a highly respected biologist, Aprile Pazzo (Italian for April Fool), had discovered a new species in Antarctica: the hotheaded naked ice borer. The creatures were described as having bony plates on their heads that became burning hot, allowing the animals to bore through ice at high speed -- a technique they used to hunt penguins.
-- Noted British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on the radio in 1976 that at 9:47 am, a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event, in which Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, would cause a gravitational alignment that would reduce the Earth's gravity. Moore told listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment of the planetary alignment, they would experience a floating sensation. Hundreds of people called in to report feeling the sensation.
I like the Burger King "left-handed Whopper" where thousands of people tried to order it (no doubt the vast majority by democrats/DUmmies.
And the Taco Liberty Bell is good. Aren't all things of note now making money with sponsors?
You aren't going to fool me. I know darn well no one ever tried to pull off ANY of those stunts.
Coast to Coast has purchased naming rights, It's going to be the Slightly Cracked Art Bell in Philidelpia...
the left-handed whopper and the last one about the gravity and the floating sensation were my faves... Mike McCurry--who i could not stand--was pretty clever coming up with the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial joke... it's good to know people were outraged about the Liberty Bell... at least they seem to care...
I am one of the ones who ordered the right handed Whopper (she admits sheepishly) but it proves I have ALWAYS been a conservative.
April fool! Which of my statements is NOT true? ;9)
LOL!!! I wonder if he's used that one?
I don’t know about these but a true story: a few years ago my favorite radio station – WRNR in Annapolis MD, suddenly made a format change.
One morning I woke up and WRNR went from Eclectic Adult Alternative and were now WOMB – “The Womb – All music by women, for women - all the time”.
All the DJ’s were now woman and the play list mostly consisted of the Idigo Girls (not always so bad) but also some really out there strange stuff – even their website changed overnight.
This was a real blow to me since the only other alternative rock station in the area had recently just as suddenly switched to all Spanish speaking – Latin music only.
I was very upset. I was dating a guy at the time who shared my musical tastes and that night on our date, the format change was almost all we talked about.
Then on my way home, he called me on my cell and we both realized that it was April 1st and both started to wonder if it wasn’t a joke.
The next morning my favorite radio station came back and they spent the rest of the day apologizing for their April Fools joke and re-assuring listeners that the WOMB was just a joke.
I don't think so, as far as I know it's original on this thread.
"Panic Hits Warsaw. Polish Velcro Crop Fails Again. Huge Shortages Seen"
I saw a film clip of the spaghetti harvesters plucking strands of spaghetti off the spaghetti trees. It's hard to believe anyone could be that ignorant, but no matter how dumb and obvious a hoax is there are always a lot of people who fall for it. :0)
NPR used to do some pretty good ones. They had the right shtick, where the story started serious, and added increasing degrees of absurdity, ending with emphasizing the date, without actually saying "April Fool!"
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9210663
And we wonder how Democrats get elected.
I know we can have fun with this thread!
Seems like a high risk April Fool's joke to change format all day. I probably would have checked back a couple of times then removed them from my radio presets.
That is pretty funny, actually. Spaghetti trees don't grow in Switzerland. They're strictly tropical.
I remember watching that on TV as a little kid, and asking my dad if spaghetti really grew on trees, and how did it get so hard like it comes in the packages from the store - he said he thought they freeze-dried it once they harvested it. I was impressed by his knowledge.
;-p
bump
BEST APRIL FOOL'S JOKE:
In Alaska, a dormant volcano started smoking. Planes were sent up. Found: ring of old tires set on fire, big sign in the middle, "April Fools!"
- In 2004 Dan Rather of CBS News presented a memo that was critical of President Bush's military performance. It was later revealed that the memo was a hoax...and all of America had a good old belly laugh over the matter.
(did I remember this one correctly?)
April Fool's Day, 1974
The Eruption of Mount Edgecumbe
Residents of Sitka, Alaska were alarmed when the long-dormant volcano neighboring them, Mount Edgecumbe, suddenly began to belch out billows of black smoke. Did this mean that the volcano was active again and would soon erupt? Terrified residents spilled out of their homes onto the streets to gaze up at the volcano, and calls poured into the local authorities.
Luckily it turned out that man, not nature, was responsible for the smoke. A local prankster named Porky Bickar had flown hundreds of old tires into the volcano's crater and then lit them on fire, all in a (successful) attempt to fool the city dwellers into believing that the volcano was stirring to life. Six years later when Mount St. Helens erupted a Sitka resident wrote to Bickar to tell him, "This time you've gone too far!"
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/af_1974.html
LOL!!! If only he did say April Fools. It turned out that Dan was the April Fool...
The Eruption of Mount Edgecumbe
Now, thirty years later, I'd bet that he'd end up in jail or with a HEFTY fine (tens of thousands of dollars) for doing something like that. Very creative, and a LOT of work!
No kidding! It would be some kind of air pollution crime plus mountain pollution plus improper disposal of old tires plus the expenses of all the volcano experts who rushed up to investigate.
It was pretty clever, though.
That's always stood out in my mind as the best April Fool's joke ever.
jm
BYTE magazine a number of years ago had a big ad for Write-Only Memory, "the optimal solution for your obsolete but sensitive data", etc.
Locally, (San Jose, CA), the free weekly printed a story back in 1993 about how there was gold under one of the malls here, but due to various recently-discovered title/survey irregularities, the land was not officially "owned" by anybody. They had a picture in their next issue with a crowd of people at the door with pick-axes, shovels, etc.
Here's the way we heard it...
On Kruzof Island, about 13 miles west of Sitka, Alaska, sits Mt Edgecumbe. The extinct volcano is 1300 feet in height and covered with snow about eight months of the year.
On April 1, 1974, a clear, beautiful morning, Porky Oliver Bickar of Sitka woke up early to see Mt. Edgecumbe through the window in all its glory. Porky whispered to his wife, Patty: "This is it. We've gotta do it today." Patty smiled sweetly, kissed Porky on the forehead, and said, "Don’t make an ass of yourself."
Porky rushed to his shop (you can see the name of his shop on Old Blue) and started calling helicopter charters. He called three charters, but when they heard his plan they respectfully declined. One said he was afraid of a white-out (snow), but since the weather was absolutely clear that didn't wash. Finally, with the help of Harry Sulser, the owner of Sitka's Pioneer Bar, Porky struck pay dirt with Temsco's Earl Walker in Petersburg. Although his chopper was fog-bound, Earl loved the idea and said he would be on the way to Sitka as soon as he could see one more telephone pole.
In the meantime, Porky made up two manila rope slings about 150 feet long ... each holding about 50 old car tires. He also gathered up a batch of oily rags, a gallon of sterno, a lot of diesel oil, and a dozen smoke bombs. (He didn't want us to mention where he got those. OK, Pork.)
When Earl and his chopper arrived at the old PBY and Goose turnaround (Sitka didn't have an airport then), Porky, Earl, Larry Nelson, and Ken Stedman first loaded up the incendiaries. When Earl and Porky got off the ground and hovered the chopper, Larry and Ken hooked one sling of tires to the chopper and off they went toward Mt. Edgecumbe (with FAA "legal" clearance, of course).
Within just a few minutes, Porky and Earl were flying over Mt. Edgecumbe. They could see for miles--just water and islands--with Baranof Island to the east and the open North Pacific to the west.
Porky and Earl dropped the tires into the up-til-now extinct volcano, then swung around and set the chopper down. Porky got out and unloaded all the fuel...just the right stuff to make a lot of black, smoky fire.
When Earl lifted off headed back to Sitka for the next load of tires, Porky stacked the first load in a big circle, poured on the fuel, and started to spray-paint a huge message in the snow with 50-foot letters: APRIL FOOL. When Earl returned and dumped 50 more tires into Mt. Edgecumbe, the two boys finished the arrangement...set the whole mess ablaze...and happily headed back to Sitka.
On the way back, Earl asked the FAA tower for clearance, and Homer Sutter (the controller) said "I'll bring you in as low and inconspicuously as possible...and, by the way, the son of a gun looks fantastic!" Earl set the chopper down. Mission accomplished...
Although Porky had remembered to notify both the FAA and the Sitka Police (he was a member of the police commission), he somehow forgot to notify the Coast Guard. While Mt. Edgecumbe was busy spewing out its black smoke, the Coast Guard Commander called for a chopper to investigate and sent a whale boat over to check things out. The chopper pilot radioed back to the commander that all he saw was a bunch of smoldering tires and a big April Fool sign in the snow. This was after the commander had called the Admiral in Juneau about the apparent crisis.
Jimmy Johnson, Vice President of Alaska Airlines, had also heard about Mt. Edgecumbe's activity, and called Sitka to instruct their departing plane to fly over the mountain to give all the passengers a bird’s eye view of it all. And, in the meantime, the Sitka radio station and police station phones were ringing off the hook.
We later found out that Porky's April Fool's Day caper had made AP news ... worldwide.
http://www.olypen.com/sitkacds/porky.htm
Nice!!
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