Posted on 04/01/2025 10:55:13 AM PDT by Leaning Right
For the most part, TV audiences today couldn’t be convinced that spaghetti grows on trees. But in 1957, plenty of viewers were eating it up.
Described as “the most successful April Fools’ Day prank of all time” by one Swiss outlet, the so-called “spaghetti-tree hoax” of 1957 was an attempt by the producers of a BBC news program to convince viewers that spaghetti — a food not widely eaten in the U.K. at the time — was harvested from spaghetti trees in Italy and Switzerland.
“The last two weeks in March are an anxious time for the spaghetti farmer,” the narrator of the segment, which aired on the BBC program “Panorama,” told viewers.
(Excerpt) Read more at fox8.com ...
that one was cute but the best ever was in Sitka, ALaska in 1974.
Residents awoke to see that the long dormant volcano in the distance was smoking and was possibly erupting. No one would have thought that a local car dealer and well-known prankster flew a few helicopter loads of old tires to the top and lit them on fire overnight.
Police and Fire departments had advance notice of the stunt, but he forgot to call the Coast Guard who immediately overflew the volcano. Oops.
Guess you and I think alike. I didn’t read the comments before I posted the same gag.
I did see another cool one.
Back story, I had just been let go from a long career due to a corporate reorganization. We were facing having to uproot the family and move to a new state. Didn’t know where yet, but the Michigan economy was in such a dump in 2009 there were no jobs at all to be had.
About 3am I was sitting in the bathroom and picked up an old Readers Digest we had in there. There was a short clip about a guy who saw a large dead buck on the side of road, went home and got his Santa costume on and laid down next to the dead deer just in time for the school bus to drive by.
I was laughing and shaking so hard I thought my wife would wake up and think I was crying because of the situation. I still guffaw every time I remember that story.
Not April Fools, but I remember when local DJ’s in Memphis were pushing the “ski Mt Moriah” after we had snow in the city.
Mt Moriah is a street and is not any kind of hill to ski on...
That was my exact thought. The story of Sid Finch, and how it percolated in media without being outed was the greatest hoax of all time.
Gwjack
PAUL DIXON IN CINCINNATI DID THIS EVEN BEFORE 1957!
That mountain in Sitka looks like Mt. Fuji!!
The Benedictine monk with a 110 mph fast ball.
That’s hilarious!
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