The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest
In 1957 the respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very
mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss
farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement
with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees.
Huge numbers of viewers were taken in, and many called up wanting to know how
they could grow their own spaghetti trees. To this question, the BBC diplomatically
replied that they should "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato
sauce and hope for the best."
Sidd Finch
In its April 1985 edition, Sports Illustrated published a story about a new
rookie pitcher who planned to play for the Mets. His name was Sidd Finch and
he could reportedly throw a baseball with startling, pinpoint accuracy at 168
mph (65 mph faster than anyone else has ever been able to throw a ball). Surprisingly,
Sidd Finch had never even played the game before. Instead, he had mastered the
"art of the pitch" in a Tibetan monastery under the guidance of the
"great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa." Mets fans everywhere celebrated
at their teams's amazing luck at having found such a gifted player, and Sports
Illustrated was flooded with requests for more information. But in reality this
legendary player only existed in the imagination of the writer of the article,
George Plimpton.
Instant Color TV
In 1962 there was only one tv channel in Sweden, and it broadcast in black and
white. The station's technical expert, Kjell Stensson, appeared on the news
to announce that thanks to a newly developed technology, all viewers could now
quickly and easily convert their existing sets to display color reception. All
they had to do was pull a nylon stocking over their tv screen, and they would
begin to see their favorite shows in color. Stensson then proceeded to demonstrate
the process. Reportedly, hundreds of thousands of people, out of the population
of seven million, were taken in. Actual color tv transmission only commenced
in Sweden on April 1, 1970
The Taco Liberty Bell
In 1996 the Taco Bell Corporation announced that it had bought the Liberty Bell
from the federal government and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Hundreds
of outraged citizens called up the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where
the bell is housed to express their anger. Their nerves were only calmed when
Taco Bell revealed that it was all a practical joke a few hours later. The best
line inspired by the affair came when White House press secretary Mike McCurry
was asked about the sale, and he responded that the Lincoln Memorial had also
been sold, though to a different corporation, and would now be known as the
Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.
San Serriffe
In 1977 the British newspaper The Guardian published a special seven-page supplement
in honor of the tenth anniversary of San Serriffe, a small republic located
in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semi-colon-shaped islands. A series
of articles affectionately described the geography and culture of this obscure
nation. Its two main islands were named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Its capital
was Bodoni, and its leader was General Pica. The Guardian's phones rang all
day as readers sought more information about the idyllic holiday spot. Few noticed
that everything about the island was named after printer's terminology. The
success of this hoax is widely credited with launching the enthusiasm for April
Foolery that then gripped the British tabloids in the following decades.
Nixon for President
In 1992 National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation program announced that Richard
Nixon, in a surprise move, was running for President again. His new campaign
slogan was, "I didn't do anything wrong, and I won't do it again."
Accompanying this announcement were audio clips of Nixon delivering his candidacy
speech. Listeners responded viscerally to the announcement, flooding the show
with calls expressing shock and outrage. Only during the second half of the
show did the host John Hockenberry reveal that the announcement was a practical
joke. Nixon's voice was impersonated by comedian Rich Little.
Alabama Changes the Value of Pi
The April 1998 issue of the New Mexicans for Science and Reason newsletter contained
an article claiming that the Alabama state legislature had voted to change the
value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to the 'Biblical value' of
3.0. Before long the article had made its way onto the internet, and then it
rapidly made its way around the world, forwarded by people in their email. It
only became apparent how far the article had spread when the Alabama legislature
began receiving hundreds of calls from people protesting the legislation. The
original article, which was intended as a parody of legislative attempts to
circumscribe the teaching of evolution, was written by a physicist named Mark
Boslough.
UFO Lands in London
On March 31, 1989 thousands of motorists driving on the highway outside London
looked up in the air to see a glowing flying saucer descending on their city.
Many of them pulled to the side of the road to watch the bizarre craft float
through the air. The saucer finally landed in a field on the outskirts of London
where local residents immediately called the police to warn them of an alien
invasion. Soon the police arrived on the scene, and one brave officer approached
the craft with his truncheon extended before him. When a door in the craft popped
open, and a small, silver-suited figure emerged, the policeman ran in the opposite
direction. The saucer turned out to be a hot-air balloon that had been specially
built to look like a UFO by Richard Branson, the 36-year-old chairman of Virgin
Records. The stunt combined his passion for ballooning with his love of pranks.
His plan was to land the craft in London's Hyde Park on April 1. Unfortunately,
the wind blew him off course, and he was forced to land a day early in the wrong
location.
The Sydney Iceberg
On April 1, 1978 a barge appeared in Sydney Harbor towing a giant iceberg. Sydneysiders
were expecting it. Dick Smith, a local adventurer and millionaire businessman
(owner of Dick Smith's Foods), had been loudly promoting his scheme to tow an
iceberg from Antarctica for quite some time. Now he had apparently succeeded.
He said that he was going to carve the berg into small ice cubes, which he would
sell to the public for ten cents each. These well-traveled cubes, fresh from
the pure waters of Antarctica, were promised to improve the flavor of any drink
they cooled. Slowly the iceberg made its way into the harbor. Local radio stations
provided excited blow-by-blow coverage of the scene. Only when the berg was
well into the harbor was its secret revealed. It started to rain, and the firefighting
foam and shaving cream that the berg was really made of washed away, uncovering
the white plastic sheets beneath.
