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.
