April Fool's Day

In many countries around the world April Fool’s Day is a day dedicated to hoaxes, pranks, gags and all kind of practical jokes. Usually these are public hoaxes by the different media, or private practical jokes between friend and family. It is celebrated each year on April 1st. In some countries, such as the UK, Australia and South Africa the jokes only last until noon, and someone who plays a trick after noon is called an "April Fool". Elsewhere, such as in Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, Russia, The Netherlands, Israel and the U.S., the jokes last all day.

April Fool’s Day Origin

The origin of April Fools' Day is not clear. One likely theory is that the modern holiday was first celebrated soon after the adoption of the Gregorian calendar; the term referred to someone still adhering to the Julian calendar, which it replaced. In many pre-Christian cultures May Day (May 1) was celebrated as the first day of summer, and signaled the start of the spring planting season. An April Fool may have been someone who did this prematurely. Another possible origin lies in the fact that when King Charles IX of France officially changed the first day of the year from April 1 to January 1, some of his subjects continued using the old system.
In the eighteenth century the festival was often posited as going back to the time of Noah. According to an English newspaper article published April 13, 1789, the day had its origin when Noah sent his dove off too early, before the waters had receded; he did this on the first day of the Hebrew month that corresponds with April.
A possible reference to April Fools' Day can be seen in the Canterbury Tales (ca 1400) in the Nun's Priest's tale, a tale of two fools (Chanticleer and the fox), which took place on March 32.
Likewise April Fool, there was a Disguise Day celebrated in Rome in 18th Century. In this Roman men used to disguise and change their looks by becoming more good looking. The disguised men then used to approach the girl for marriage. It was a belief that this disguise used to bring joy, happiness and a new beginning of life in the girls' life. It was then in 19th century when it started celebrating on the 18th of February. The day is marked as disguise day to bring happiness in girls' life.

Famous Hoaxes and Pranks

Alabama Changes the Value of Pi: an article written by physicist Mark Boslough claiming that the Legislature had voted to change the value of the constant pi. This claim originally appeared as a news story in the 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein, however see also the actual Indiana Pi Bill.

Spaghetti trees: The BBC television program Panorama ran in 1957a famous hoax showing Italians harvesting spaghetti from trees. They had claimed that the despised pest, the spaghetti weevil, had been eradicated. A large number of people contacted the BBC wanting to know how to cultivate their own spaghetti trees.

Taco Liberty Bell: In 1996, Taco Bell took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times announcing that they had purchased the Liberty Bell to "reduce the country's debt" and renamed it the "Taco Liberty Bell." When asked about the sale, White House press secretary Mike McCurry replied tongue-in-cheek that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold and would henceforth be known as the Lincoln Mercury Memorial.

Left Handed Whoppers: In 1998, Burger King ran an ad in USA Today, saying that people could get a Whopper for left-handed people whose condiments were designed to drip out of the right side.Not only did customers order the new burgers, but some specifically requested the "old", right-handed burger.

San Serriffe: The Guardian printed a supplement in 1977 praising this fictional resort, its two main islands, its capital and its leader General Pica. Intrigued readers were later disappointed to learn that San Serriffe (sans serif) did not exist except as references to typeface terminology.

DT Day: In 2008 fliers were handed on Brigham Young University campus, saying that the last in a series of dorm buildings being torn down was scheduled to be imploded on April 1. Hundreds of people eagerly turned up to see the implosion, but to their consternation it never happened.

Metric time: Repeated several times in various countries, this hoax involves claiming that the time system will be changed to one in which units of time are based on powers of 10

Tower of Pisa: The Dutch television news reported in 1953 that the Tower of Pisa had fallen over. Many shocked people contacted the station.

The Canadian news site bourque.org announced in 2002 that Finance Minister Paul Martin had resigned "in order to breed prize Charolais cattle and handsome Fawn Runner ducks."

Annual BMW Innovations – BMW publish hoax ads in newspaper every April 1st. Examples: MINI cars being used in upcoming space missions to Mars, Marque-Wiper - mini-wipers for each exterior "BMW" logo coming as standard on all future models (2002), Tyre Pressure Control - adjust the pressure on the tyres without slowing down (2003), "BMW Instant Messaging" - using Reactive User Sound Electronic (RUSE) particles to display the driver's words to the car in front on the windscreen (2007) and many more.

Hoaxes By Radio Stations

BBC Radio 4 (2005): The Today Program announced in the news that the long-running serial The Archers had changed their theme tune to an upbeat disco style.

In 1998, local WAAF shock jocks Opie and Anthony reported that Boston mayor Thomas Menino had been killed in a car accident. The rumor spread quickly across the city, eventually causing news stations to issue alerts denying the hoax. The pair were fired shortly thereafter. Menino happened to be on a flight at the time, lending credence to the prank as he could not be reached.

Every April 1st the National Public Radio in the United States does an extensive news story on April 1. These usually start off more or less reasonably, and get more and more unusual. A recent example is the story on the "iBod" a portable body control device. In 2008 it reported that the IRS, to assure rebate checks were actually spent, was shipping consumer products instead of checks.

Three-dollar coin: In 2008, CBC Radio program As It Happens interviewed a Royal Canadian Mint spokesman who broke "news" of plans to replace the Canadian five-dollar bill with a three-dollar coin.

U2 Live on Rooftop in Cork: In 2009 hundreds of U2 fans were duped in an elaborate prank when they rushed to a shopping centre believing that the band were playing a surprise rooftop concert.

Hoaxes by Television Stations

In 1962 the Swedish national television did a 5-minute special on how one could get color TV by placing a nylon stocking in front of the TV. A rather in-depth description on the physics behind the phenomena was included.

After over fifty years, the 1957 BBC report of the purported bumper annual spaghetti harvest (see Spaghetti trees above) remains one of the most successful TV hoaxes of all time.

In 1980, the BBC reported a proposed change to the famous clock tower known as Big Ben. The reporters stated that the clock would go digital.

The Trouble with Tracy: In 2003, The Comedy Network in Canada announced that it would produce and air a remake of the 1970s Canadian sitcom The Trouble with Tracy. The original series is widely considered to be one of the worst sitcoms ever produced. Several media outlets fell for the hoax.

In 2004, British breakfast show GMTV produced a story claiming that Yorkshire Water were trialing a new 'diet tap water' that had already helped one customer lose a stone and a half in four months. After heralding the trial as successful, it was claimed that a third tap would be added to kitchen sinks, allowing customers easy access to the water. Following the story, Yorkshire Water received 10,000 enquiries from viewers.

In 2006, the BBC reported that the door to No. 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, had been painted red. They showed footage of workmen carrying a red door. Red was the official colour of the political party which formed the government at the time. The same story was also reported in the British newspaper, The Daily Mail which credited the new design to April Fewell. The door is in fact black.

In 2008, the BBC reported on a newly discovered colony of flying penguins. An elaborate video segment was even produced, featuring Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) walking with the penguins in Antarctica, and following their flight to the Amazon rainforest.

On Comedy Central, the creators of South Park aired a fake episode of Terrance and Phillip titled "Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus" instead of running the season premiere which was supposed to reveal the father of Eric Cartman. This caused angered fans to write about 2,000 complaints to Comedy Central in the week following the broadcast. The incident was parodied in the Season 13 episode Eat, Pray, Queef, the first episode to broadcast on April Fool's day since the incident.

Hoaxes by Newspapers

George Plimpton wrote a 1985 article in Sports Illustrated about a New York Mets prospect named Sidd Finch, who could throw a 168 mph (270 km/h) fastball with pinpoint accuracy.

In 1985, the L.A. Weekly printed an entire page of fake things to do on April Fools' Day, by which hundreds of people were fooled.

Comic strip switcheroo: Cartoonists of popularly syndicated comic strips draw each others' strips. In some cases, the artist draws characters in the other strip's milieu, while in others, the artist draws in characters from other visiting characters from his own. Cartoonists have done this sort of "switcheroo" for several years. The 1997 switch was particularly widespread.

Coldplay to back the Tories - On 2006 the Guardian claimed that Chris Martin of rock band Coldplay had decided to publicly support the UK Conservative Party leader David Cameron due to his disillusionment with previous Labour Party prime minister Tony Blair, even going so far as to produce a fake song, "Talk to David", that could be downloaded via the Guardian website. Despite being an obvious hoax, the Labour Party's Media Monitoring Unit were concerned enough to circulate the story throughout "most of the government".

President Barack Obama pulls funding for NASCAR - On 2009, on the heels of the auto industry bailout, Car and Driver claimed on their website that President Barack Obama had ordered Chevrolet and Dodge to pull NASCAR funding. The article was removed from the website and replaced with an apology to readers, after upset NASCAR fans protested on the Car and Driver website. Conservative pundit Ann Coulter notably fell for the joke.

The Guardian to publish to Twitter: On 2009 The Guardian announced that it would be the first newspaper to publish exclusively on Twitter.

LamePro - Video game magazine GamePro once featured a gag section entitled "LamePro" in its April issues, featuring joke videogaming articles and reviews. The practice was abandoned after a magazine redesign in 2007.

Game Infarcer - Video game magazine Game Informer publishes a parody of itself called Game Infarcer in every April issue. Despite making no attempts to disguise the fictitious entries, even marking every page involved with the word "parody" at the bottom, there are always letters in the May issue by readers who believed the content to be real.

Hoaxes by Game Ghows

As part of an April Fools' joke on 1997, Alex Trebek and Pat Sajak switched hosting duties. Sajak hosted Jeopardy! that day and Trebek hosted Wheel of Fortune where Sajak and Vanna White played as contestants. Jeopardy! announcer Johnny Gilbert did double duties that day while regular Wheel of Fortune announcer Charlie O'Donnell announced some parts including the opening with Gilbert as well as telling Sajak and White that they won $25,000. A puzzle during the episode also featured Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious as an answer. Sajak's performance on Jeopardy! as host was widely praised by fans.

On 2003, Game Show Network played a prank by having hosts from their own shows guest host on other hosts' shows similar to 1997 when Pat Sajak hosted Jeopardy! and Alex Trebek hosted Wheel of Fortune. Graham Elwood from Cram guest hosted Whammy! The All-New Press Your Luck regularly hosted by Todd Newton. Mark Walberg from Russian Roulette guest hosted on Friend or Foe? regularly hosted by Kennedy. Newton from Whammy! guest hosted Russian Roulette reguarly hosted by Walberg. Kennedy from Friend or Foe? guest hosted WinTuition regularly hosted by Marc Summers. Summers from WinTuition guest hosted Cram regularly hosted by Elwood. The only show that didn't have a guest host was Lingo hosted by Chuck Woolery. Woolery still hosted while the other hosts, Walberg and Summers on the yellow team, and Kennedy and Elwood on the red team, played against each other for charity. Newton was the announcer that day.

On 2008, Jeopardy! played another joke by having Alex Trebek appear with a false mustache, a reference to the minor controversy that followed when he shaved his off in 2001. The fake was gone by the Double Jeopardy round. Also, Wheel of Fortune played another joke by having Pat Sajak reveal that he is bald by taking off his toupee. Like the mustache on Jeopardy!, the toupee was fake as Sajak actually has real hair.

The Price Is Right has often celebrated the day by featuring Showcases with assortments of gags, which have often included joke prizes (such as cheap items or trips to fictitious locations), or gags involving their presentation (such as most of the prizes being broken throughout the course of the skit). In most cases, once the contestant learned that it was an April Fools' joke, the real Showcase would consist of extravagant prizes, such as luxury and sports cars. The practice is best known from the 1980s, but was revived in the Drew Carey era in 2008.

In 2003, Hollywood Squares producers played an April Fools joke on host Tom Bergeron and the stars by booking two of the most difficult contestants ever. The contestants were in fact actors similar to what happened in 1987 to John Davidson. Another moment happened on the Davidson version in 1988 when center square Joan Rivers swapped places with Davidson to be host that day.

In 1991, the short-lived syndicated game show The Challengers played a prank on host Dick Clark and the three contestants, champion Kurt Weldon and challengers Mike Dwight and Meredith Kornfeld by showing six joke categories on the board for round one, Pre-Columbian Architecture, The Politics of Burundi, Quantum Physics, 14th Century Philosophers, Anaerobic Zoology, and Existential Poets. Dwight, who was leading at the end of the Sprint Round, picked Pre-Columbian Architecture and Clark asked what was going on and the board showed a huge APRIL FOOL! message causing Clark, the contestants, and the audience to laugh. Weldon admitted that he would have "cleaned up on Burundi". Clark asked judge Gary Johnson if it was his idea. Johnson said that it was appropriate for the day although he agreed with Weldon that he wanted to see about Burundi. Clark told Johnson to "go to his room" just before they showed the real categories for round one.

Hoaxes by Websites

On April 1, 2009, Wikipedia's homepage features the "Museum of Bad Art" as well as comical write-ups of recent events.

Dead fairy hoax: In 2007, an illusion designer for magicians posted on his website some images illustrating the corpse of an unknown eight-inch creation, which was claimed to be the mummified remains of a fairy. He later sold the fairy on eBay for £280.

NationStates runs an annual hoax on April 1. In 2004, the hoax was that there was a population bug and all nations' populations would be reset to 5 million people. In 2005, there was a message (supposedly from the Department of Homeworld Security) that NationStates was illegal by US law. In 2006, NationDates was created. It used a quiz similar to the one taken at the sign-up page, and matched that nation with a random country in the same region. In 2007, many users received "Regional moderator" icons with the promise that they would be able to "wield their awesome power" over other users. For April Fools' Day 2008, NationStates has created a new "World Assembly" in the place of the United Nations, as they had received a cease and desist notice from the United Nations for using its name without consent. This was later revealed to be a non-hoax, and that the inspiration to use it as an April Fools joke came from the assumption it was too unbelievable

Water on Mars: In 2005 a news story was posted on the official NASA website purporting to have pictures of water on Mars. The picture actually was just a picture of a glass of water on a Mars Candy Bar.

Microsoft Research Reclaims Value of Pi: In 2008, an executive with the Microsoft Institute for Advanced Technology in Governments posted on his personal blog an updated spoof of the 1998 April Fools hoax claiming Alabama's state legislature had rounded the value of pi to the "Biblical value of 3." The 2008 hoax claimed that Microsoft Research had determined the true-up value of pi to be a definitive 3.141999, or as expressed in company literature, "Three easy payments of 1.047333."

Assassination of Bill Gates: In 2003, many Chinese and South Korean websites claimed that CNN reported Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, was assassinated, resulting in a 1.5% drop in the South Korean stock market. (However, CNN is banned in the People's Republic of China.)

ScoringSessions.com announced that composer John Williams was replaced by Danny Elfman on the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - and provided photos from the scoring sessions.

RISKS Digest often publishes a special April 1 issue. Worth checking

ThinkGeek sends an e-newsletter containing mostly false products each year. Several of these products, such as the 8-Bit tie, were eventually realized due to customer demand.

IGN, a video game website, released a realistic-looking Legend of Zelda movie trailer on April Fool's Day 2007. Many people were excited and tricked into believing that a real Legend of Zelda movie was coming out, but IGN revealed that it was a fake. Later rumors were spread that a real Legend of Zelda film is going to be made.

YouTube - In 2008, All featured videos on YouTube's front page hyperlinked to the Rickroll. The prank began with international YouTube portals before appearing on the main site. In 2009 the videos, links and most text (using Unicode substitution) were turned upside down and there was also a link to help users view the new site layout with hints such as hanging the monitor upside-down or moving to Australia.

Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Wiki has pulled numerous April Fools pranks. In 2007, Wookieepedia's name was changed to "Katarnipedia" after Star Wars character Kyle Katarn. In 2008, they changed all the text of their main page to the Aurebesh language, and directed vistitors to Wookieepedia's sister site Darthipedia (which was actually the Star Wars Humor Wiki) to see English language versions of Wookieepedia articles. In 2009, Wookieepedia announced that they would no longer accept expanded universe material as canon and that the site would only accept information from the Star Wars films, rejecting their long-held policy of treating expanded universe material as equal to film material.

gonullyourself.org appeared to be "infected" by Conficker on 1st April 2009.

Expedia ran a prank on 1 April 2009, offering flights to Mars. This was internally known as Project Dawnstar.

On April 1, 2009 ThinkGeek.com "introduced" the Tauntaun Sleeping Bag. Due to the overwhelming popularity of this faux item, ThinkGeek is now attempting to bring the item to market.

On April 1, 2008, Blizzard released images and articles onto their website depicting a new Hero class for World of Warcraft, that was to go along with the Death Knight in the expansion pack Wrath of the Lich King. They also released an article on the Starcraft II website for the new "Tauren Marine" for the Terrans.

Links

April Fool's Day in Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia

The Hoax Museum

Best pranks on Video