April Fools’ day is approaching fast so I thought you might be amused by some stories of pranks from over the years:
In 1957 the BBC TV programme Panorama ran a famous April Fools’ hoax, showing Swiss farmers harvesting spaghetti from trees. They had claimed that the despised pest the evil spaghetti weevil, had been eradicated. A large number of people contacted the BBC wanting to know how to grow their own spaghetti trees. It was, in fact, filmed in St Albans and not Switzerland at all.
It was 1962 and a Swedish national television did a 5 minute special on how to get colour TV by placing a nylon stocking in front of your screen. An in-depth description on the physics behind the phenomenon followed.
1976, a British astronomer, Sir Patrick Moore told listeners of BBC Radio 2 that at precisely 9:47 that day a unique alignment of two solar system planets would result in an upward gravitational pull making people feel lighter. He invited his audience to experience “a strange floating sensation” by jumping up in the air. Manu of his listeners phoned in to say the experiment had worked.
1980, the BBC reported a proposed change to the famous Houses of Parliament clock tower known as Big Ben. The reporter stated that the clock was going to go digital!
1983, Australian millionaire businessman Dick Smith claimed he had towed a huge iceberg from Antarctica to Sydney Harbour. He covered an old barge with white plastic sheeting and fire extinguisher foam to convince the witnesses.
1998, where a classic April Fool jest by Burger King ran an ad in the USA Today, stating that you could get a Whopper created specifically for left handed people, it was said that the condiments were designed to drip out of the right side only. Not only did customers order the new burgers, but some specifically requested the “old”, right handed burger.
In 2004, GMTV the British breakfast show broadcast a piece claiming that Yorkshire Water were trialing a new ‘diet tap water’ which had already helped one customer lose a stone and a half in only 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 slimming water. Following the story, Yorkshire Water received 10,000 enquiries from fooled viewers.
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 bright red and showing footage of workmen carrying a red door. The Labour party which formed the government at the time, has red as their official colour. The story was also reported in the British newspaper, The Daily Mail which credited the new design to April Fewell.
2008, on April 1st the BBC reported on a newly discovered arctic colony of flying penguins. There was even a elaborate video segment broadcast, featuring Terry Jones (from Monty Python fame) walking with the penguins in Antarctica, and then following their flight to the Amazon rain forest.
Here at Katie’s cards we have created a new mind bending new for April fools day e card, which is available to send through the site.
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