Today is April Fools’ Day (sometimes also known as All Fools’ Day) and in the UK it is traditional to play pranks or stage hoaxes up until midday.
Over the years there have been several famous hoaxes perpetrated by the media. My favourites include the famous BBC prank in 1957, when they broadcast a film on the Panorama current affairs series that supposedly showed Swiss farmers picking freshly-grown spaghetti from spaghetti trees. The BBC was flooded with requests about where to purchase spaghetti trees and had to admit it was a hoax.
Twenty years later The Guardian newspaper produced a very convincing seven-page supplement about the mid-ocean island state of San Serriffe.
I suspect that this hoax will also appeal to other lovers of imagi-nations.
In 1984 the BBC entertainment programme That’s Life had an item about a new animal that had arrived at London Zoo.
The Lirpa Loof (April Fool written backwards) was said to be a hairy biped from the Himalayas, and it was said to have some unusual habits and traits. These included it producing purple droppings due to its diet of rhododendron flowers and a penchant for mimicking anything that it saw being done by its keepers and members of the public.
Finally, many years ago, a magazine (I think that it was Model Boat magazine) published the plans of a Russian ironclad battleship that had never been built. From what I can remember, its name was an anagram of April Fool and the design looked a little like of the Ekaterina II-class battleships, but with a pair of side-by-side turrets at both ends of the ship.
Too young to have seen the original spaghetti programme, I did and still do enjoy seeing repeats of it. It shows you how little of the World we knew back then compared to now. A case in point being David Attenborough's nature documentaries and the ground breaking 'World About Us' series and the others that followed.
ReplyDeleteI love the Sans Serriffe islands that must have made many a graphic designer chuckle over their breakfast cereal! IIRC the Nationwide tv programme did a hoax where they had discovered a dinosaur and showed 'footage' of it roaming about. Can't remember if it was an April Fool's joke or not, but being young I despeartely wanted it to be true!
Steve J.,
DeleteI am old enough to remember the spaghetti tree hoax broadcast … and it still makes me chuckle. At the time, eating spaghetti was the height of sophistication and seen as rather exotic. My mother used to make meatballs in a tomato sauce to go with spaghetti … but I never ate spaghetti bolognaise until I was well into my teenage years. How insular we were back then!
I’d never heard of the dinosaur hoax, but nowadays producing a realistic CGI dinosaur is relatively easy. It won’t be long before the borders between reality and CGI will be so blurred that it will be impossible to tell the difference between the two.
All the best,
Bob
Hi Bob,
ReplyDeleteThere was an amusing advert for Tartan paint for painting kilts put up by Little Corporal this morning. It looked so good I wanted to buy some and I don't even have any highlanders to paint!
Steve
Steve,
DeleteTartan paint! I simply MUST buy some. It can then sit on the shelf next to my box of holes and the long and short weights (waits) that are there!
All the best,
Bob
Back in the day, we publishers of The Courier Magazine" had an April Fool issue within the regular issue. It took, I believe, 6-8 pages of the regular issue. On its (inside) cover had apicture of the character from Mad Magazine, dressed as Napoleon sitting backwards on a horse. We had several April Fool articles one of which was a set of wargame rules for the period 1,000,000 BC to 1,000,000 AD with only a chart that added or subtracted factors from your die roll depending upon your weapon. So one could use a stone knife to go up against a highly developed ray gun! There were some fake advt as well, one advertising 1 mm figures, fully painted for sale with a fake address, etc. I received 3 inquiries about the fake address as they had tried to purchase the 1mm figures. I also received more letters then ever about the magazine complaining that I had used up too many pages in a farcical manner and they felt that they had been cheated in their subscription money!
ReplyDeleteDick Bryant,
DeleteI must have missed that issue. (I started buying THE COURIER late in its publication life … which is a great pity.)
Some people will complain about things like that … and in my experience those who contribute least to the hobby complain most.
All the best,
Bob
Bob -
ReplyDeleteMany decades ago, a TV show 'Country Calendar' (still running) produced an item in which a farmer discovered that front fence could be played like a harp or guitar. Perfectly tuned. He played a couple of items by way of demonstration. The date? 1st April - don't recall what year...
https://teara.govt.nz/en/video/15282/musical-fence
Meanwhile, I am eyeing that interesting piece of 'naval architecture', thinking - that would be just the thing for my Izumrud-Zeleniyan Navy... It is an alternate world, after all!
Cheers,
Ion
Archduke Piccolo (Ion),
DeleteThe basis of any great hoax is a tiny nugget of truth. It is possible to believe that a wire fence might just produce a sound in the right circumstances, therefore that story might just be true.
As to the ship design … well, I’ve looked for the original article but cannot find it. My memory is that it looked a bit like a cross between the Russian Ekaterina II-class and the British Devastation-class, but with two pairs of turrets, fore and aft.
All the best,
Bob
I must admit I've never been good at pulling April Fool's pranks. The custom is popular here in the US as well as the UK with the minor difference being that we'll keep up the fun all day long.
ReplyDeleteWe decided to celebrate my birthday today even though the actual date is very close to St. Patrick's Day, another big party day in the US. Going out on Friday would have been too much for me and our friends were away for 2 weeks, so today seemed a good day.
My wife got me by saying "I have bad news, Abbey's Pub will be closed today!" which I fell for without hesitation. We had a good laugh and a good time over the evening with drinks, friends and family. She caught me off guard so easily because I was being extra careful with anything I saw on the internet today. The Boy Scouts of America posted an article saying they were allowing scouts who found a way to use teleportation to meet their 50 mile hike requirements for one of their badges and I wasn't falling for that! It seems most youtubers have a good chance of putting up some silly video for the day.
Anyway, it was fun and I hope your April Fool's day went well.
Mr. Pavone,
DeleteHappy (belated) birthday! I hope that you enjoyed yourself in the company of your friends and family.
A clever April Fools’ Day hoax or joke is certainly something to savour … and I loved the idea behind the Boy Scouts of America’s attempt at one, even if you didn’t fall for it.
All the best,
Bob
I remember the San Seriffe supplement, articles on various aspects of the islands by their various writers - dream stuff for imagi-nations. The use of font names was excellent.
ReplyDeleteBrian Cameron,
DeleteIt was very clever and set the bar quite high for those who came afterwards.
I’ve seen other imagi-nations where the place names were all base on a common theme, including food and drink.
All the best,
Bob