Post by bluehawaii61 on Mar 31, 2009 19:56:30 GMT -5
April Fools' Day
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
April Fools' Day or All Fools' Day, although not a holiday in its own right, is a notable day celebrated in many countries on April 1. The day is marked by the commission of hoaxes and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends, family members, enemies, and neighbors, or sending them on fool's errand, the aim of which is to embarrass the gullible.
Traditionally, in some countries, the jokes only last until noon: like UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, someone who plays a trick after noon is called an "April Fool". Elsewhere, such as in Ireland, France, and the USA, the jokes last all day.
Origins
The origin of April Fools' Day is obscure. 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 signalled the start of the spring planting season. An April Fool was someone who did this prematurely.
Another origin is that April 1 was counted the first day of the year in France. When King Charles IX changed that to January 1, some people stayed with April 1. Those who did were called "April Fools" and were taunted by their neighbors. In the eighteenth century the festival was often posited as going back to the times of Noah. An English newspaper article published on April 13th, 1789 said that the day had its origins when he sent the raven 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 32nd.
Well-known pranks
• Alabama Changes the Value of Pi: The April 1998 newsletter of New Mexicans for Science and Reason contained an article written by physicist Mark Boslough claiming that the Alabama Legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi to the "Biblical value" of 3.0. This claim originally appeared as a news story in the 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein.
• Spaghetti trees: The BBC television programme Panorama ran a famous hoax in 1957, showing the Swiss 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. It was, in fact, filmed in St Albans.
• 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.
• 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.
• San Serriffe: The Guardian printed a supplement in 1977 praising this fictional resort, its two main islands (Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse), its capital (Bodoni), 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. (This comes from a Jorge Luis Borges story.)
• 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.
• Smell-o-vision: In 1965, the BBC purported to conduct a trial of a new technology allowing the transmission of odor over the airwaves to all viewers. Many viewers reportedly contacted the BBC to report the trial's success. In 2007, the BBC website repeated an online version of the hoax.
• Tower of Pisa: The Dutch television news reported once in the 1950s that the Tower of Pisa had fallen over. Many shocked people contacted the station.
• Write Only Memory: Signetics advertised Write Only Memory IC databooks in 1972 through the late 1970s.
• 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 see a new "cutting-edge invention" by BMW advertised across British newspapers every year, examples including:
o Warning against counterfeit BMWs: the blue and white parts of the logo were reversed
o The "Toot and Calm Horn" (after Tutankhamun), which calms rather than aggravates other drivers, so reducing the risk of road rage,
o MINI cars being used in upcoming space missions to Mars,
o IDS ("Insect Deflector Screen") Technology - using elastic solutions to bounce insects off the windscreen as you drive,
o SHEF ("Satellite Hypersensitive Electromagnetic Foodration") Technology, which sees the car's GPS systems synchronise with home appliances to perfectly cook a meal for the instant you return home,
o Marque-Wiper - mini-wipers for each exterior "BMW" logo coming as standard on all future models,
o "Uninventing the wheel" to counter the "EU ban" on right-hand drive cars,
o Zoom Impression Pixels ("ZIP") to counter new "Slow Cameras"
o "BMW Instant Messaging" - using Reactive User Sound Electronic (RUSE) particles to display the driver's words to the car in front on the windscreen.
o A compact disc available to all BMW owners, which when played over the audio system performed minor service and diagnostic checks; when flipped over it played soothing classical music (Australia).
o Canine Repellent Alloy Protection (CRAP)- a means of discouraging dogs from urinating on car wheels. (2008)
By radio stations
• BBC Radio 4 (2005): The Today Programme announced in the news that the long-running serial The Archers had changed their theme tune to an upbeat disco style.
• Death of a mayor: In 1998, local WAAF shock jocks Opie and Anthony reported that Boston mayor Thomas Menino had been killed in a car accident. Menino happened to be on a flight at the time, lending credence to the prank as he could not be reached. The rumor spread quickly across the city, eventually causing news stations to issue alerts denying the hoax. The pair were fired shortly thereafter.
• Phone call: In 1998, UK presenter Nic Tuff of West Midlands radio station Kix 96 pretended to be the British Prime Minister Tony Blair when he called the then South African President Nelson Mandela for a chat. It was only at the end of the call when Nic asked Nelson what he was doing for April Fools' Day that the line went dead.[20]
• Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect: In 1976, British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore told listeners of BBC Radio 2 that unique alignment of two planets would result in an upward gravitational pull making people lighter at precisely 9:47 a.m. that day. He invited his audience to jump in the air and experience "a strange floating sensation." Dozens of listeners phoned in to say the experiment had worked.
• Shuttle landing: In 1993, Dave Rickards of Dave, Shelly, and Chainsaw, the morning show for San Diego's 101.5 KGB fooled many listeners into believing that the space shuttle had been diverted from Edwards Air Force Base and was about to make an emergency landing at Montgomery Field, a small local airport.
• "National Public Radio" Every year National Public Radio in the United States does an extensive news story on April 1st. 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. It also runs false sponsor mentions, such as "Support for NPR comes from the Soylent Corporation, manufacturing protein-rich food products in a variety of colors. Soylent Green is People.”
By television stations
• After 50 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.
• 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 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.
• 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.
• 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 premier which was supposed to reveal the father of Eric Cartman.
By magazines, newspapers, and books
• 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. This kid, known as "Barefoot" Sidd[hartha] Finch, reportedly learned to pitch in a Buddhist monastery. The first letter of each word in the article subhead spelled out the fact of its being an April Fool joke.
• Lies to Get You Out of the House: 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 April 1 2006 the UK Guardian journalist "Olaf Priol" 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".
By game shows
• As part of an April Fools' joke on April 1, 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. A puzzle during the episode also featured Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious as an answer.
• On April 1, 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.
• A common The Price Is Right gag is an April Fools' Day themed showcase featuring assortments of gag prizes (such as trips to made up locations) or by staging the entire showcase to fall apart. However, once the deception was revealed, the real showcase the contestant was to bid on usually consisted of extravagant prizes, such as two cars, or a premium car (Cadillac or Corvette). The practice is best known from the 1980s, but was revived in the Drew Carey era in 2008. The 2009 April Fool's Day gag will also feature the show's increased use of guests; Kathy Kinney, who played Carey's nemesis on his eponymous sitcom, makes an appearance during the Showcase.
• 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.
By websites
The 2008 April Fools version of Wikipedia
• Kremvax: In 1984, in one of the earliest on-line hoaxes, a message was circulated that Usenet had been opened to users in the Soviet Union.
• 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.
• 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 Korean stock market.
• SARS Infects Hong Kong: In 2003 during the time when Hong Kong was seriously hit by SARS, it was rumored that many people in Hong Kong had become infected with SARS and become uncontrolled, that all immigration ports would be closed to quarantine the region, and that Tung Chee Hwa, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong at that time, had resigned. Hong Kong supermarkets were immediately overwhelmed by panicked shoppers. The Hong Kong government held a press conference to deny the rumor. The rumor, which was intended as an April Fools' prank, was started by a student by imitating the design of Ming Pao newspaper website. He was charged for this incident.
• www.howstuffworks.com does an annual bogus article. In 2006, it was "How Animated Tattoos Work"; in 2007 "How Phone Cell Implants Work"; in 2008 "How the Air Force One Hybrid Works".
• In 2008, Australian video gaming website company MyMedia, released information and previews on MyMedia: The Movie, the supposed upcoming movie was to be animated and produced by the Australian Film Commission, it was confirmed fake a few days after. The movie was supposedly based on a comic series created by one of the site's editorial staff, Matt Kelly. This has since become an on going website gag about over hyping the non-existent movie through various additional trailers.
• 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.
• ThinkGeek sends an e-newsletter containing mostly false products each year. [52] Several of these products have actually become real products due to customer demand, for example the 8-Bit Ties.
• IGN, a famous video game website, created a Legend of Zelda movie trailer which looked realistic on April Fools Day. Many people were excited and tricked into believing that a real Legend of Zelda movie was coming out, but then IGN revealed that it was a fake. Later rumors were spread that a REAL Legend of Zelda film is going to be made.
Real news on April Fools' Day
The frequency of April Fools' hoaxes sometimes makes people doubt real news stories released on April 1.
The 1946 April Fools' Day tsunami in Hilo, Hawaii.
• The April 1, 1946 Aleutian Island earthquake tsunami that killed 165 people in Hawaii and Alaska resulted in the creation of a tsunami warning system (specifically the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre), established in 1949 for Pacific Ocean countries. The tsunami in question is known in Hawaii as the "April Fools' Day Tsunami" due to people drowning because of the assumptions that the warnings were an April Fools' prank.
• The death of King George II of Greece on April 1, 1947.
• The AMC Gremlin was first introduced on April 1, 1970.
• On April 1, 1993, NASCAR Winston Cup Series Champion Alan Kulwicki was killed in a plane crash involving Hooters of America executives in Blountville, Tennessee near the Tri-Cities Airport. The party was traveling to the Food City 500 qualifying scheduled for the next day.
• The 2005 death of comedian Mitch Hedberg was originally dismissed as an April Fools' joke. The comedian's March 29, 2005 death was announced on March 31, but many newspapers didn't carry the story until April 1, 2005.
• Gmail's April 2004 launch was widely believed to be a prank, as Google traditionally perpetrates April Fools' Day hoaxes each April 1. Another Google-related event that turned out not to be a hoax occurred on April 1, 2007, when employees at Google's New York City office were alerted that a ball python kept in an engineer's cubicle had escaped and was on the loose. An internal e-mail acknowledged that "the timing…could not be more awkward" but that the snake's escape was in fact an actual occurrence and not a prank.
• The merger of Square and its rival company, Enix, took place on April 1, 2003, and was originally thought to be a joke.
• The announcement of the anime version of the Powerpuff Girls, Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z, was on April Fools' Day causing many to think it was a joke.
• The game Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games was announced only a couple days before April Fools' Day. Forums were flooded because so many thought that the two rivals since the 90's, Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog, appearing together in a video game as an official 2008 Olympics game was a joke.
• British sprinter Dwain Chambers joined English rugby league team Castleford Tigers shortly before 1st April 2008. The athlete was attempting a return to top flight athletics at the time following a high profile drugs ban, and his apparent unfamiliarity with rugby led many people to assume this was an April Fools' Day prank.
• On April 1st, 2008, it was reported that UEFA would require the Swedish fast food chain Max to close their restaurant at the Borås Arena during the European Under-21 Football Championship due to a conflict with official sponsor McDonalds and a requirement that only official sponsors may operate around the arena. The arena was later replaced as a tournament site.
• On April 1, 1984, singer Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his father. Originally, people assumed that it was a fake news story, especially considering the bizarre aspect of the father being the murderer.
• On April 1, 2008, Christian Persch announced that the GNOME desktop web browser Epiphany would be switched from Mozilla's Gecko engine to the WebKit engine used by Safari and KDE's equivalent application Konqueror.
Other prank days in the world
Iranians play jokes on each other on the 13th day of the Persian new year (Norouz), which falls on April 1 or April 2. This day, celebrated as far back as 536 BC, is called Sizdah Bedar and is the oldest prank-tradition in the world still alive today; this fact has led many to believe that April Fools' Day has its origins in this tradition.
The April 1 tradition in France and French-speaking Canada includes poisson d'avril (literally "April's fish"), attempting to attach a paper fish to the victim's back without being noticed. This is also widespread in other nations, such as Italy (where the term Pesce d'aprile (literally "April's fish") is also used to refer to any jokes done during the day). In Spanish-speaking countries, similar pranks are practiced on December 28, día de los Santos Inocentes, the "Day of the Holy Innocents". This custom also exists in certain areas of Belgium, including the province of Antwerp. The Flemish tradition is for children to lock out their parents or teachers, only letting them in if they promise to bring treats the same evening or the next day.
In Poland, prima aprilis ("April 1" in Latin) is a day full of jokes; various hoaxes are prepared by people, media (which sometimes cooperate to make the "information" more credible) and even public institutions. Serious activities are usually avoided. This conviction is so strong that the anti-Turkish alliance with Leopold I signed on April 1, 1683, was backdated to March 31.
In Scotland, April Fools' Day is traditionally called Hunt-the-Gowk Day ("gowk" is Scots for a cuckoo or a foolish person), although this name has fallen into disuse. The traditional prank is to ask someone to deliver a sealed message requesting help of some sort. In fact, the message reads "Dinna laugh, dinna smile. Hunt the gowk another mile". The recipient, upon reading it, will explain he can only help if he first contacts another person, and sends the victim to this person with an identical message, with the same result. Also Scotland has 2 whole days for pranks, April 1 and April 2.
In Denmark the 1st of May is known as "Maj-kat", meaning "May-cat", and is identical to April Fools' Day, though Danes also celebrate April Fools' Day ("aprilsnar").
Some Jewish communities have a traditional event called a Purim spiel, which is similar in many ways to April Fools' Day. Fake newspaper articles are common.
April Fools' Day in media
• The 1986 horror film April Fool's Day is themed around the holiday (akin to Halloween).
• In the film The French Connection, the opening scenes take place on April 1 and show children in Marseille running around pinning poissons d'Avril (April fish) on each other.
• The birthday of the mischievous twins, Fred and George Weasley from the Harry Potter series is April 1st.
• In the anime series Fushigi Yūgi, the character Takiko Okuda was murdered by her father on April 1st.
• O. Stock, C. Strapparava & A. Nijholt (eds.) The April Fools' Day Workshop on Computational Humour. Proc. Twente Workshop on Language Technology 20 (TWLT20), ISSN 0929-0672, ITC-IRST, Trento, Italy, April 2002, 146 pp
• In calendars published by Mad Magazine, April 1 is given as the birthday of Alfred E. Neuman.
• April Fool is the codename for a spy and double agent who allegedly played a key role in the downfall of the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
• Pigasus Award, a tongue-in-cheek honor presented on April 1, given in the field of "Paranormal fraud".
• Sizdah Bedar, the last day of two-week springtime celebrations for the Persian New Year is a day of pranks, just like April Fools' Day.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
April Fools' Day or All Fools' Day, although not a holiday in its own right, is a notable day celebrated in many countries on April 1. The day is marked by the commission of hoaxes and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends, family members, enemies, and neighbors, or sending them on fool's errand, the aim of which is to embarrass the gullible.
Traditionally, in some countries, the jokes only last until noon: like UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, someone who plays a trick after noon is called an "April Fool". Elsewhere, such as in Ireland, France, and the USA, the jokes last all day.
Origins
The origin of April Fools' Day is obscure. 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 signalled the start of the spring planting season. An April Fool was someone who did this prematurely.
Another origin is that April 1 was counted the first day of the year in France. When King Charles IX changed that to January 1, some people stayed with April 1. Those who did were called "April Fools" and were taunted by their neighbors. In the eighteenth century the festival was often posited as going back to the times of Noah. An English newspaper article published on April 13th, 1789 said that the day had its origins when he sent the raven 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 32nd.
Well-known pranks
• Alabama Changes the Value of Pi: The April 1998 newsletter of New Mexicans for Science and Reason contained an article written by physicist Mark Boslough claiming that the Alabama Legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi to the "Biblical value" of 3.0. This claim originally appeared as a news story in the 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein.
• Spaghetti trees: The BBC television programme Panorama ran a famous hoax in 1957, showing the Swiss 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. It was, in fact, filmed in St Albans.
• 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.
• 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.
• San Serriffe: The Guardian printed a supplement in 1977 praising this fictional resort, its two main islands (Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse), its capital (Bodoni), 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. (This comes from a Jorge Luis Borges story.)
• 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.
• Smell-o-vision: In 1965, the BBC purported to conduct a trial of a new technology allowing the transmission of odor over the airwaves to all viewers. Many viewers reportedly contacted the BBC to report the trial's success. In 2007, the BBC website repeated an online version of the hoax.
• Tower of Pisa: The Dutch television news reported once in the 1950s that the Tower of Pisa had fallen over. Many shocked people contacted the station.
• Write Only Memory: Signetics advertised Write Only Memory IC databooks in 1972 through the late 1970s.
• 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 see a new "cutting-edge invention" by BMW advertised across British newspapers every year, examples including:
o Warning against counterfeit BMWs: the blue and white parts of the logo were reversed
o The "Toot and Calm Horn" (after Tutankhamun), which calms rather than aggravates other drivers, so reducing the risk of road rage,
o MINI cars being used in upcoming space missions to Mars,
o IDS ("Insect Deflector Screen") Technology - using elastic solutions to bounce insects off the windscreen as you drive,
o SHEF ("Satellite Hypersensitive Electromagnetic Foodration") Technology, which sees the car's GPS systems synchronise with home appliances to perfectly cook a meal for the instant you return home,
o Marque-Wiper - mini-wipers for each exterior "BMW" logo coming as standard on all future models,
o "Uninventing the wheel" to counter the "EU ban" on right-hand drive cars,
o Zoom Impression Pixels ("ZIP") to counter new "Slow Cameras"
o "BMW Instant Messaging" - using Reactive User Sound Electronic (RUSE) particles to display the driver's words to the car in front on the windscreen.
o A compact disc available to all BMW owners, which when played over the audio system performed minor service and diagnostic checks; when flipped over it played soothing classical music (Australia).
o Canine Repellent Alloy Protection (CRAP)- a means of discouraging dogs from urinating on car wheels. (2008)
By radio stations
• BBC Radio 4 (2005): The Today Programme announced in the news that the long-running serial The Archers had changed their theme tune to an upbeat disco style.
• Death of a mayor: In 1998, local WAAF shock jocks Opie and Anthony reported that Boston mayor Thomas Menino had been killed in a car accident. Menino happened to be on a flight at the time, lending credence to the prank as he could not be reached. The rumor spread quickly across the city, eventually causing news stations to issue alerts denying the hoax. The pair were fired shortly thereafter.
• Phone call: In 1998, UK presenter Nic Tuff of West Midlands radio station Kix 96 pretended to be the British Prime Minister Tony Blair when he called the then South African President Nelson Mandela for a chat. It was only at the end of the call when Nic asked Nelson what he was doing for April Fools' Day that the line went dead.[20]
• Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect: In 1976, British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore told listeners of BBC Radio 2 that unique alignment of two planets would result in an upward gravitational pull making people lighter at precisely 9:47 a.m. that day. He invited his audience to jump in the air and experience "a strange floating sensation." Dozens of listeners phoned in to say the experiment had worked.
• Shuttle landing: In 1993, Dave Rickards of Dave, Shelly, and Chainsaw, the morning show for San Diego's 101.5 KGB fooled many listeners into believing that the space shuttle had been diverted from Edwards Air Force Base and was about to make an emergency landing at Montgomery Field, a small local airport.
• "National Public Radio" Every year National Public Radio in the United States does an extensive news story on April 1st. 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. It also runs false sponsor mentions, such as "Support for NPR comes from the Soylent Corporation, manufacturing protein-rich food products in a variety of colors. Soylent Green is People.”
By television stations
• After 50 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.
• 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 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.
• 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.
• 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 premier which was supposed to reveal the father of Eric Cartman.
By magazines, newspapers, and books
• 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. This kid, known as "Barefoot" Sidd[hartha] Finch, reportedly learned to pitch in a Buddhist monastery. The first letter of each word in the article subhead spelled out the fact of its being an April Fool joke.
• Lies to Get You Out of the House: 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 April 1 2006 the UK Guardian journalist "Olaf Priol" 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".
By game shows
• As part of an April Fools' joke on April 1, 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. A puzzle during the episode also featured Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious as an answer.
• On April 1, 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.
• A common The Price Is Right gag is an April Fools' Day themed showcase featuring assortments of gag prizes (such as trips to made up locations) or by staging the entire showcase to fall apart. However, once the deception was revealed, the real showcase the contestant was to bid on usually consisted of extravagant prizes, such as two cars, or a premium car (Cadillac or Corvette). The practice is best known from the 1980s, but was revived in the Drew Carey era in 2008. The 2009 April Fool's Day gag will also feature the show's increased use of guests; Kathy Kinney, who played Carey's nemesis on his eponymous sitcom, makes an appearance during the Showcase.
• 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.
By websites
The 2008 April Fools version of Wikipedia
• Kremvax: In 1984, in one of the earliest on-line hoaxes, a message was circulated that Usenet had been opened to users in the Soviet Union.
• 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.
• 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 Korean stock market.
• SARS Infects Hong Kong: In 2003 during the time when Hong Kong was seriously hit by SARS, it was rumored that many people in Hong Kong had become infected with SARS and become uncontrolled, that all immigration ports would be closed to quarantine the region, and that Tung Chee Hwa, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong at that time, had resigned. Hong Kong supermarkets were immediately overwhelmed by panicked shoppers. The Hong Kong government held a press conference to deny the rumor. The rumor, which was intended as an April Fools' prank, was started by a student by imitating the design of Ming Pao newspaper website. He was charged for this incident.
• www.howstuffworks.com does an annual bogus article. In 2006, it was "How Animated Tattoos Work"; in 2007 "How Phone Cell Implants Work"; in 2008 "How the Air Force One Hybrid Works".
• In 2008, Australian video gaming website company MyMedia, released information and previews on MyMedia: The Movie, the supposed upcoming movie was to be animated and produced by the Australian Film Commission, it was confirmed fake a few days after. The movie was supposedly based on a comic series created by one of the site's editorial staff, Matt Kelly. This has since become an on going website gag about over hyping the non-existent movie through various additional trailers.
• 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.
• ThinkGeek sends an e-newsletter containing mostly false products each year. [52] Several of these products have actually become real products due to customer demand, for example the 8-Bit Ties.
• IGN, a famous video game website, created a Legend of Zelda movie trailer which looked realistic on April Fools Day. Many people were excited and tricked into believing that a real Legend of Zelda movie was coming out, but then IGN revealed that it was a fake. Later rumors were spread that a REAL Legend of Zelda film is going to be made.
Real news on April Fools' Day
The frequency of April Fools' hoaxes sometimes makes people doubt real news stories released on April 1.
The 1946 April Fools' Day tsunami in Hilo, Hawaii.
• The April 1, 1946 Aleutian Island earthquake tsunami that killed 165 people in Hawaii and Alaska resulted in the creation of a tsunami warning system (specifically the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre), established in 1949 for Pacific Ocean countries. The tsunami in question is known in Hawaii as the "April Fools' Day Tsunami" due to people drowning because of the assumptions that the warnings were an April Fools' prank.
• The death of King George II of Greece on April 1, 1947.
• The AMC Gremlin was first introduced on April 1, 1970.
• On April 1, 1993, NASCAR Winston Cup Series Champion Alan Kulwicki was killed in a plane crash involving Hooters of America executives in Blountville, Tennessee near the Tri-Cities Airport. The party was traveling to the Food City 500 qualifying scheduled for the next day.
• The 2005 death of comedian Mitch Hedberg was originally dismissed as an April Fools' joke. The comedian's March 29, 2005 death was announced on March 31, but many newspapers didn't carry the story until April 1, 2005.
• Gmail's April 2004 launch was widely believed to be a prank, as Google traditionally perpetrates April Fools' Day hoaxes each April 1. Another Google-related event that turned out not to be a hoax occurred on April 1, 2007, when employees at Google's New York City office were alerted that a ball python kept in an engineer's cubicle had escaped and was on the loose. An internal e-mail acknowledged that "the timing…could not be more awkward" but that the snake's escape was in fact an actual occurrence and not a prank.
• The merger of Square and its rival company, Enix, took place on April 1, 2003, and was originally thought to be a joke.
• The announcement of the anime version of the Powerpuff Girls, Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z, was on April Fools' Day causing many to think it was a joke.
• The game Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games was announced only a couple days before April Fools' Day. Forums were flooded because so many thought that the two rivals since the 90's, Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog, appearing together in a video game as an official 2008 Olympics game was a joke.
• British sprinter Dwain Chambers joined English rugby league team Castleford Tigers shortly before 1st April 2008. The athlete was attempting a return to top flight athletics at the time following a high profile drugs ban, and his apparent unfamiliarity with rugby led many people to assume this was an April Fools' Day prank.
• On April 1st, 2008, it was reported that UEFA would require the Swedish fast food chain Max to close their restaurant at the Borås Arena during the European Under-21 Football Championship due to a conflict with official sponsor McDonalds and a requirement that only official sponsors may operate around the arena. The arena was later replaced as a tournament site.
• On April 1, 1984, singer Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his father. Originally, people assumed that it was a fake news story, especially considering the bizarre aspect of the father being the murderer.
• On April 1, 2008, Christian Persch announced that the GNOME desktop web browser Epiphany would be switched from Mozilla's Gecko engine to the WebKit engine used by Safari and KDE's equivalent application Konqueror.
Other prank days in the world
Iranians play jokes on each other on the 13th day of the Persian new year (Norouz), which falls on April 1 or April 2. This day, celebrated as far back as 536 BC, is called Sizdah Bedar and is the oldest prank-tradition in the world still alive today; this fact has led many to believe that April Fools' Day has its origins in this tradition.
The April 1 tradition in France and French-speaking Canada includes poisson d'avril (literally "April's fish"), attempting to attach a paper fish to the victim's back without being noticed. This is also widespread in other nations, such as Italy (where the term Pesce d'aprile (literally "April's fish") is also used to refer to any jokes done during the day). In Spanish-speaking countries, similar pranks are practiced on December 28, día de los Santos Inocentes, the "Day of the Holy Innocents". This custom also exists in certain areas of Belgium, including the province of Antwerp. The Flemish tradition is for children to lock out their parents or teachers, only letting them in if they promise to bring treats the same evening or the next day.
In Poland, prima aprilis ("April 1" in Latin) is a day full of jokes; various hoaxes are prepared by people, media (which sometimes cooperate to make the "information" more credible) and even public institutions. Serious activities are usually avoided. This conviction is so strong that the anti-Turkish alliance with Leopold I signed on April 1, 1683, was backdated to March 31.
In Scotland, April Fools' Day is traditionally called Hunt-the-Gowk Day ("gowk" is Scots for a cuckoo or a foolish person), although this name has fallen into disuse. The traditional prank is to ask someone to deliver a sealed message requesting help of some sort. In fact, the message reads "Dinna laugh, dinna smile. Hunt the gowk another mile". The recipient, upon reading it, will explain he can only help if he first contacts another person, and sends the victim to this person with an identical message, with the same result. Also Scotland has 2 whole days for pranks, April 1 and April 2.
In Denmark the 1st of May is known as "Maj-kat", meaning "May-cat", and is identical to April Fools' Day, though Danes also celebrate April Fools' Day ("aprilsnar").
Some Jewish communities have a traditional event called a Purim spiel, which is similar in many ways to April Fools' Day. Fake newspaper articles are common.
April Fools' Day in media
• The 1986 horror film April Fool's Day is themed around the holiday (akin to Halloween).
• In the film The French Connection, the opening scenes take place on April 1 and show children in Marseille running around pinning poissons d'Avril (April fish) on each other.
• The birthday of the mischievous twins, Fred and George Weasley from the Harry Potter series is April 1st.
• In the anime series Fushigi Yūgi, the character Takiko Okuda was murdered by her father on April 1st.
• O. Stock, C. Strapparava & A. Nijholt (eds.) The April Fools' Day Workshop on Computational Humour. Proc. Twente Workshop on Language Technology 20 (TWLT20), ISSN 0929-0672, ITC-IRST, Trento, Italy, April 2002, 146 pp
• In calendars published by Mad Magazine, April 1 is given as the birthday of Alfred E. Neuman.
• April Fool is the codename for a spy and double agent who allegedly played a key role in the downfall of the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
• Pigasus Award, a tongue-in-cheek honor presented on April 1, given in the field of "Paranormal fraud".
• Sizdah Bedar, the last day of two-week springtime celebrations for the Persian New Year is a day of pranks, just like April Fools' Day.