Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time
From the desk of
David Nye
#1: The
Swiss Spaghetti Harvest
In 1957 the respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a
very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil,
Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this
announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down
from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in, and many called up wanting
to know how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. To this question, the
BBC diplomatically replied that they should "place a sprig of spaghetti in a
tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."
#2: Sidd Finch
In its April 1985 edition, Sports Illustrated published a story about a
new rookie pitcher who planned to play for the Mets. His name was Sidd Finch
and he could reportedly throw a baseball with startling, pinpoint accuracy at
168 mph (65 mph faster than anyone else has ever been able to throw a ball).
Surprisingly, Sidd Finch had never even played the game before. Instead, he
had mastered the "art of the pitch" in a Tibetan monastery under the guidance
of the "great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa." Mets fans everywhere celebrated at
their teams' amazing luck at having found such a gifted player, and Sports
Illustrated was flooded with requests for more information. But in reality
this legendary player only existed in the imagination of the writer of the
article, George Plimpton.
#3: Instant Color TV
In
1962 there was only one tv channel in Sweden, and it broadcast in black and
white. The station's technical expert, Kjell Stensson, appeared on the news to
announce that thanks to a newly developed technology, all viewers could now
quickly and easily convert their existing sets to display color reception. All
they had to do was pull a nylon stocking over their tv screen, and they would
begin to see their favorite shows in color. Stensson then proceeded to
demonstrate the process. Reportedly, hundreds of thousands of people, out of
the population of seven million, were taken in. Actual color tv transmission
only commenced in Sweden on April 1, 1970.
#4: The Taco Liberty Bell
In 1996 the Taco Bell Corporation announced that it had bought the Liberty
Bell from the federal government and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell.
Hundreds of outraged citizens called up the National Historic Park in
Philadelphia where the bell is housed to express their anger. Their nerves
were only calmed when Taco Bell revealed that it was all a joke a few hours
later. The best line inspired by the affair came when White House press
secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale, and he responded that the
Lincoln Memorial had also been sold, though to a different corporation, and
would now be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.
The article continues on the following pages.