April Fool’s day has been a bonanza for pranksters. Here are some classic capers from days gone by
GREAT April Fool’s Day gags have been entertaining and terrifying us for years.
FROM the spaghetti tree to metric time, April Fool’s Day has been a bonanza for pranksters.
Various forms of prank days are known around the world dating to Roman times, and generally are supposed to be harmless. The trick usually is to offer an outrageously credible proposition to prompt outraged incredulity.
Shameless showmen and corporate marketeers have cashed in on the day with stunts in recent years chasing publicity.
However in these PC times, with social media ready to explode if someone takes offence, and when hoaxes can be used cruelly or for political ends, the tradition of a “Gotcha!” guffaw at the gullible may take a hit.
The good news is the State Government plans to declare next April 1 a public holiday to mark the end of Mad March, although it will dump the Queen’s Birthday holiday in a symbolic move towards state republicanism.
Here are some classic April Fools Day capers from days gone by.
THE SPAGHETTI TREE
In 1957, when spaghetti was not well known in Britain, the BBC TV show Panorama ran a piece on a family in Switzerland harvesting strands of spaghetti from their spaghetti tree. Viewers rang in for advice on how to grow their own tree.
METRIC TIME
Then-South Australian Deputy Premier Des Corcoran was in on the gag in 1975 when ABC TV current affairs show This Day Tonight announced the nation would be converting to metric time, with 100 minutes to the hour, millidays and so forth.
Mr Corcoran praised the plan in a TV interview, and the Town Hall clock was shown appearing to have a new 10-hour metric face. Cue outrage. Some stunned viewers wanted to know what they needed to do convert their clocks. The prank was reported around the world.
YOU WANT ICE WITH THAT?
Businessman Dick Smith promised to deliver freshwater to places like Adelaide – without the need for a desal plant – via an iceberg towed from Antarctica. Furious discussion ensued on the logistics, including how big the iceberg would need to be to ensure it didn’t melt en route.
He even promised to cut parts into ice cubes called Dicksicles and sell them for 10c each.
On April 1, 1978, media organisations were alerted that he was delivering on the plan and was actually towing an iceberg into Sydney Harbour – but it rained on his parade and the “iceberg” soon dissolved into a foamy, frothy mess covered in white plastic sheeting.
The canny entrepreneur spent about $1000 on the fake ’berg for publicity money can’t buy.
DIGITAL BEN
The BBC was at it again in 1980 with a deadpan report that, in order to keep up with the times, Big Ben would go digital.
The British public was not amused, until they got the joke.
ALIENS HAVE LANDED
Another entrepreneur who knows how to attract publicity had Londoners thinking the aliens had landed.
But the UFO descending on a soccer field in 1989 was simply Richard Branson and a flying saucer-shaped hot air balloon. Humorous enough when you know it’s a joke, although a (non-April Fool’s) radio broadcast by American actor Orson Welles in New York in October 1938 of the HG Wells’ classic War of the Worlds – initially presented as a series of news bulletins – sparked panic when listeners thought it was a genuine news report.
TACO LIBERTY BELL
In a stroke of risky marketing genius, Taco Bell in the US announced in 1996 it had bought the historic Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. After all, you can buy corporate naming rights to just about everything else, right?
Angry Americans calmed down a few hours later when the company announced it was a practical joke. And everyone was talking about Taco Bell.
FLYING PENGUINS
In 2008, the BBC broadcast a trailer showing “flying penguins” promoting a documentary on the theory of evolution, showing how some penguins had regained their ability to fly.
It made front page new in London – in newspapers which were in on the prank.
FROG CAKE STADIUM
If you thought the Riverbank Precinct’s revitalisation was good so far, imagine this ...
In 2009, prior to the Adelaide Oval redevelopment, The Advertiser reported on plans for a new $300 million stadium on Pinky Flat.
“The 45,000 seat stadium, built totally with private-sector backing, will pay homage to a South Australian culinary favourite – the frog cake,” the story read.
“Plans show the stadium ... will have a lime green, retractable roof. A set of black eyes will be painted on one half of the roof, giving the impression that the frog stadium is ‘smiling’ whenever its roof is open.
“Hundreds of fluorescent bulbs will illuminate the exterior of the stadium at night, bathing the nearby Oval and River Torrens in a soothing lime green light.”
MOTHBALL CANBERRA
In 2009, Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle announced a plan to dam the Yarra, sending talkback radio into meltdown, then last year revealed Melbourne and Sydney would become the new co-capitals of Australia and Canberra’s Parliament House be turned into a museum.
The joke got more traction than expected – talkback radio warmed to the idea, as did Herald Sun readers. Sydney would get the financial portfolios while Melbourne would get the services sector, and federal pollies would sit in both cities. Maybe it wasn’t a joke after all.