So money doesn’t grow on trees but apparently spaghetti does!
That's what the BBC had a lot of people believe when they ran the now-classic prank on the Panorama TV programme on APRIL FOOL’S DAY – way back in 1957!
The scenes of Swiss harvesting spaghetti from trees conned hundreds of people into calling up the BBC requesting directions to grow their own ‘Pasta Plant’. The response was so overwhelming that the prank sort of backfired and the BBC had to declare on the news that the video was fabricated. This was a pioneering instance of TV been used to stage an April Fool’s Day hoax.
The origins of this annual leg-pulling celebration are shrouded in the mists of history. There is a supposed reference to April Fool’s day in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales while some link it to Pope Gregory XIII reinstating January 1 as New Year’s Day. Either way it’s nothing to be serious about, especially since the Romans celebrated the festival Hilaria (-sounds like a hoax disease by itself) on 25th March. Spanish speaking countries still celebrate a Feast of Fools in December which has continued down from medieval times.
For the Italians, French and Belgians it’s all fishy business. Tradition demands that a paper fish be stuck to the victim’s back with the call of ‘April Fish’!
Around the world April Fool’s Day or All Fool’s Day is an occasion to let mischief loose and play practical tricks and jokes on others. The butts of the ensuing jokes could vary in number from a single individual to an entire television audience. Arguably, the BBC holds the crown of creating widespread delusions on this day using the power of mass media. In 1965 the BBC feigned an experiment allowing the broadcast of aromas over airwaves. Apparently, many viewers reported that the experiment was successful! The BBC even re-ran the hoax in 2007 as an online version.
In another memorable April Fool’s gag, the British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that due to an ultra-rare planetary alignment earthlings could experience the effects of a diminished gravitational pull at precisely 9:47 a.m. on April 1, 1976. All they had to do was jump in the air and enjoy a ‘strange floating sensation. What followed was mass gullibility, with hundreds of calls regarding experiences of levity.
As Einstein has famously quoted “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.” So this April 1st put on your pranking socks, arrange the plastic joke cockroaches around the house and go forth and explore this landscape of human stupidity. And DO NOT underestimate your own!
