Mar
29
April Foolery
Honestly, I’ve never been a big fan of practical jokes — at least, not when played on me. Don’t like the attention or appreciate the embarrassment, and it’s all the worse when things get damaged or need to be cleaned afterward. But, some people enjoy them. With April Fools’ Day (April 1) fast approaching, I thought I’d do a little digging into the background of this non-holiday tradition known for the pulling of pranks and hoaxes….
Fact is, no one is quite sure where this particular tradition originated. Practical jokes have been around since practically forever, of course, and are played in various cultures. There were ancient Roman festivals (e.g., Hilaria) and a number of medieval European festivals called “Feast of Fools” that involved such activities, especially around the March equinox. The Persian New Year falls on April 1st and is marked in Iran with one of the oldest pranking traditions that still exists.
The basic concept of “fool’s errands” factors in, as well. Roman myth tells of the abduction by Pluto of Proserpina, whose mother searched the underworld for her in vain. Others point to the biblical character Noah, who “mistakenly sent the dove out [on April 1] to find dry land before the waters subsided.” Yet others look at the final hours of Jesus Christ, when Pontius Pilate sent Him to Herod to deal with, but who then sent Him back to Pilate again. The term “sending a man from Pilate to Herod” is another way of referring to a “fool’s errand”.
The explanation I like best actually ties back to Europe’s transition from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1582, as I touched on in my Leap Year post. The New Year had long been celebrated around the March equinox in much of Europe, including France where the holiday ended on April 1.
“People who were slow to get the news or failed to recognize that the start of the new year had moved to January 1 and continued to celebrate it during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes. These pranks included having paper fish placed on their backs and being referred to as “poisson d’avril” (April fish), said to symbolize a young, easily caught fish and a gullible person.”
To be fair, the earliest known reference to a “poisson d’avril” celebration in France is by the French poet Eloy d’Amerval in 1508. But, to this day, while the victim of a prank is still called a “fool”, Europeans sometimes refer to the unofficial holiday as “April Fish”. Observers may tack a paper fish to someone’s back and yell “April Fish!”, and fish are often featured on European April Fools’ Day cards.
In the U.K., pranking is supposed to stop at noon; anyone pulling something after this time then becomes the “fool”. While not so common now, the Scottish version became a two-day event known as Hunt-the-Gowk Day. Hunting the gowk (i.e., a cuckoo bird, symbolizing a fool) involved sending people of phony errands. This was followed by Tailie Day, in which pranks were played on people’s backsides — e.g., attaching a tail or “Kick me” sign. Of course, a variety of other traditions abound across Europe and elsewhere.
Some elaborate pranks and hoaxes have been perpetrated on the public for April Fools’ Day (aka April Fool’s Day, aka All Fools’ Day, aka April Fish Day) over the years. Here are a few I came across:
1698 – One of the first known April Fool’s Day pranks: Citizens of London were tricked into attending the lion-washing ceremony at the Tower of London, a ceremony that did not actually exist.
1934 – Many American newspapers, including The New York Times, printed a photograph of a man flying through the air, supported by a device powered only by the breath from his lungs. Accompanying articles excitedly described this miraculous new invention.
1957 – The BBC reported that Swiss farmers were experiencing a record spaghetti crop and showed footage of people harvesting noodles from trees.
Early 1960s – Sweden’s only TV channel, which broadcast in black and white, announced on the news that viewers could convert their existing sets to display color reception by pulling a nylon stocking over their screen.
1976 – BBC Radio 2 reported that, due to a rare astronomical alignment of Pluto behind Jupiter, the Earth’s gravity would temporarily decrease. Listeners were told to jump in the air at 9:47am to take advantage of this, which would result in a floating feeling. Many reported that they had felt this floating sensation, one even stating that she and her friends lifted from their chairs to float around the room together.
1978 – Millionaire businessman/adventurer Dick Smith announced he would be towing an iceberg from Antarctica to break into smaller cubes for sale. He advertised that these Antarctic ice cubes would freshen the taste of any drink for the price of ten cents a cube. The media was on site in the Sydney Harbor to report on the barge towing the iceberg, which was revealed to actually sheets covered with shaving cream and fire extinguishing foam.
1985 – Sports Illustrated ran a fake article by George Plimpton about a rookie pitcher named Hayden Siddhartha ‘Sidd’ Finch, who could throw a fastball over 168mph. Finch supposedly played with one bare foot and the other wearing a hiking boot.
1996 – Taco Bell announced it had agreed to purchase Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell and intended to rename it the Taco Liberty Bell.
1998 – Burger King advertised a “Left-Handed Whopper”.
2002 – British supermarket chain Tesco published an advertisement in The Sun, announcing a genetically modified ‘whistling carrot’. The ad explained that the carrots were engineered to grow with tapered air holes in their sides which, when fully cooked, would cause the carrots to whistle.
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.
2008 – The BBC reported on a newly discovered colony of flying penguins. An elaborate video segment was even produced, featuring Terry Jones walking with the penguins in Antarctica, and following their flight to the Amazon rainforest.
2015 – Bing launched a pretend new product called the “Cute Cloud”, which acted as a hub for cute animal videos and gifs.
Perhaps hard to believe, but many people fell for each and every one of these April Fool’s jokes. Sigh!
Have a safe one!
