MelissaA
Brenton
Shilpa Karhik
Fantastic April Fools Day Pranks Of The Past!
April 2nd 2007 00:25
I'm sure most (if not all) of you have cottoned onto the real story behind yesterdays post. Indeed there is nothing actually wrong with the skywalk. (Yes, it is real the only fabrication was the closing down again part.) So after yesterdays post I thought enlighten you with some other April fools day pranks of the past.
* The Guardian printed a supplement in 1977 praising the location of a fictional resort - San Serriffe, 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.
* 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.
* Australian radio station Triple J breakfast show co-host Adam Spencer announced in 1999 that he had a journalist on the line at the site of a secret IOC meeting and that Sydney had lost the 2000 Summer Olympics. New South Wales Premier Bob Carr was also in on the joke. Mainstream media (including Channel 9's Today Show) picked up the story.
* Australian radio station Triple M breakfast show The Cage announced in 2002 that Athens had lost the 2004 Summer Olympics because they couldn't be ready in time and that Sydney would have to host it again.
* 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.
* On the Gold Coast, Australia's biggest tourist destination (particularly amongst schoolies), radio station Sea FM announced the drinking age would be changed from 18 to 21. This left a huge number of under-21s angry and frustrated, and incited protests. It was later announced at the Sea FM dance party that it was a hoax.
* In 2006, a Cheyenne radio station reported to listeners that during the previous night, a Union Pacific 4-8-8-4 "Big Boy" steam locomotive was stolen from Holliday Park. Although the locomotive weighed more than 1.2 million lbs and had no tracks connecting it to any nearby railroad, thus making its theft near-impossible, several listeners fell for the joke and went to investigate. The road that overlooks the park was jammed for hours as people realized that it was a hoax, and the locomotive was still on display in the park.
* On April 1, 1978 a barge appeared in Sydney Harbour towing a giant iceberg.
Sydneysiders were expecting it. Dick Smith, a local adventurer and millionaire businessman, had been loudly promoting his scheme to tow an iceberg from Antarctica for quite some time. Now he had apparently succeeded.
He said that he was going to carve the berg into small ice cubes, which he would sell to the public for ten cents each.
These well-travelled cubes, fresh from the pure waters of Antarctica, were promised to improve the flavour of any drink they cooled. Slowly the iceberg made its way into the harbour. Local radio stations provided excited blow-by-blow coverage of the scene. Only when the berg was well into the harbour was its secret revealed. It started to rain, and the firefighting foam and shaving cream that the berg was really made of washed away, uncovering the white plastic sheets beneath.
* The Guardian printed a supplement in 1977 praising the location of a fictional resort - San Serriffe, 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.
* Australian radio station Triple J breakfast show co-host Adam Spencer announced in 1999 that he had a journalist on the line at the site of a secret IOC meeting and that Sydney had lost the 2000 Summer Olympics. New South Wales Premier Bob Carr was also in on the joke. Mainstream media (including Channel 9's Today Show) picked up the story.
* Australian radio station Triple M breakfast show The Cage announced in 2002 that Athens had lost the 2004 Summer Olympics because they couldn't be ready in time and that Sydney would have to host it again.
* 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.
* On the Gold Coast, Australia's biggest tourist destination (particularly amongst schoolies), radio station Sea FM announced the drinking age would be changed from 18 to 21. This left a huge number of under-21s angry and frustrated, and incited protests. It was later announced at the Sea FM dance party that it was a hoax.
* In 2006, a Cheyenne radio station reported to listeners that during the previous night, a Union Pacific 4-8-8-4 "Big Boy" steam locomotive was stolen from Holliday Park. Although the locomotive weighed more than 1.2 million lbs and had no tracks connecting it to any nearby railroad, thus making its theft near-impossible, several listeners fell for the joke and went to investigate. The road that overlooks the park was jammed for hours as people realized that it was a hoax, and the locomotive was still on display in the park.
* On April 1, 1978 a barge appeared in Sydney Harbour towing a giant iceberg.
He said that he was going to carve the berg into small ice cubes, which he would sell to the public for ten cents each.
These well-travelled cubes, fresh from the pure waters of Antarctica, were promised to improve the flavour of any drink they cooled. Slowly the iceberg made its way into the harbour. Local radio stations provided excited blow-by-blow coverage of the scene. Only when the berg was well into the harbour was its secret revealed. It started to rain, and the firefighting foam and shaving cream that the berg was really made of washed away, uncovering the white plastic sheets beneath.
| 89 |
| Vote |
Comments (5)
Add Comments
Read More
