Of all the things the internet has taken from us – childhood, privacy, critical thinking – harmless public pranks are what I miss the most. Sure, there are 2 million YouTube videos featuring all manner of overstimulated, underemployed young men harassing strangers for likes and shares. And TV networks still produce prank shows, where citizens and celebrities alike are subjected to the hosts’ bizarro antics on a weekly basis. But there’s nothing special about those clips, they’re just more grist for the content mill.
Additionally, the rise of fake-news-for-profit has limited our ability to laugh at obvious fabrications. It’s more difficult to find humor in dishonest gags from honest publications when most online content is purposely inaccurate or misleading. Who enjoys a sip of cold water when there’s a firehose constantly blasting you in the face?
There was a time, however, not too long ago, where April Fools’ Day was like Christmas for the rogue set. It was the one day we all agreed to be in on the joke. No one holding a newspaper or turning on the TV or radio was safe from a bit of good-natured mischief, sports fans included. So, in honor of the trickster national holiday, here are some of my all-time favorite media hoaxes.
In 1957, The BBC’s “Panorama” news magazine aired what might be the greatest mediated prank of all time – a three-minute TV feature on the “Swiss spaghetti harvest.” The story, presented as fact and without a disclaimer, fooled millions of Brits, and still makes me laugh.
The story went like this: An unseasonably warm Western European winter helped eradicate the dreaded spaghetti weevil, leading to a banner spaghetti crop around Ticino, near the Italian border with Switzerland. BBC footage showed people picking pasta strands off of bushes and trees before enjoying pasta nights at home. Pasta had not yet become a staple of the British diet, and many viewers were fooled – why shouldn’t it be harvested like so many other crops? When thousands of viewers phoned in to find out how they could purchase their own spaghetti trees, the BBC told them to “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.”
In 1996, Taco Bell took out full-page ads in six leading U.S. newspapers announcing their purchase of the Liberty Bell in an effort to “reduce the country’s debt.” The artifact, an iconic symbol of American independence, was promptly renamed the “Taco Liberty Bell.” Throughout the morning, thousands of people called the restaurant’s corporate headquarters and the National Parks Service with complaints before the joke was revealed later that day.
While I love the Liberty Bell story, it might be a little too close to the truth for comfort. After all, this is America in 2026; everything’s for sale.
But there’s also a timeless example from the world of sports. In the April 1, 1985, issue of “Sports Illustrated,” author and participatory journalist George Plimpton published “The Curious Case of Sid Finch,” an impossible-seeming tale about a 6-foot-4-inch, one-shoed orphan who could throw 168 mph and was in spring training with the Mets. In Plimpton’s telling, Fitch had pinpoint control and never needed to warm up, but he was undecided on pursuing a baseball career, as he might instead “play the French horn or golf or something.” Mets fans hounded Sports Illustrated for more information on the enigmatic rookie, while MLB general managers called the Commissioner’s Office and reporters scrambled for exclusives.
The story was, of course, a hoax. But that didn’t stop the major TV networks from covering an April 2 press conference where Finch – played by Joe Berton, a middle-school art teacher from Oak Park, Illinois – announced his retirement.
I don’t think pranks like these work anymore. People are either too savvy or too inundated with nonsense to believe anything they’re not already predisposed to believe. While I am appreciative of the internet’s capacity to help me stream literally every game I will ever want to watch and read every story I’ll ever want to read, I occasionally long for the days before I had a computer-slash-satellite dish in my pocket, when common sense was a requirement instead of a virtue and when monoculture could make fools of us all.
On this April Fools’ Day, the skies are darkening and it looks like rain. I’d better go check my spaghetti plants.
Philip Poe is sports editor. He can be reached at [email protected]
Philip Poe is sports editor.
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