April 01, 2021

Some Famous April Fools' Day Pranks

Happy April Fools' Day! I looked up one little bit of information about April Fools' Day for the post I was going to write about today (nothing special) and fell down a rabbit hole of famous pranks through the years. I thought it would be fun to share some of those instead. These are some that stood out to me...


This one cracks me up, because it's a burn to the people that love to comment on and share links to articles on social media when they clearly haven't even read the story. In 2014, NPR news posted the link to an article titled, "Why Doesn't America Read Anymore?" Hundreds of people left comments about the decline of reading in America.

To prove the point, if they clicked the link to actually read the article, they would find that it was just a simple paragraph:

We sometimes get the sense that some people are commenting on NPR stories that they haven't actually read. If you are reading this, please like this post and do not comment on it. Then let's see what people have to say about this 'story.'

Unfortunately, it didn't last very long because the people who actually did read the story didn't follow the directions, and instead commented about the prank. It was a very clever idea, in my opinion! (Here is a link to the Facebook post)




In 1965, BBC television aired an interview with a man who had apparently invented "smellovision"... which, as its name implies, is television that allows smells from the program to be transmitted into the viewer's home. To really sell the story, he explained the science of it--that the machine could break down the scents into their component molecules, allowing them to be transmitted.

He even demonstrated by revealing coffee beans and onions, and asking the viewers if they could, in fact, smell them through their television. People from all over the country called in to say that they smelled the coffee and onions as promised.



In 1975, This Day Tonight (an Australian news program) played a prank that I find hilarious (and kind of awesome). They announced that the country would soon be converting to "metric time". It would be measured exactly like you would imagine "metric time" to be measured: 

100 seconds to the minute
100 minutes to the hour
20 hours in a day
seconds would become millidays
minutes would become centidays
hours would become decidays

The show received hundreds of calls from viewers who believed the April Fools' Day prank.



In 1998, USA Today published an ad from Burger King, who revealed a new menu item: the Left-Handed Whopper. The new sandwich was advertised to be the same as the classic, but with all of the ingredients rotated 180 degrees, catering to the 32 million Americans who are left-handed. The Left-Handed Whopper was said to be the ultimate "have it your way" for left-handed customers.

The prank worked, because thousands of people went to Burger King and ordered a Left-Handed Whopper!


I wish I could write a couple more, but my right hand is totally numb from my carpal tunnel syndrome--so frustrating! It's hard to type when you can't feel your fingers. Anyway, if any of you have played a cool prank (or had one played on you) please share! I love reading about them :)

3 comments:

  1. I'm sorry to hear your wrist is still giving you fits, but thanks for these. I especially enjoyed the left-handed Whopper!

    ReplyDelete
  2. As a lefty, I'm absolutely here for the left-handed Whopper!

    ReplyDelete
  3. My mom's cousin is a pediatric dentist and my mom works in the office. Dr. Jessica's birthday is April 1 so the staff always come up with fun pranks on her birthday. Some of the pranks over the years include:
    *Collecting all the pink flamingos they could find and covering her front yard with them.
    *Telling her there was a "leek" in the office bathroom and she ran in to find a leek on the floor.
    *Everyone coming into work dressed up in some funny costume.
    *They bought her a fake scratch off lottery ticket that was a $5000 "winner".
    *They taped pictures of Slash to her tires and told her that someone was creeping around the parking lot and looked like they slashed her tires.
    *They taped a picture of an old problem employee to her backup camera.

    This year they filled her private office with balloons. They cleared the afternoon schedule and put in fake patients so they could spend the afternoon crafting. Before Doc knew about the afternoon, they had one of the hygenists come in dressed in a bunny costume around noon with a basket full of White Claws, Vizzys, Truly, etc. They had told Doc that they were going out for dinner so one of the staff said "Oh, these will be good for after work before dinner. Actually, you know what? I think one would be good now!" And cracked one open. They said Doc's face was priceless!

    She will be 40 next year so I can't wait to see what they come up with! Doc loves it every year!

    ReplyDelete

I used to publish ALL comments (even the mean ones) but I recently chose not to publish those. I always welcome constructive comments/criticism, but there is no need for unnecessary rudeness/hate. But please--I love reading what you have to say! (This comment form is super finicky, so I apologize if you're unable to comment)

Featured Posts

Blog Archive