Review [Issue 10] All about April Fools Day

[Lhamster 4,081]

Aprils Fools day is an unofficial holiday celebrated on April 1^st in many countries. It's not a national holiday, so people don't get a day off work, but it is a day to play pranks and practical jokes!

History

No-one is really sure about the origin of April Fools day, but the first mention of it is in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, written in 1392. One explanation is that when January 1^st became New Years Day in the late 16^th Century, those who continued to celebrate it on the previous date of March 25^th were called fools and made fun of by those who celebrated it on January 1^st. However, there is no historical evidence for this, and it doesn't take into account earlier references to it, so we are still unsure to its origin. In Britain and other countries, the joking is supposed to end at 12 noon, but this practice doesn't appear to be happening in recent years.

How it's celebrated

April Fool's Day is celebrated in different ways in different countries. In many countries, the media, such as newspapers and TV stations will take part and publish fake stories.
In France, the tradition is to try and put a paper fish on someone’s back without being noticed. This is known as poisson d'avril or "April's fish".
In Scotland, April Fools' Day is traditionally known as Hunt the Gowk Day ("gowk" is Scots for a cuckoo or a foolish person) although this name isn't used much any more. The traditional prank is to ask someone to deliver a sealed message requesting help of some sort. In fact, the message reads "Dinna laugh, dinna smile. Hunt the gowk another mile". The person it's sent to will say, once they have read the letter, that they can only help if they gets another person to help. They then send the messenger to that person, but with the same message, and the victim of the prank is sent on a wild goose chase.
When someone has been fooled in Sweden, to tell them that it was a joke, the person who did the prank says "April April din dumma sill, jag kan lura dig vart jag vill", meaning “April, April, you stupid herring, I can fool you to wherever I want"! In the Swedish Media, most news outlets will publish a false story and for newspapers this will usually be an article on the front page but not the main headline. So have fun playing 'Guess the fake story'!
In Iran the day to play jokes on each other falls on the 13th day of the Persian new year, which is either on April 1^st or April 2^nd. This day, celebrated as far back as 536 BC, is called Sizdah Bedar and is the oldest prank tradition in the world still alive today. This has led many to believe that April Fools' Day has its origins in this tradition.
In Spain, and Spanish speaking countries, historically the Medieval Feast of Fools is on the 28^th of December and is also called the "Day of the Holy Innocents". The phase said when a prank has been played is "Inocente palomita que te dejaste engañar" which means "You innocent little dove that let yourself be fooled" which is much nicer than calling someone a stupid herring!
Also, the Romans held the festival of Hilaria on March 25^th where all sorts of games and pranks happened, mainly masquerading as people and imitating them.

Famous Pranks

Panorama's Spaghetti hoax



One of the most famous hoaxes was done by the BBC's Panorama program in 1957. It showed a 3 minute film about spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland. The clip included details such as: “The success of the crop was attributed both to an unusually mild winter and to the virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil.” The show's highly respected host, Richard Dimbleby, discussed the details of the spaghetti crop as the film showed a Swiss family pulling pasta off spaghetti trees and placing it into baskets. The show ended saying: "For those who love this dish, there's nothing like real, home-grown spaghetti." Lots of people were taken in, and the BBC's response to the phone calls it was getting about growing spaghetti trees was: "Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best." This prank is believed to be the first time television was used to stage an April Fool's Day hoax.

The Guardian's San Serriffe hoax



In 1977, The Guardian, a British newspaper, published a special report about San Serriffe, a small republic in the Indian Ocean made up of several semi-colon-shaped islands. Of course, it didn't exist, and the hoax had a typographical twist, as details about the island pointed to printer's terminology. These details included that San Serriffe consisted of two primary islands, Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. The capital, Bodoni, was located in the center of the larger island, Upper Caisse. The smaller island, Lower Caisse, had a forested area, the Woj of Type, which was home of San Serriffe's national bird, the Kwote. Again, many people were taken in, and many people phoned up the Guardian wanting to know more. This hoax is thought to have inspired the British Media to do many April Fool's Day jokes in the years since.

The Left Handed Burger



In 1998, Burger King published large advertisements in USA Today saying that they had a new item for their menu's, a "Left-Handed Whopper", for the 32 million left handed Americans. It had the same ingredients, but it had "all condiments rotated 180 degrees, thereby redistributing the weight of the sandwich so that the bulk of the condiments will skew to the left, thereby reducing the amount of lettuce and other toppings from spilling out the right side of the burger." The advertisement also said that it was only currently available in the US but was considering plans to put it in other countries with large left handed populations. The next day, Burger King revealed it was a hoax, but thousands of people had gone into Burger King and for the new burger. People also asked to make sure they had their right handed version.

So I hope you now know a bit more about April Fools Day, and maybe you'll avoid being an April Fool now you know what might be coming! Happy Pranking!

~Lham~

Edited September 26, 2017 by Hexed

[Raphael2 3,263]

Nice to know. I see you pranked us too.

[Lhamster 4,081]

I did?

[MusicJam19 737]

I think he meant with the topic called Important

[magnaboy2 656]

LHam(burger) :P

[Joshy55 2]

Lol. I was reading those pranks from 1 of my favorite books called "Usefully Useless".

[jazz20 1,181]

The BK prank was pretty good :P