April Fool's Day

April Fools' Day is observed every year on April 1st, and though its exact origin remains a mystery it has been celebrated in many countries for several centuries. While the observance may differ somewhat between cultures, one universal theme remains constant: Hoaxes, pranks and practical jokes! This week Tidbits looks into the history behind this universal custom and presents a few of the more notable pranks that have been committed over the years.

THE ORIGIN

• No one is really sure how April Fools Day came about. The traditional explanation is that it started in 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII ordered that the Gregorian calendar replace the old Julian calendar, which moved the first day of the new year to January 1st instead of April 1st. Those who still celebrated the new year on April 1st were ridiculed as fools. The problem with this explanation is that April Fools Day was already being celebrated when the calendars were switched over.

• Joseph Boskin, a professor of history at Boston University, claimed that April Fools began during the reign of Constantine, when a group of court jesters teased the Roman emperor that they could run the empire better than he could. To show that he had a sense of humor, Constantine allowed a jester to be king for one day. The jester passed an edict calling for absurdity on that day, and the custombecame an annual event. The Associated Press ran this story as national news in many papers across the country in 1983. There was only one catch: Boskin had made the whole thing up. It took a couple of weeks for the AP to realize that they’d been duped, and were victims of an April Fools joke themselves.

APRIL FOOLERY SAMPLES

• Robert Benchley invited his friend Frank Case to dinner at his house. Frank was district manager of the Algonquin Hotel chain at the time. When he was shown to the bathroom, Frank was dismayed to see that some of the towels as well as the soap came from his hotels. At dinner, he couldn't help but notice some of the silverware, plates, and cups also bore the Algonquin trademark. Uncomfortable and not quite knowing what to say, he simply kept quiet. No mention of the articles was made until after the meal, when Robert confessed that he had secretly arranged to “borrow” the Algonquin property for the evening. Although Frank found himself the butt of the prank he was greatly relieved. They both had a good laugh -- and a great story to tell for years.

• James Thurber’s mother was a practical joker. One day she was to meet an old friend that she hadn’t seen in thirty years. By prearrangement, Mrs. Thurber was to wear a red rose so her friend could recognize her at the train station. Mrs. Thurber arrived early, and spotted a very old homeless woman sleeping on a bench. She quietly pinned the rose on the slumbering form, slipped out of view and enjoyed the scene when her friend arrived. She studied the sleeping woman incredulously, then gently woke her up saying, “Why, Mrs. Thurber, how are you? You're looking just fine after all these years!”

• At the Walt Disney studios, one artist boasted without ceasing about his new custom-built European car and insisted everyone come out to admire it. Later, while he was working, his cohorts dismantled a wheelbarrow and reassembled it in his back seat, then filled it with water. It took the co-worker several hours after work to carefully dip the water out and dismantle the wheelbarrow piece by piece.

• Newspaper humorist John Medbury and his wife liked to throw extraordinary dinner parties. For one such soirée, half of their invitations required attire to be very formal, and half said dress was to be very informal. Half the guests showed up wearing tuxes and gowns, while the other half arrived wearing T-shirts, jeans and flip-flops.

• Benjamin Franklin once entered an inn and found every seat next to the fire already occupied. He asked the innkeeper if he had any oysters, and the reply was yes. “Take a bucket of them out to the stable and feed them to my horse,” Franklin said. Everyone seated at the fire went out to see a horse eat oysters. When they came back in to say the horse refused to eat oysters, they found Ben seated at the prime position next to the flames. “Then bring the oysters in here and roast them for my supper!” he said.

Benjamin Franklin.

• On April Fools Day shortly before Mt. St. Helens erupted, a Massachusetts TV producer thought it would be funny to air a report that the local non-volcanic ski mountain was also about to erupt. Police were swamped with panicked calls. The station apologized for the prank and the producer was fired.

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• Comedian Buddy Hackett once lived next door to a man who had just bought a brand new Volkswagen beetle and wouldn’t stop bragging about the great gas mileage he was going to get. Hackett decided to play a joke on him so he began sneaking over to his garage every night, adding several gallons to the gas tank. His neighbor excitedly began telling everyone that his VW was getting over 100 miles to the gallon, and bragging about how smart he was for buying this amazing car.

Volkswagen Beetle (for illustration purposes only).

• Hackett kept up the ruse for another week, then instead of adding gas he began siphoning it out of the tank. His neighbor couldn’t understand why his mileage suddenly dropped so drastically, so he went back to the dealership and angrily complained to the sales manager. “This car you sold me is not performing like you said it would! I’m barely getting six miles a gallon out of this thing. A week ago I was getting over 100 miles a gallon!” He demanded his money back, insisting that he’d been sold a lemon. Other salesmen joined the manager and a loud argument ensued until police arrived and ejected him from the premises. When Hackett later confessed the prank, his neighbor did not think it was a bit funny and soon moved away.

Buddy Hackett appearing on an episode of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

• A new plaque was to be unveiled at City Hall in St. George, British Columbia. Photographer Peter Duffy was to cover the event, which bored him completely. To liven things up, he sneaked behind the curtain and taped a large poster of a nude over the plaque. When it was unveiled, the crowd was stunned, the mayor was aghast, and photographer Duffy was fired.

• A monthly paper called “The Realist” once printed a prominently placed tongue-in-cheek correction notice in its paper reading, “Our thanks to Jean Raymond for pointing out an error in last month’s issue in the article on ways to differentiate between mushrooms and toadstools. The two headings unfortunately were transposed. The heading ‘Edible Mushrooms’ should have read ‘Poisonous Toadstools’ and the heading ‘Poisonous Toadstools’ should have read ‘Edible Mushrooms.’ We apologize to our readers for any confusion this error may have caused.”

Poisonous or edible? It can be confusing.

• When it comes to college pranks, Caltech holds high honors. One night a group of students gathered in the faculty parking lot and painted over all the parking stripes and over the faculty member's name at each space. Then they repainted the stripes, but made each space about a foot wider until one entire space had been eliminated. The faculty names were then carefully lettered at each space -- all but the now-missing private parking space of the unpopular administrator, who was hated by the entire student body.

• When Caltech freshman Chuck Conner left for a weekend, his dorm mates covered over the door to his room with sheetrock and even cut a light fixture into the blank wall. When he returned to find his room completely missing and asked what happened to it, they all pretended not to know him and asked him to leave the dorm.

• College students irritated by unpopular Dean William Bush Baer at New York University submitted his obituary to the New York Times, and the official looking notice ran on May 9, 1942. When Baer arrived at his office that day he found the flags at half-staff and signs posted announcing his funeral. He was barraged by telephone calls, telegrams, and panicked visits by friends and colleagues. Baer was furious, and the Times ran a retraction the following day.

• In 2015 the makers of Cottonelle bathroom tissue made a tongue-in-cheek announcement that they were introducing a line of left-handed toilet paper “for all those southpaws living in a world of right-handers.” The group, “Lefties for the Ethical Treatment of Lefties,” joined the crusade with their own clever advertising slogans. Among them, “It Cleans Just Like Right-Hand Toilet Paper, Only Now It's Made For Me,” and, “Hands Down the Best Thing to Happen to Lefties Since Left Handed Scissors!” While the vast majority of the American population got the joke and appreciated it, enough gullible consumers actually tried to buy the new product that store managers had to post signs stating, “Sorry, we do not carry left-handed toilet paper. The product does not exist.” 

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