In the spring of 1985, Sidd Finch walked on at a Mets training camp in Florida and delivered a 168 mph fastball, the product of years of “yogic mastery of the mind-body” bestowed by masters in Tibet. He wore a hiking boot on one foot (the other was bare), and his pitches knocked the catcher back three feet. Finch was a non-committal baseball phenomenon. He was also not real. George Plimpton imagined him for the April 1, 1985, edition of Sports Illustrated, and the 2,000 letters from readers made it one of the magazine’s most famous stories of all time. Plimpton’s tale contained a brilliant clue that it was all a hoax. The subhead to the story read: “He’s a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent lifestyle, Sidd’s deciding about yoga—and his future in baseball.” The first letter of each of those words spells H-A-P-P-Y A-P-R-I-L F-O-O-L-S D-A-Y—A-H, F-I-B.
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In a supposed attempt to cut back on fuzzy math, an article in the April 1998 New Mexicans for Science and Reason claimed that the Alabama state legislature had ruled to change the official value of Pi from 3.14 to just 3. Supposed experts explained that an unknowable number would “ harm students’ self-esteem” and that biblical evidence was on their side. “We just want to return Pi to its traditional value," said a source for the article, "which, according to the Bible, is three."
Vowing to help its 11 million left-handed customers in the U.K., Burger King announced in 1998 that it would release left-handed Whoppers. Without compromising any of its classic ingredients, the company said, it had redesigned the burger to fit more comfortably in the left hand by rotating all the condiments 180 degrees, thereby redistributing the weight of the sandwich. “This will result in fewer condiment spills for left-handed hamburger lovers,” a press release promised. In addition to fooling left-handed customers, gullible righties also wanted their own burger.
MentalPlex, the first annual Google April Fools’ Day hoax, was billed in 2000 as a new way to “Search smarter and faster.” Users were instructed to remove their hat and glasses, stare into the MentalPlex circle (a blue and red pinwheel animation), and telepathically project what they were looking for before clicking. Unfortunately, the technology still had some kinks, they had users believe. The search results page popped up with an error message: “Weak or no signal detected. Upgrade transmitter and retry.” Since then, Google has had many more pranks from Gmail Custom Time, which supposedly allowed users to change the time stamp on emails, to Virgle, a made-up joint program with Virgin to build a human settlement on Mars.
In the 19th century, Thomas Edison was so popular that it was easy for the New York Graphic to convince readers that the inventor had come up with a machine that could turn soil into cereal and water into wine. After the article came out in 1878, it was reprinted by a number of papers, and The Graphic reprinted one glowing editorial on Edison under the headline, “They Bite!”
AP Photo
Before the days of documentaries like Helvetica and the rise of typography buffs, The Guardian fooled its readers with the creation of a fictional island nation called San Serriffe, consisting of two main islands, Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. The April 1, 1977, issue of the paper featured a section celebrating the 10th anniversary of the island’s independence, and the prank was such a success that San Seriffe continues to make occasional appearances in the paper.
On April 1, 1997, readers and editors of the funny pages may have raised a few eyebrows as characters began cropping up in comic strips that were not theirs all over the page. The men behind the Comic Strip Switcheroo were Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott, creators of Baby Blues. A total of 46 syndicated artists participated, with many simply trading strips for the day, like Dilbert’s Scott Adams and The Family Circus’s Bil Keane or Shoe’s Jeff McNelly and Beetle Bailey’s Mort Walker. The victimless prank was well received and took place again in 2005, though on a much smaller scale.
In 1980, the BBC unveiled a gem in its series of excellent April Fools’ Day jokes when it told listeners that Big Ben was going to have its iconic analog clock faces replaced with digital displays. Listeners were aghast. The BBC’s Japanese service took the prank even further, announcing that the hands would be sold to the first four listeners to phone in with a bid. Calls poured in from the gullible, including one from a Japanese sailor in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
On April 1, 1996, Taco Bell purchased a full-page ad in seven major newspapers—including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Philadelphia Inquirer—to announce they had purchased the Liberty Bell “in an effort to help the national debt.” The only change they would make was renaming it the “Taco Liberty Bell.” Calls flooded the company’s headquarters and the National Park Service in Philadelphia to protest it before the company announced at noon on April 1 that it was a hoax. Taco Bell then donated $50,000 for the bell’s maintenance, deeming that the stunt had been extremely successful.
The Changing of the Guards is a real London tradition. The Washing of the Lions, not so much. It is a prank that dates back to the late 17th century inviting victims to attend the annual lion-washing ceremony at the Tower of London. Early versions stated the animals would be washed in the Tower’s moat, while others informed people to enter through the “White Gate” (which does not exist). The first occurrence of the prank appears to have been on April Fools’ Day in 1698, with the following day’s edition of Dawks’s News-Letter reporting, “Yesterday being the first of April, several persons were sent to the Tower Ditch to see the Lions washed.”
It started out as a harmless, though annoying, Internet meme. Pranksters would disguise a link so that when people click on it, they wind up on a YouTube video of Rick Astley rocking his 1987 song “Never Gonna Give You Up.” But it grew into so much more. Trenchcoat-clad pranksters began popping out of nowhere to sing the song. Four women’s basketball games fell victim at Eastern Washington University. On April Fools’ Day 2008, every featured video on YouTube linked to Astley’s video. And most recently, Nancy Pelosi uploaded a video to her official YouTube page with a RickRoll. You’d think people wanted to see a Tiger Woods sex tape.
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