How April Fools’ Day Didn’t Get Its Name
How a BU Prof April-Fooled the Country
In 1983, BU’s public relations office gave Boskin [a professor emeritus of history in the College of Arts & Sciences] a call, with a question: was it OK to pitch him, a historian and a purveyor of popular culture, as an expert on the history of April Fools’ Day? Not giving the request much thought, he jokingly said yes...
The AP reporter asked Boskin about the origins and history of
April Fools’ Day. “I said, ‘I don’t know anything about the holiday, and I really can’t be of help to you,’” Boskin recalls. “The reporter said, ‘Don’t be so modest.’ When the reporter kept pushing, Boskin says, “I created a story.”
One of Boskin’s closest friends had always loved the Jewish noodle pudding kugel. That popped into his head, and he decided to tell a story about a jester who became king — King Kugel. One of Boskin’s fields was medieval history, so he concocted a convincing tale.
“Since I was calling New York, where kugel is famous, and it was April Fools’ Day, I figured he would catch on,” Boskin laughs. “Instead, he asked how to spell kugel.” As he was telling the outlandish story, he kept expecting the reporter to wise up to what he was doing, but all he heard was the clatter of a typewriter on the other end of the phone. When AP published the story, Boskin got calls from the Today Show and other reputable news outlets asking him to go into more detail about the origins of King Kugel. www.bu.edu/…
April Fool's Day 2020: how [...]calendar confusion and Hilaria led to jokes and fake news
The day has been celebrated for centuries, offering us a chance to play pranks on our family and friends.
The first fool
The origins of the day are uncertain. One common April Fool's theory is that the tradition stems from the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582 across continental Europe. When Pope Gregory XIII called for New Year’s Day to be celebrated on
January 1 instead of the end of March, the joke was on those who missed the memo and celebrated New Year’s Day on April 1. Those caught out were inevitably made fun of, and sent on fools' errands...
Another theory places the pranks of April Fool's Day in the passing of the first day of spring. Festivals have historically marked the end of winter with mischief, such as the Ancient Roman festival of Hilaria. On the first day after the vernal equinox, citizens would celebrate the end of the winter gloom by dressing in disguises and attending masquerades. www.telegraph.co.uk/...
Some of the best April Fools stories—
Spaghetti Trees by BBC News 1957
The hoax Panorama programme, narrated by distinguished broadcaster Richard Dimbleby, featured a family from Ticino in Switzerland carrying out their annual spaghetti harvest. It showed women carefully plucking strands of spaghetti from
a tree and laying them in the sun to dry...
Mr Dimbleby explained how each year the end of March is a very anxious time for Spaghetti harvesters all over Europe as severe frost can impair the flavour of the spaghetti. He also explained how each strand of spaghetti always grows to the same length thanks to years of hard work by generations of growers.
This is believed to be one of the first times the medium of television has been used to stage an April Fools Day hoax.
— news.bbc.co.uk/…
Left-handed burgers By Burger King — 1998
In 1998, Burger King ran an ad in USA Today saying people could get a Whopper specially created for left-handed people . Its condiments, the ad claimed, were designed to drip out of the right side.
According to sources, not only did customers order the new burgers, but some burger-eaters specifically requested the "old" right-handed artery-smasher. Have it your way! www.nbcnews.com/...
Portable Zip Codes by NPR — 2004
NPR's All Things Considered reported that the U.S. Post Office was introducing a new portable zip codes program that would allow individuals to take their zip code with them when they moved. The
program was inspired by a recent FCC ruling that allowed people to retain the same phone number wherever they moved or whatever service they switched to.
Supporters of the program noted, "A modern, mobile society… can no longer afford to remain grounded in locale-specific zip codes… a zip code is a badge of honor, an emblem symbolizing a citizen's place in the demographic, rather than geographic, landscape."
hoaxes.org/...
High Chair for Dogs by Ikea- 2011
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – MARCH 30: Exclusive. In this handout photo provided by IKEA, Sandy (in chair) is shown as one of the first pups to try the new spoof “HUNDSTOL dog highchair”, a hoax product created by IKEA as an April Fool’s prank on March 30, 2011 in Sydney, Australia. Australian media were duped, with the story running on television, in print and online on April 1, 2011, and consumers placed calls to IKEA inquiring about the product’s availability. IKEA went to great lengths to pull off the hoax – creating a prototype and placing in print and online.
The Science of Laughter
Why we laugh and why it is good for you
Sport is in the eye of the announcer —