An April Fools’ Day prank that got the townsfolk in Sitka, Alaska, took a few years in the making. Porky Bickar, a local logger, who lived around Mount Edgecumbe, a long-dormant volcano, executed the impressive hoax. He collected about 70 tires over a few years, stashing them away in an airplane hangar. He patiently waited for an April 1 with clear skies and the right weather conditions. It all came together in 1974, and he chartered a helicopter so that he could put the tires inside the volcano’ s crater. Once he doused them with fuel and set them on fire, a thick black plume of smoke rose from the volcano, giving the townsfolk the impression that it was bout to erupt. Obviously, there was panic in the streets. However, being a good citizen, Bickar had alerted the local police and fire service to his plan beforehand. Anyone flying over the crater to inspect it were greeted with the words,“ April Fool” spray-painted around the burning tires. This was certainly, to me, one of the most large-scale April Fools’ Day pranks ever pulled.
Even the origin of the holiday itself became the source of a prank that fooled the Associated Press. In 1983, a Boston University professor, Joseph Boskin, told one of the news agency’ s reporters a story about how he had discovered the origin of April Fools’ Day. He said that during the Fourth Century, Emperor Constantine, as a joke, appointed one of his court jesters as ruler for the day. The jester, then, decreed that only the absurd would be allowed into the kingdom on that day. Sounds plausible, right? Although the story was intended as a joke on the professor’ s part, the reporter took it seriously. The AP reporter’ s story was printed in hundreds of newspapers. Several weeks later, Boskin confessed that none of it was true and he, actually, had no idea how April Fools’ Day began.
“ There’ s no truth in advertising” was illustrated, in 1996, when Taco Bell advertised that it had bought the Liberty Bell and renamed it the“ Taco Liberty Bell.” The full-page ad ran in six major American newspapers. Thousands of concerned citizens called the company’ s headquarters and the National Park Service in Philadelphia to find out if it was true. Staff aides for two US Senators were among the ones that called for verification. The National Park Service had to actually hold a news conference to assure the public that the Liberty Bell had not been sold to Taco Bell.
Once the internet appeared, the opportunity to prank a much wider audience on April Fools’ Day also appeared. An online hoax that actually ended-up paying dividends to the prankster was perpetuated in 2007. Dan Baines, an illusion designer for magicians, created a“ mummified fairy” prop and then proceeded to issue a photo of it and a press release detailing the discovery of 20 mummified fairy bodies in Derbyshire, England. The photo even showed the prop with a police evidence bag to help sell the prank. The website, on which he posted the press release, had more than 20,000 hits in one day and Baines received hundreds of emails. Some of the people claimed to have found similar fairy remains. Even after he posted on the website, on April 1, that it was a hoax, he was accused by some believers of covering up the truth. Don’ t feel bad for him, though. Like I said he received dividends from the prank when he launched a successful Mummified Fairy Kickstarter project in 2014.
He’ s not the only one to profit off of a prank, companies worldwide have jumped on that bandwagon ever since the internet was born. There’ s no better way to get attention for your brand than to have an April Fools’ joke campaign go viral. They are usually incredible fictitious products that the companies“ release” on April Fools’ Day. Some notable“ new” food products, advertised online on April Fools’ Day, were Burger King’ s“ Chocolate Whopper,” Omaha Steaks’“ Meaty Spritz” and Kraft and Post Cereal teaming up to release“ Fruity Pebbles Mac & Cheese.” Then, you have Google that pulled its first online hoax in 2000, and then pulled one every year until 2019, when the COVID-19 pandemic started. Actually, when it launched Gmail, on April Fools’ Day, in 2004, people just assumed it was another prank. However, as we know now, it was completely real. The company thought it was a great way to debut something that sounded so fictitious that people would think it was a joke. Gmail’ s features at the time were beyond what people thought were possible.
For a holiday with no verifiable origin, April Fools’ Day has certainly been cemented into the world’ s fabric of traditions. Celebrated for centuries, April 1 has been the one day where folks in many countries take the opportunity to not take life so seriously for a moment and have a little fun. … And, honestly, who couldn’ t use a little more fun in their life?
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