It’s one thing to pull a few pranks on co-workers or family members for April Fools’ Day, such as putting a sticky-note on the underside of an optical mouse or inverting the screen display… or the classic desktop wallpaper prank that looks just the work screen.

Those are just small-time pranks.  If you want to go big, you have to be able to fool hundreds, even thousands of people, and watch how people react to your epic prank.  If you play your cards right, your prank will go down in history.  Just make sure not to forget to tell everyone that it’s just a prank before mass hysteria ensues.

Epic April Fools’ pranks throughout history

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Spaghetti Trees

In 1957, a time when Brits weren’t too familiar with spaghetti, the BBC aired a hoax Panorama program narrated by distinguished broadcaster Richard Dimbleby.  The mocumentary featured a family in from Ticino in Switzerland carrying out their annual spaghetti harvest.  The show featured women carefully plucking spaghetti strands from trees then laying them out under the sun to dry, then packed for shipping.

Some viewers knew it was a joke and called the network to commend them for the prank, but others were quick to believe it and called the network inquiring where they can purchase their own spaghetti tree.  Before the program ended, BBC announced that the documentary was just an April Fools’ hoax.

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San Serriffe

On April 1, 1977 the British newspaper The Guardian published a seven-page “special report” about , a small republic located in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semi-colon-shaped islands.  The paper included the geography and culture of this obscure nation.

The idea for the fictitious republic came from Philip Davies who was the Guardian’s Special Reports department and handled reports exploring geographical locations and technology.  Davies’ was able to form a group of writers for the elaborate hoax, and even managed to get advertisers to play along.  The seven-page special report, when concluded, consisted of four pages dedicated to ads.  The report featured the leader’s rise to power, the republic’s economy, the geography, culture, and many other aspects that made San Serriffe appear to be the perfect holiday destination.

Many readers of the Guardian wanted to know more about the place and how to get there and the publication was bombarded with inquiries.  Airlines and travel agencies were pestered by would-be travellers seeking a flight to the made-up place, and were faced with angry mobs of travellers when they were told that the place did not exist.

Though the Guardian admitted it was a hoax, it released a 10-page sequel featuring spoof front pages from San Serriffe newspapers the following year.  The hoax was so elaborate that it inspired fans to create their own spinoffs.  The Guardian has made numerous San Serriffe lookbacks throughout the years, and who could blame them?  The hoax was epic.

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Hayden Siddhartha “Sidd” Finch

Sports Illustrated published an article about Hayden Siddhartha “Sidd” Finch, a 28-year-old eccentric mystic, who has been hired as a pitcher by the New York Mets.  According to the report, on St. Patrick’s Day, the Mets brought a  JUGS Supergun II, a radar gun that accurately measures how fast a ball was travelling, to test out Finch’s fastball.  They were stunned when the radar gun read Finch’s throw at 168mph.  It seems the Mets found the best pitcher in the world.

The article stated that Finch grew up in an English orphanage, was adopted by an archeologist who died in a plane crash in Nepal, attended Harvard University for a short period, went to Tibet to learn “yogi mastery of mind-body” under “the great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa” and the source of his pitching prowess, never played baseball in his life, was contemplating between a sports career and playing the French horn, and only wears one heavy hiker’s boot when pitching.

Though the article was lengthy, it didn’t provide much information about Finch and readers, especially Mets fans, wanted more.  Even other media outlets ate the story up, seeking out photos and interviews with Finch.  Surprisingly, before the world got to see Finch in action, he announced his retirement.  Turns out, it was just a hoax.  Mark Mulvoy, the managing editor of Sports Illustrated, commissioned George Plimpton to create an April Fools’ Day article when he realized that a cover date that year would fall on April 1.

The lesson here is, on April 1, trust no one.

feature image: Will Montague via photopin cc
photo credit: allesok via photopin cc