April Fool's!

Beacon's top 3 April Fool's pranks of all time.

3# Swedish Color TV (1962)

In 1962, Sweden’s only TV channel broadcast in the news that viewers could get their black-and-white TV sets to display in full color by pulling a nylon stocking over the front of their TVs. Thousands of people tried it—until the gag was revealed as an April Fool’s hoax. Color TV finally came to Sweden 8 years later.

#2 The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest (1957)

Often cited as the best April Fool's prank of all-time, the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest was dreamed up by BBC News cameraman Charles de Jaeger and aired on the well-respected show Panorama. The hoax included the claim that because of a mild winter and the elimination of the "dreaded spaghetti weevil," Swiss farmers were experiencing a highly successful "spaghetti crop." As the show's anchor, Richard Dimbleby, discussed details, footage of women pulling pasta off trees were beamed on-air, causing quit a stir throughout the country. Hundreds of people phoned in to ask how to grow a spaghetti tree, to which the BBC replied, "Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."

 

#1 The Wisconsin State Capitol Collapse (1933)

On April 1, 1933, the paper's front page proclaimed, "Dome Topples Off Statehouse: Officials Say Legislature Generated Too Much Hot Air." The article stated that "a series of mysterious explosions" shook the building in the early morning hours, causing its collapse. These "explosions" were then attributed to weeks of fierce debate that was taking place at the time, which generated "large quantities of gas" that were somehow ignited. The report also included a photo illustration of the collapsed building (above), which is pretty great considering that Photoshop didn't exist in 1933.