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April Fools' Day famous pranks

Nobody loves an April Fools’ prank more than the media.

From flying penguins to left-handed burgers, websites, newspapers, television channels and major companies love to get in on the act.

So make sure you don’t get fooled by taking a look at some of our favourite pranks over the years in preparation for April 1.

The 'flying penguins' fooled thousands of viewers when it was aired on the BBC. Photo: BBC
The 'flying penguins' fooled thousands of viewers when it was aired on the BBC. Photo: BBC

Flying penguins

If it is on the BBC it must be true, right?

On April 1 2008 the BBC pulled out all the stops with a superbly-produced news clip of footage of flying penguins, shown on their flagship morning show as millions got ready for work.

The clip, supposedly to highlight ‘Miracles of Evolution’ claimed crews discovered a colony of Adelie penguins while filming on King George Island.

Footage showed that, instead of huddling to keep warm, the penguins instead took to the skies and headed to the Amazonian rainforest.

Spaghetti Harvest

April Fools are nothing new on the BBC, though.

Back in 1957 they produced a spoof documentary about spaghetti crops in Switzerland.

The documentary featured a family carrying out their annual spaghetti harvest by plucking pasta from the branches.

The stunt outraged some, who failed to see the funny side and were angered it was broadcast on a serious news show.

But others contacted the BBC to find out where they could purchase their very own spaghetti bush.

Left-handed whopper

Fifteen years ago fast-food chain Burger King {Hungry Jacks in Australia] took out a full page advert in the USA Today, promoting their ‘Left-Handed Whoppers’.

It was claimed the revolutionary burger had all the condiments reversed by 180 degrees.

Many customers tried to order the burger that next day – but, even more bizarrely, many more customers, when ordering a Whopper, insisted that it was ‘right-handed’, not ‘left-handed’.

Alabama redefines Pi

The same year, a prank article published in the New Mexicans for Science and Reason was perhaps one of the first April Fools to show the power of the internet – and how quickly a hoax can spread.

An article claimed that the American state of Alabama had voted to change the value of mathematical constant Pi from 3.14 (etc) to a ‘Biblical value’ of 3.

Soon, the Alabama legislature began to receive hundreds of calls from members of the public taken in by the hoax, complaining about the legislation.

It was the complexity of the hoax which left Swedish TV viewers in the 1950s believing they could have DIY-colour television. Photo: SVT
It was the complexity of the hoax which left Swedish TV viewers in the 1950s believing they could have DIY-colour television. Photo: SVT

Do-it-yourself colour TV

Colour television was not widely available until 1966 – but Swedes thought they had a headstart on the rest of the world four years earlier.

Sveriges Television was the only station in Sweden and broadcast in black and white.

However, their ‘technical expert’ Kjell Stensson’ was wheeled on air to describe a process in which viewers could make their set colour.

His highly-technical explanation basically involved putting a nylon stocking in front of the screen – ‘causing the light to bend in such a way as to create the illusion of colour’.

Thousands fell for the hoax and, even today, Swedes tell of memories of their parents rushing to get a pair of nylon stockings and wrapping it around the set.