Talk:April Fools' Day/Archive 1

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Archive 1 Archive 2

2004 archive

There is a whole list of April Fool's jokes on this website if someone wants to list them (could be tedious).

Goodralph 20:01, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC) Microsoft Corporation agrees to purchase the Wikimedia Foundation for an undisclosed sum. Wikipedia is to be merged with Encarta; an access fee of 99 cents per article retrieved will be instituted once the software upgrade to Windows NT-based servers is complete. Office Assistant is expected to be added in the immediate future, once voice actors for "it looks like you're vandalizing an article" can be found. Where was this published? r3m0t 20:19, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

here -> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Current_events&diff=3009147&oldid=3009130

It seems to me that Google itself has not spoken about Gmail - I'm making a new section. I think people have been "joining in" with the hoax, like the probably fake screenshot circulating. r3m0t 20:37, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/gmail.html , also note http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4641298/
http://www.google.com/press/index.html Google Press Center

Stuff from Slashdot [1]:

(Sorry about the length - I didn't have net access on fools day :) -- Jim Regan 21:34, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Joke eh

The Associated Press reported that Google would launch an e-mail service (http://gmail.google.com/) with 1 GB of storage for each user. [23] Funny :O Was this initially intended to be a joke? - Sajt 23:24, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Nope, but everyone thought it was, hehehe. --Veratien 17:24, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Similarly they're upgrading everyone to 2GB in a similarly Jokey manner.JamesGlover 19:40, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

WiccaUK Reference

The neopaganism Internet forum WiccaUK was informed that spaghetti was invented by witches in the Middle Ages. No-one actually took that seriouly, y'know... :p--Veratien 17:23, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Chicken heated nuclear landmines REAL?

The chicken heated nuclear landmine story still seems like an April fools joke to me. In the linked page there is a quote: "It does seem like an April Fool but it most certainly is not. The Civil Service does not do jokes." This just seems like more joking.

Immaculate conception

Is there any reason this sentence: "One might note that 9 months from the 1st of April a child was born of immaculate conception which could be the source of the fools day." should be in the article? This seems to be a completely unnecessary statement that claims Christan doctrine as truth. This doesn't seem like anything an organization that purports itself to be informational should state unless it is a organization with an acknowledged Christan point of view. It also doesn't make any sense to me personally, it seems like a complete non-sequitur. This certainly could just be going over my head, but I don't see the relation between the two things. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.40.135.34 (talk) 10:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that someone is just messing around with it; it was just added today. 24.249.134.214 (talk) 18:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Chaucer excerpt

The article leaves open the question of why Chaucer refers to April Fools Day as "32 days after the first of March." It sounds like it used to be considered a jinx to refer to the day by it's name or date- or maybe they thought talking about it jinxed you by making you more likely to become a fool on that day. Or, maybe you just referred to it obliquely in the hopes that people who were out to get you who listened to your conversation would be less likely to be reminded of the day, and to quietly resolve themselves to get you when it came up. Then this safe practice could have become a custom or superstition for many.

I have an idea of how to research this-- I guess a medieval-expert anthropologist or an expert on literature from medieval England would be the best person to present the theory to, although it might be hard to find evidence that would support it. If we could find literary evidence of other days that were referred to obliquely during Chaucer's era to avoid a hex or a jinx, we could extrapolate from that fact that Chaucer might have been doing the same thing. If we find other writings from Chaucer's time that don't support the theory (i.e., that refer to April Fools Day by name or as April 1st) then the theory may still be correct, because Chaucer's jinx-prevention may have not been uniformly practiced- it may have been a custom from a specific are of England or among a specific social class or ethnicity (pre-William the Bastard Britain was made up of a great many tribes or petty kingdoms, and the island was influenced by a great many ethnic groups, even before William got there). Anyway, if Western folk-culture has stayed a lot the same since the middle ages, in my opinion this is a likely theory, since people from many cultures still, and for quite a while have, avoided jinxes by not mentioning something out loud, or by not doing something. 67.85.225.175 22:28, 3 November 2007 (UTC) Swan


I understand that Chaucer was 500 years after William (the Bastard/the Conqueror). In my above comment, I'm just referring to pre-William Britain to make the point that, while American may think of Britain as a little island, it is plenty big enough to support plenty of cultural diversity. Just because you know a cultural custom is done in one place or one town in Britain, you really can't say that "British people do X." Plenty of other British people may have no knowledge of the custom or it might make no sense to them. Even today, I think there are still Scots who speak Scots-Gaelic in Britain, and Welsh who speak Welsh (I think they might even have it on TV and in periodicals and such in Wales). So that's three living languages with big communities on one little island. 67.85.225.175 02:30, 5 November 2007 (UTC) Swan 

--- Chaucer exerpt: reply

You say "The article does not explain why Chaucer refers to April Fools Day as 32 days after the first of March." By 'article', I take it you mean my note on the talk page from April 2006. April Fools Day fits with the theme of the tale that is being told - a tale of two fools, the fox and the crow. Thirty-two days past March would then be an indirect way of announcing the date, and the theme of the tale. I do think that that reference is significant, and should be promoted to the article, from the talk page, because it shows that April Fools Day was "celebrated" in England in 1400, which is earlier that is currently thought. ( Martin | talk • contribs 21:03, 20 September 2008 (UTC))

Dragonball AF

Do you think we should add it? I think it deserves to be mentioned here —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.207.60.27 (talk) 00:03, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Radio Prank

I seem to remember a very good April Fools day prank by London based Capital radio. April fools day fell on a saturday. They broadcast a show using Chris Tarant who was the then host of the Breakfast show which was normally broadcast Monday to Friday. The show followed the exact same format. I believe that many people turned up at their place of work on Saturday only to find it not open. Does anyone else remember this and could it possibly be a prank that has been played by other radio stations? --Cockers 15:07, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Google's April 1st Pranks

Someone should include Google's annual April 1st jokes: PigeonRanking (I think from 2003) - last year had the 'moon base' announcement, and 2005 they are 'introducing' a line of "Google Gulp" drinks. The comic strip switcheroo only happened once, but many online cartoonists continue to do some sort of gag on April 1st (see: UserFriendly, PC Weenies).

Software Development magazine's April 2002 issue contains a hoax article about an AI program that "writes programs" based on a natural language conversation with the user. "Successful" examples range from writing an unbeatable tic-tac-toe program to writing FAA aircraft control software.

Sport's Illustrated did a hoax a few years back where they wrote an entire article about a rookie pitcher for the Mets who had studied philosophy in Tibet and had an amazingly fast fastball. I wish I could remember the details. -- Zoe

This year's prank is about getting wireless internet through your toilet http://www.google.com/tisp/ 74.192.205.170 17:07, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Google Mail also has a prank about "Paper Archive". See [7] for the "overview", and [8] tells you it is a prank. I was completely fooled!!! --219.88.78.203 04:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC) Whoops sorry forgot to log in thats me --User:Lyradog User talk: Lyradog 04:03, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

A Wikipedia Prank

You know, wikipedia ought to pull something really big this April Fool's. I mean, come on! Google does it, Radio stations do it - Why don't we? I mean, come on. It's not as if anyone's going to die if we pull a prank for 12 hours, right?

Like we don't do it the other 364 days? LOL (AndrewAnorak 16:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC))

This is an encyclopædia. We are here to make information free for all. Correct? Further, we aren't pagans. Family Guy Guy 06:13, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

And google is a proper search engine! Plus it's only for 12 hours, not like if it's going to cause any harm. Nearly every large website does it! I thought Wikipedia is supposed to be the largest running online encyclopedia project?Faizaguo (talk) 18:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

"We aren't pagans"? How is that not inappropriate?

Many Wikipedians do make April Fool's Day jokes, and it takes weeks to clean up the mess! And some jokes go completely undetected. Such jokes on Wikipedia are really just self-justified vandalism. Glenn 07:25, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
To paraphrase Tom Lehrer, "There's time to trick them all the more, the other three-hundred and sixty-four." Wahkeenah 17:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


Also, who says we're not pagans? Wahkeenah 17:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Guess I'm a little late here, but if it's done with the knowledge of the wikipedia community, the jokes will be easier to clean up once it's over.68.228.80.106 (talk) 07:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

New York Times Liberty Bell

Taco Bell printed an ad about them buying the rights to the Liberty Bell, I elo

Pigeon milk

sending someone on an absurd errand such as seeking pigeon's milk: Kind of ironic, since pigeons and other doves do in fact produce a (false) milk, which they feed to their young. -- Coneslayer 20:13, 2005 Mar 23 (UTC)

Vandalism

As of yet, Wikipedia has not had any record of vandalism on April Fools Day. If you happen to see any, please report them directly to me. Thanks.… – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs, blog) 05:23, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Maltese Drivers

They already drive on the left, (or at least are supposed to). Or am I missing something? Srl

Yeah, the prank is that they would have to drive on the right now. poopsix 16:10, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Amusing

I understand people want to have fun, do it in a way that does not effect my life. Thanks. -- Cat chi? 11:13, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That's pretty darn selfish and isolationist. Plus, not funny- how are they supposed to pull great pranks? Ask you beforehand? poopsix 08:37, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

New Year

What I don't understand is the thing about new year: Prior to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1582, it was observed as New Year's Day. Does that mean 1530, say, changes to 1531 in April??? -- Tarquin 12:07, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Do bear in mind the title of this page! --Thomas 14:32, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't think the new year thing is itself an april fool, I've read it in a great deal of sources. If it IS, then the joke is a little old, and this page shouldn't be making it. -- Tarquin 09:48, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's not a joke at all. Actually, this is the most common explanation for the origin of April Fool's Day.

Comic Strip Ouiji Board

I am looking in my paper so here's a list of comics that don't involve this Ouiji board:

B.C., Peanuts, Beatle Bailey, For better or worse, Shoe, Hagar the Horrible, Rose is Rose, Blondie, Luann, Dilbert, Hi and Lois, Funky Winkerbean, Wizard of Id, Baby Blues, Pooch Cafe, Garfield, Family Circus, Arlo & Janis, Rex Morgan, Crankshaft, Ziggy, Lockhorns

Here's the list of those that do: Foxtrot.

Therefore: It's just foxtrot. Any examples to prove me wrong? --69.92.23.193 23:38, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Get Fuzzy too. -- Coneslayer 01:59, 2005 Apr 2 (UTC)
It wouldn't be possible for Peanuts to have been involved, since Charles M. Schulz has been dead for five years. It'll be hard to check the King Features Syndicate strips online since it they always post comic strips with a two week delay. -- JohnDBuell 03:30, 2005 Apr 2 (UTC)
Bill Amend's personal page shows that only three comics actually did this. Pearls Before Swine, Get Fuzzy and FoxTrot. --JohnDBuell 16:32, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Holiday?

Is April fool's day really a holiday? Shall we categorize it under "category:holidays"? I really don't think so. A holiday is a day off such as New year's day or Christmas. I don't think there's a country on earth where prople don't go to work on April 1 because they are allowed by the government to fool other people. April fool's day is, at most, a festival or celebration. -- Toytoy 08:17, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)

Does a holiday need to be a day when you don't have work? There are plenty of Catholic holidays that aren't recognized by the US government, and so don't result in a day off. So, why wouldn't that work for April Fools' day? poopsix 09:02, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

If "Father's day" and the rest of the "hallmark holidays" (cheesy term, i know, but it's the simplest) are listed in holidays, I see no problem with categorizing this as a holiday. 24.205.34.217 16:38, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

AFD is certainly a Holiday by Wikipedia's definition and I support it's inclusion in the category:holidays

[1] --LeeColleton (talk) 01:26, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Nature's day?

This day is also the international nature's day.

Is this yet another hoax? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lev (talk • contribs) 09:41, 2 April 2005

Page vandalism

"Traditionally, pranks are supposed to go pee pee by noon"

Now that April fools day is over in most parts of the world, maybe we should look through this article for more vandalism.  :-S

Other sources for the day

I have heard from a rather non-Xian source, that the Fool's Day has to do with the Xian belief that a baby was born without a father. Assuming a baby is born on December 25, and working with an average 269-day gestation period, the conception happens on April first. So, a nonbeliever would consider a believer a "fool" for believing that a baby is born with no male, and that belief would be on April first. The source is some obscure book a friend of mine has. No other sources i know of, so i don't think it's prime stuff for the front page. -- Chacham 09:08, 2005 Oct 10 (UTC)

Well, actually that would work for 268 days:
mysql> select date_add('2006-12-25',interval -268 day);
+------------------------------------------+
| date_add('2006-12-25',interval -268 day) |
+------------------------------------------+
| 2006-04-01                               |
+------------------------------------------+
--Gutza T T+ 12:15, 1 April 2006 (UTC)


There's no truth to that claim.

Anyway, the non-Christian could just as easily be considered the fool in that story. More so in fact, if there were any truth to the story. That would make far more sense since we are talking about Christian countries. It would never be popularized if it was the other way around.


What the crap does Xian mean? If you mean Christian, then do the proper way of abbreviating it: ☧-ian (with the Greek letters together). The ☧ is short for Χριστός. Check out Xmas. Also, there is no ☧-ian belief that babies are born without fathers. Even Jesus Christ himself had a Father, just not the normal biological kind. poopsix 09:05, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

April Fools Day on Wikipedia

Are we allowed to make funny edits and prank other users on April Fool's Day? That would be fun! --Wack'd About Wiki 19:35, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

You're allowed to make funny edits every day, they'll just get reverted more quickly on April Fool's Day since people will be looking out for them. I also suspect admins will be more lenient about about temporarily blocking people, at least I hope they are - because I have big plans this year. --NEMT 04:41, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
No. Melchoir 02:04, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I reserve what humor I have to talk pages and edit summaries - Wikipedia is more of a deadpan type. --Chodorkovskiy 15:23, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, according to the administrators, Wikipedia is too serious for this kind of thing.......Faizaguo (talk) 18:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.17.188.98 (talk) 23:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Dutch history

"Because the Dutch did not comply with this, they fought back. There was this band of roaming so-called freedom fighters, what we'd now call terrorists, calling themselves Geuzen, after the french geux which means beggars."

This isn't exactly objective. So the US revolutionists were terrorists as well? --Syr 17:01, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

April Troll's

Has anybody else noticed the similarity between April Fool's jokes and trolling? Seriously, the methods and goals are the same. Is this noteworthy? --Chodorkovskiy 09:15, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

It might be worth noting, but it could also be counted as original research, which is prohibited. If you could get a reliable source on such a thing, feel free to post it. --Gracenotes T § 15:37, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
I simply thought about comparing the two, but yeah, you're right.--Chodorkovskiy 15:41, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
To compare the two, you would need a reliable source, noting similarities.

Question

Is April Fool's Day a Western custom, or is a more worldwide custom? In what countries it this day "celebrated"? Sijo Ripa 20:22, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

April first in the Canterbury Tales (1400)

Canterbury Tales: The Nun's Priest Tale

  • 3190 Syn March [was gon], thritty dayes and two,
Since March had gone, thirty days and two,
  • 3191 Bifel that Chauntecleer in al his pryde,
Befell that Chauntecleer in all his pride,

MartinGugino 02:55, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

April Fools' prohibited after midday?

I'm confused by the last sentence in the first paragraph. The text reads "In some countries, April Fool's jokes (also called "April fools") must only be made before midday." Does this mean in some countries, they prohibit the jokes after midday or is it just a tradition? The article should be updated to make it more clear. — Jeremy | Talk 02:21, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Hm, seems clear enough to me with that single sentence. It's one of the unwritten rules on how to prank people, possibly made up by people to prevent excessive pranking and such. The unwritten rule applies where I live, and I'm pretty sure it's elaborated further on in the article. Of course, with the usual mass vandalism every April 1st, something might've been lost.. - Zero1328 10:39, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, the "source" is a "BBC Article" but it's not a BBC article at all. It's simply a BBC-administered Wiki (h2g2) with that info. Wikipedia can't reference itself, so I'm going to add "citation needed" to that line, even if it's well know. The "cited source" is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A516791. The-bus 16:16, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup: verifiability/notability

I noticed that quite a few entries in the list are without references to sources. Two problems:

  • wikipedia:Verifiability; the entry may be false, a "metahoax"
  • Notability: on this day zilloions of people say stupid things, and it is not a big deal that a shock jock announced that a local city mayor died of heart attack. Only entries with reported consequences or of particular elaboration must be included.

My suggestions:

  • Delete all unsourced entries; at least the stupid ones, i.e., lacking ingenuity and fantasy.
  • Move entries that don't have wikipedia articles in the lists by year (no article - no especial notability).

`'mikka (t) 22:42, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

War of the Worlds

Why is the famous radio broadcast by Orson Welles not listed here? I know it was not on April 1st, but it was still a very successful hoax.BBGun06 20:24, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

so put it under hoax, not april fools. pretty simple. --naught101 09:40, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Frodo of Gombe

The "Frodo of Gombe" story under "Hoaxes" is irrelevent and clearly written by the hoax's own author. And if you click on the external link for its source, you are taken to a lonely forum post with no replies but from the original poster. It's quite sad, really.

Side effects sub heading

Other effects

There is a persistent type of hoax which is telling someone to phone "Mr. C. Lion" (sealion), or "Mr. L. E. Fant" (elephant), or "Mr. G. Raff" (giraffe), or suchlike, at a telephone number that turns out to be a zoo. This causes a massive and very unwelcome overburden on zoos' telephone switchboard staff.

that was posted under the heading "side effects." it's great, but it's not related to april fools. perhaps it should go under hoax or prank call? --naught101 09:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Misplacement of apostrophe

All my dictionaries (OED, Collins, Chambers) have "April Fools' Day" (with the apostrophe after the s, not before it). It is the day of "April fools", after all, not one "April fool". So do dictionary.com, Encarta and Wiktionary, so why does Wikipedia misspell the name of the article? — Paul G 07:34, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Good question. Now answer this one: Is it Mother's Day, Mothers' Day, or Mothers Day? Wahkeenah 13:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
    • How about none of the above: it's "Mothering Sunday" :P Actually I think "Mothers' Day" is probably strictly correct. "Mothers Day" - no. Anyhow, I'm going to move this page if no one has any objections. — Paul G 13:53, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
      • "Mothers Day" could be just fine. It depends on whether it's possessive, or whether it's a day honoring all mothers, in the same form as "Veterans Day", which you'll note does NOT have an apostrophe anywhere. Wahkeenah 14:03, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I've moved the page, changed all occurrences of "Fool's" to "Fools'" in the article, and added a comment on the spelling using "Fool's". I've said this is incorrect. If this is POV, sue me ;) I haven't fixed the double redirects. — Paul G 14:01, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

  • And now you'll incur the wrath of those who will insist it should be spelled "Fools's" rather than "Fools'". Wahkeenah 14:04, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Well, they're just a bunch of fools's ;) — Paul G 10:38, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
  • The question is, is it actually the day of "April Fools" (plural), or is it the day that belongs to the "April Fool" (singular), in the same way that Valentine's Day is the day that belongs to St. Valentine. Numerous illustrations depict the character of The Fool dressed in his robes and horned hat, suggesting he is a singular, iconic character. Martin Wainwright's recent book, "The Guardian Book of April Fool's Day," placed the apostrophe before the s. My version of the OED (1985) doesn't use an apostrophe at all in the spelling. I would say that both placements of the apostrophe are correct, since no one can say with authority whether April Fool is singular or plural. It's a matter of subjective opinion. Alexboese (talk) 00:23, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I think you'll find that "April Fool's Day" (which is the only spelling in the Oxford Dictionary of English) is a perfectly correct spelling. If you think about it, "the day of the April fool" makes perfect sense as a description. "The April fool" is here acting as a generic referring to April fools in general. Similarly "Mother's Day" can be read as the day of Mother, or the day for the Mother, and again "Mother" does not refer to a specific mother. You don't need a plural to refer to mothers in general; you can do that with a singular. 21:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.168.113.164 (talk)

  • Historically, "April Fool's Day" has been the more popular spelling. Perhaps because it looks less awkward than April Fools' Day. If you do a search on Amazon of books with "April Fool" in their title, the majority of them use the spelling "April Fool's Day." But many dictionaries do spell it as "April Fools' Day," apparently believing that the name refers to all fools in general. They may have been persuaded of this because of the alternative term "All Fools' Day," that does imply fools in their entirety. Although some etymologists believe that All Fools' Day is a corruption of Auld Fool's Day, or Old Fool's Day. My preference is for April Fool's Day (singular) because there are so many references to the April Fool as the celebration's patron saint, assuming his throne for the day. But like I said above, both spellings seem acceptable. So if wikipedia wants to use "April Fools' Day," so be it. Though it might be worth adding a note, acknowledging that both spellings are widely used, and there doesn't appear to be a definitively correct form.

There's also an argument for "April Fools Day," dropping the apostrophe altogether. After all, "April Fools" is what you yell out when you've tricked someone. In this sense, it's neither singular nor plural. It's merely an exclamation.--Alexboese (talk) 16:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

What links here

There are way too many pages containing April Fool's instead of April Fools' and there is even a category too (category:April Fool's Day) - far too many to update by hand. Could a bot be written to make the necessary changes? — Paul G 14:42, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Well known hoaxes

This section appears to be too long, and will only get longer. Nor has it been clarified what counts as 'well known'. Additionally, there are already several other articles listing April Fools pranks year by year.

I suggest:

  • that this particular section is cleaned up to include only particularly notorious hoaxes.
  • that an article called List of April Fools' Day hoaxes or similar is created for those interested in a fuller list.

Any thoughts? Richard of York 14:43, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Back to the Future II Movie Special

During the TV special for the movie BttF2 (making of?), Zemeckis (I think, don't remember exactly) claimed that they had used real hover skateboards that were based in a technology that was discovered a while ago and patented but was not used because it was considered dangerous and hard to control. Supposedly the things used two magnets and created some weird magnetic effect that levitated the board. Allegedly, the actor or stuntman or whatever had an accident and broke some limb while using the "dangerous" device.

They had to issue a clarification the next week or month or so that it was an april fools' joke, because many people had called asking where they could get their flying skateboards.

I thought this was a well-known prank, but I can't find anything on the 'net. Anyone else remember this?200.48.20.67 15:55, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

References

The article should be split into referenced and unreferenced pranks. The same was done for Y2K, three quarters of them were urban legends or rumours or nonsense.

Alternative 3

Contrary to the text of this article, the USA and USSR were not supposed to be preparing for hypothetical future climate catastrophe, but were in fact supposedly putting plans into action as a result of a climate catastrophe that had begun and was thought to be inexorably progressing toward the extinction of mankind. The entire program is available on Google Video at present, but as the program itself is all the information I have, I hesitate to edit the article. Original research? 72.83.243.12 03:56, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Jeopardy/Wheel of Fortune Switcheroo

I can't see that this qualifies as a hoax in any way - nobody was deceived in any way by the switch, were they? Jon Rob 14:45, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Clearly not much of a "hoax", but if it was done for April 1, they were promoting it that way, i.e. as an April Fool joke. Wahkeenah 15:03, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

This is spam (not to mention the foolish external links)

The 2007 issue is now online (get RAFT'2OO7). --Earendel 15:50, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Concerning NationStates

The 2005 practical joke was replacing the front page so it looked like the DHS, not the DoD. See link here http://www.nationstates.net/hws.html -- I only mention because I was one of the guys who came up with it. I suggested "Department of Homeworld Security," made the logo, and took on the role of General George Hammond when we got lots of worried help requests about it. Damn but I was evil. --The Centipede 02:34, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Dubious items

Trying to prune the list, here are dubious items as I find them. The second level of comment is my explanation for removal. I am putting them here so people who know of a source for these can easily see they've been removed from the article and add them back, with a source.

  • Breast Exams by Satellite: In the 1990s, Portuguese national television network RTP announced the Ministry of Health would perform free breast exams by satellite, causing thousands of women to go out topless
    • A similar prank to this has been reported, but it was not an April Fool's joke and not conducted by RTP, but by some random hoaxer with a telephone
  • Weird Al Yankovic wears opposite costumes during concerts such as his "Dare to be Stupid" costume during "Like a Surgeon".
    • Can't find any references for this... just Wikipedia mirrors. Found a detailed review of a 4/1 show that did not mention him doing this prank.
  • FBI Crackdowns on On-line File Sharing of Music: Such announcements on April Fools Day have become common.
    • Unreferenced, not really interesting or funny. It would be like saying "sometimes people send virus warnings on 4/1"
  • Wrapping Televisions in Foil: In another year, the Dutch television news reported that the government had new technology to detect unlicensed televisions (in many European countries, television license fees fund public broadcasting), but that wrapping a television in aluminium foil could prevent its detection.
    • Best I could find was [9]. A "oocktail fact" is perhaps not the best reference.
  • National Television Station (TVM) in Malta: In 1995, TVM announced the discovery of a new underground prehistoric temple with a mummy. Another year, TVM announced that Malta would adopt the European continent convention of driving on the right-hand side of the road
    • Citation requested for 3 months... I couldn't find anything on Google.
  • Free wine for all:The Norwegian newspaper "Bergens Tidende" announced in 1987 that the state's alcohol monopoly had 10,000 litres of illegally smuggled wine that had been confiscated. The inhabitants of Bergen were invited to the main store in town to receive their share of the goods, rather than to spill good wine down the drain. That morning staff were met by about 200 men & women with bottles, buckets, and other suitable vessels for carrying the prized goods. Legislation in Norway causes alcohol to be relatively expensive and have limited availability.
    • Again, citation requested for 3 months and no one bothered. Not much on Google except 9,000 (!) Wikipedia hits. [10]
  • Rain drop power: On April 1st 2006 Norwegian media had a one-page story concerning "rain drop power", which could replace oil as a primary energy source. One could write to the energy company BKK in Bergen in order to be a volunteer and receive the power generated for free.
    • Couldn't find a source, tried several places
  • China Decapitates Taiwan: In 2005, an undergraduate nicknamed SkyMirage, who was well-known in Taiwan for his humor, fabricated a series of news that China's airforce was bombarding Office of President, Taiwan.
    • Unref'd, doesn't fully explain it and sounds like a vandal edit. Couldn't find a reference anyway
  • In 2002, it was revealed by Electronic Gaming Monthly that Sonic and Tails, two popular SEGA characters, were unlockable characters in the game, Super Smash Bros Melee. People took this to be a serious statement and many tried to determine how to unlock the two characters. Upon printing that it was an April Fool's joke, many were frustrated and some even upset. [citation needed]
    • Couldn't find a credible source... [11]
  • Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z was announced for production by Aniplex, Cartoon Network, and Toei Animation on 1 April 2005 and was originally discredited, but turned out to be true when poster art and clips from the series were revealed days later.[12]
    • Ref not in english, seems to be some random fansite

More to come perhaps. --W.marsh 13:17, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

All of these have my vote for deletion BQZip01 17:06, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

A few more:

  • On Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, after a drought of millionaire winners, Regis Philbin announced that instead of increasing the prize $10,000 each show, the amount would decrease by $10,000 a show. Then he yelled that this was not true because it was "APRIL FOOL'S DAY!"
    • Not nearly as elaborate as the other two, seems like a spur of the moment joke. Also I couldn't find a ref.

May add some more here. --W.marsh 23:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Just removed the following:

  • The Unification Bowl: In 2008, during playoff season, Cheetos brand snacks announced the formation of The Unification Bowl via a full page ad in USA Today. Curious football fans who visited http://www.unificationbowl.com, found that The Unification Bowl was actually a glass bowl filled with....Cheetos. Prank was deemed a Random Act Of Cheetos and launched a prank promotion that continues through April Fool's Day, 2008.


Why would there been an item from the FUTURE? SeoxyS (talk) 15:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Some items for consideration

In ancient Roman times April 1 was associated with the Veneralia a festival of the godess Venus. Was gift giving on April 1 associated with the display of signs of affections? What about being a fool for love? The modern April Fools Day seems to be much more cynical.

What is the nature of the fool in April Fool's Day. Is it The Fool on a Tarot card? Or just a jester? Or just someone easily fooled?

The article is still missing something. More historical material might help. Jbergquist 15:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The French Connection

April Fools' Day is the opening scene of French Connection II, not The French Connection. As Popeye Doyle arrives in Marsaille, French narcotics police are duped into thinking drugs are hidden in fish at the marketplace, which is revealed to be a hoax. Joe62.255.0.7 20:56, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Protection

Pfft. You shouldn't protect it. Someone should just keep a copy of the original page and let people have fun with it! Then just revert it on April 2! --Theunicyclegirl (talk, review me!) 02:24, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Dont protect this .. let it have fun thats just way to over the line to do that , its supposed to be fun Ballzwashin 03:09, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Maybe make a subpage on this page. Like copy everything onto April Fools' Day/Sandbox and have a blast! (Or just to go Uncyclopedia!) └Jared┘┌talk┐  04:01, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
  • This is not a play-ground. It is an encyclopedia. If you wish to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you find productively editting an encyclopedia to be fun the please contribute. If you want to play pranks, please go somewhere else. Johntex\talk 05:00, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

dude, you just sucked all the spirit out of the room... --ÄtΘmicR€£igionesїgñ

Are all administrators killjoys? Faizaguo (talk) 18:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Good. Go find an article help write, then, please. Johntex\talk 07:02, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
    • I guess you missed out on previous Wiki celebrations of April Fool's Day. Wiki has previously allowed some joking around on this day (for example, fake AfD's on various articles as pranks). Part of editing in the true spirit of Wiki is knowing when to relax; as shown by your smug replies and decidedly unpleasant attitude on this topic, this is clearly a skill you've yet to master. Apologies to Atomic and the others who wanted to experience the lighter side of Wiki; sorry this wasn't a more positive encounter. GarryKosmos 08:28, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
I haven't missed out on previous ones, and yes joking around is common on the Wikipedia and talk namespaces, but not the actual articles themselves. Vandalism isn't suddenly hilarious just because of the date. (Btw 'Wiki' means something different to 'Wikipedia'.) -- Chuq 09:05, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
Chug is exactly right. Aritcle vandalism does not become funny on the first of April every year. If you think vandalism to articles is ever pleasant, then you are the one you has a decidely unpleasant attitude. Johntex\talk 18:38, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm not saying vandalism is pleasant (for one, a fake AFD is not considered vandalism on this day given that admins have done so before). I'm saying your rude and uncivil reaction to their statements was out of line. I'm not sure if you intended to, but you came across as more than a little elitist and as ignorant of the day's celebration. Statements like "This is not a play-ground. It is an encyclopedia" are condenscending and flat-out inappropriate. If you're going to correct someone, do so in a more polite, mature manner. Otherwise, don't say anything at all. Most editors I know phrase things with greater care, please try to learn from your peers on this matter so you can improve. Also, please read WP:CIV and WP:BITE. GarryKosmos 19:01, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
You are mistaken and you are being uncivil. What was being discussed here was whether or not this article should be protected against vandalism. This had nothing to do with AfD or other jokes on non-article pages. It is perfectly appropriate to remind people that this is not a playground, a social networking site, the unencyclopedia, or any of the other things that Wikipeida is not. You need to go review our policies and objectives. Anything that lessens the accuracy of even one of our articles, even for one day, is not to be encouraged for the sake of something you think may be "fun". Johntex\talk 20:07, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
You don't have to encourage it, and discouraging is fine, but you bit Atomic Religione, which isn’t right. You didn't say anything wrong, but you could have been nicer in the way that you went about saying it. I get that you were probably annoyed by the antics going on around this article, but you need to be especially careful during those times to avoid incidents like this. Cheers, -- The Hybrid 20:17, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
I said "please".  :-) Johntex\talk 21:36, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough ;) -- The Hybrid 22:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:BDHፈቃደ (ውይይት) 20:21, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Anyone else think the protection tag is absolutely hilarious?Tmrobertson 17:48, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

April fools day and the UK tax Year

I wonder if the start of the UK tax year (April 5th)is related to the original new year being in april perhaps this should be a related topic ie if april 2nd is on a friday then april 5th is a monday the start of the working week. Tax is the biggest joke in england at present83.100.189.230 08:30, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

"BBC Radio 4 (2005): The Today Programme announced ... The Archers had changed their theme tune ..."

if my memory severs me correct they did play the "new" theme on that day. Listners liked the new one so much, Radio 4 still use it on the Omnibus edition of the whole week's episodes every Sunday at 10.00. just looked at The_Archers#Theme_tune, reads: "In 2004 both The Independent [4] and The Today Programme [5] claimed (as April Fool's Day jokes) that Brian Eno had crafted an electronic remix of the theme tune to replace the old theme." -- Artlondon 16:20, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Canada only before noon?

I've lived in Canada all my life, and I've never heard of this "jokes must be played before midday" thing. Maybe the entry itself makes the fool? 142.167.95.179 23:35, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm from Ontario and I've always heard it was only before noon. Perhaps there are differences in other regions? Merc 2k 02:51, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm from the UK and I was told as a child that jokes had to be played in the morning - after noon and the fool is on you. Though this doesn't seem to be something widely recognised in the UK these days, if it ever was. User:Green Fairyt c 19:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
I've lived in Canada since I was 4 and the before noon rule has been a part of April Fools' for all the time for me, my friends, and family. CoW mAnX (talk) 00:46, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm from the UK, and I've always been told it was supposed to be before noon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.8.58.255 (talk) 15:27, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Another lifelong Ontarian here. I know about the no-hoaxes-after-noon rule, but it was only a few years ago that I encountered that rule for the first time.--Vonbontee (talk) 04:57, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
It certainly applies in the UK, going back more than 40 years. Thanks, SqueakBox talk 05:04, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Iceburg

"The Great Iceberg" On April 1, 1978 a barge appeared in Sydney Harbor towing a giant iceberg. Sydneysiders were expecting it. Dick Smith, a local adventurer and millionaire businessman, had been loudly promoting his scheme to tow an iceberg from Antarctica for quite some time. Now he had apparently succeeded. He said that he was going to carve the berg into small ice cubes, which he would sell to the public for ten cents each. These well-traveled cubes, fresh from the pure waters of Antarctica, were promised to improve the flavor of any drink they cooled. Slowly the iceberg made its way into the harbor. Local radio stations provided excited blow-by-blow coverage of the scene. Only when the berg was well into the harbor was its secret revealed. It started to rain, and the firefighting foam and shaving cream that the berg was really made of washed away, uncovering the white plastic sheets beneath"

This is taken verbatim from the page at http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/ Pennywisepeter 15:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Economist.com

According to The Economist, Finnish people relish in April Fool's frivolities the most.

This should be removed from Trivia, as it is an april fool as well. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Möllikkä (talk • contribs) 05:42, 3 April 2007 (UTC).

Merge

It has been suggested that this article be merged into April 1. --98E 17:01, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Oppose the suggested merger since Christmass Day would be merged if the idea was to be taken to a logical conclusion, in addition where would Easter Day, Good Friday and other movable feasts be put if such merges were to become common practice. --Drappel 17:51, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Oppose, separate concepts. --W.marsh 17:53, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Book Details

Hi May I ask advice? I've just had a book published about April Fool's Day which has oodles of extra info & in particular much the fullest details yet given of the BBC spaghetti hoax & the Guardian's San Serriffe one. (I am the Guardian's Northern editor & the book is The Guardian Book of April Fool's). I fully understand that Wikipedia isn't in the business of plugging things, but wondered if the book could be a reference or footnote on the grounds that people wanting more info will def find it there. If I could get the whole text put online I would - I appreciate that may also be a problem. Anyway, thanks in advance & for W generally btw this entry isn't intended to be a plug & i'm v happy if you want to scrub it after giving an answer Martin wainwright 21:20, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

If it is a reference book, just put it under further reading. As long as the post is simply the title, author, etc. I see no problem with it. — BQZip01 — talk 06:38, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

April Fool Practice in East Asian cultures?

My gut observation, from childhood experience and subsequent news, is April Fool jokes do not exist in Chinese and other East Asian cultures. This contributor has personally experienced a harsh rebuke ("out of his mind") by a boy in the same primary school class when the contributor mentioned "April Fool's Day" around the mid to late 1980s. It must be noted that boy had a very limited exposure to Western culture at the time. And years later in 2003, the hoax news mentioning Tung Chee-hwa's resignation concerning SARS triggered a panic among a large sector of Hong Kong population, which implied a majority did not treat this as joke. Are there serious cultural studies done on the popularity of April Fool in East Asian culture?--JNZ (talk) 10:31, 19 January 2008 (UTC) with modifications --JNZ (talk) 06:04, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Alternate name

Isn't this day also known, somewhat more negatively, as Liar's Day? --81.150.229.68 (talk) 16:31, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

April’s fool day is known as Liar’s day in Ireland and the Isle of Man. During the Second World War, 1939-45 it was known as Hitler’s day in Northern Ireland but not in the South or on the Isle of Man, for some reason. See - http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Liar_27s_20Day —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.150.251.249 (talk) 00:00, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

16th Century French and Dutch References

The article states that "French and Dutch references from 1508 and 1539 respectively describe April Fools' Day jokes and the custom of making them on the first of April." What were these references? No citation is provided.--Alexboese (talk) 05:28, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

8-bit tie

"Online Retailer ThinkGeek usually replace their main page with a page containing "Featured Items" that are a joke. The page looks, feels and functions just like their real one, however the items featured are hoax and do not exist. Such items have included "Inhalable Caffeine Sticks", an 8-bit tie, and an alarm clock which wirelessly connects to your PC to log into your internet banking, and send funds to a charity. Adding any of these items to your shopping cart takes you to a page stating that the item is a hoax."

Isn't the 8-bit tie real?

59.154.17.6 (talk) 05:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the 8 bit tie is real. I'll remove that from the article and replace it with one of their current additions. --clpo13(talk) 08:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The 8-bit tie was a hoax from last year that was such a popular idea they decided to actually create a product. Zedlander (talk) 21:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

History

What about history and etymology about April Mop? Azmi1995 07:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Assuming Good Faith and Civility on April Fools Day

I'd like to suggest to those reverting joke edits to use the {{uw-joke}} template for first offences, and then {{uw-vandalism2}}, {{uw-vandalism3}}, {{uw-vandalism4}} as normal for repeat offences. Let's not be too harsh on our regular contributors, who are just trying to lighten things up, by labelling them as "vandals". (EhJJ)TALK 16:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

If not because they deserve it, then simply because it is easier to just wait it out than fight a battle over what will be over at the end of the day. Sam Barsoom 17:08, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Fixed gawk

Dont argue with me, its gawk not gowk since i talk the old scotch language and know it is wrong 85.211.71.231 (talk) 17:27, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Ugh, this page needs locked

This is obviously subject to vandalism, and has already been attacked several times, on this particular day... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.249.134.214 (talk) 17:57, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Strike that, I have had a sudden change of heart. Revert it tomorrow as has been previously suggested ;) 24.249.134.214 (talk) 17:59, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
This page was semi-protected for the first few hours of the day and there was only a little vandalism and many good contributions. Sure, we could let all the vandalism pile up, but what about the numerous people who want to read this article today? I've submitted a request for semi-protection to be reinstated. We'll be able to update the page with news and general improvements, but it will be safe from the anon-IP style vandalism. (EhJJ)TALK 18:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
My request for semi-protection was declined [13] and given Wikipedia's WP:AGF policy (which I fully support), it does make sense. If the vandalism gets unmanageable, anyone is free to submit the request again. Until then, I suppose we'll just deal with reverting blatant vandalism as it occurs and then mop up the rest tomorrow. (EhJJ)TALK 18:59, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
It was bordering on unmanageable for a little bit, but things seem to have calmed down a bit. --clpo13(talk) 20:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Missing Definition

After all this talk about fooling the gullible, I just noticed that the word "gullible" isn't in the wiktionary. SkyDot (talk) 18:08, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Wierd...it isn't. I just checked... — BQZip01 — talk 20:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

This page needs a background/history section

There appears to be some material in this vein on the discussion page - someone want to make a start at it? Where did the day first start? Where has it been most popular? Is it culturally specific or cross-cultural? Natebailey (talk) 00:59, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

World of Warcraft

Though it may no longer be reference-able, the April Fool's jokes from Blizzard were aboslutely priceless, like the Tauren "marine" and the new Bard class (complete with a fake screenshot that included the Guitar Hero interface).

Considering they fooled a significant portion of the ten million subscriber player base, I'd say that makes them notable.  ;) --199.79.10.117 (talk) 16:40, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Lists of April Fool hoaxes

This section is in need of some TLC. I saw that the 2006 list had been put up for Afd (See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/April Fools Day 2006), and on investigation, the list of April 1 links in this article is not as clear as it would seem. Namely:

So I would suggest a wider discussion is in order. Ideas? MickMacNee (talk) 02:01, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Goldeneye 007

This page needs the Goldeneye 007 for N64 prank. It is referenced on the Goldeneye article. The requirements to get that particular cheat was absolutely impossible. --97.101.222.18 (talk) 04:16, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

FAC by April 1st?

To reach Featured status we'd need to satisfy all of Wikipedia:Featured article criteria.

One of the requirements is images. Do we have any images of visual April Fools' Day pranks?

Unreferenced pranks

These have been remnoved from the article because they are unreferenced and references are required to meet FAC. RJFJR (talk) 17:49, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Well known pranks

  • Sheng Long: In 1992 Electronic Gaming Monthly claimed that Sheng Long could be unlocked as a secret character in Street Fighter II. EGM repeated the Sheng Long hoax again with "Street Fighter III." There have been several other EGM pranks.
  • Legend of Zelda Movie: In 2008, IGN released a trailer for an upcoming Legend of Zelda movie. The trailer looked very realistic and was revealed to be an April fools joke the next day.
  • Visual Sounds: In 2008, NCSoft announced a new feature for their popular MMO games City of Heroes and City of Villains, "Visual Sounds", which replaced the regular sound effects with onomatopoeia-style visuals. The announcement also proposed the future possibility of removing the sound effects altogether to save disk space.
  • Casablanca Re-Make: On Movies.com, it was announced that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes would be starring in a remake of the original Casablanca with Tom Cruise as Humphrey Bogart and the main actress being Madonna.
  • In 2002, Electronic Gaming Monthly said that Sonic and Tails were unlockable In Super Smash Bros. Melee. It was revealed to be a hoax after a few months.

By radio stations

  • In 1982, Dutch radio broadcaster TROS seemed to experience problems during its TROS Top 50 apparent signal interference from a new, English language satellite radio station from Switzerland. Hundreds of people called in, only to learn later that it was all a hoax to introduce a new DJ, Kas van Iersel.[citation needed]
  • BBC Radio 2 (2004): The Jeremy Vine Show reported that Germany had dropped the Euro but, as the German Mark was no longer in existence, they were in negotiations to adopt the British pound. Outraged listeners called by the hundreds to say that such a move would be an assault on British sovereignty.[citation needed]
  • Kiss FM: In the early 1990s the London radio station announced the moon would come crashing to earth. Various experts refuted this along with many callers.
  • In 2000 in Chicago, Mancow Muller, the host of Alternative Rock station Q101's Morning Show switched his transmitter with that of Urban station WGCI as a prank on his friend Crazy Howard McGee, the host of WGCI-FM's show, causing McGee to unknowingly broadcast on Q101's frequency while Mancow introduced himself as the "White Czar" and taunted McGee on his own station, causing a barrage of calls from gullible listeners in McGee's defense. McGee was confused as he took many of the calls, but did not realize for over an hour that he was the butt of a joke. After realizing the prank, he played along for the remainder of the segment.
  • CBC Radio 1 (2001): The Sunday Edition's Michael Enright conducted a telephone interview with Jimmy Carter on the topic of the United States-Canada softwood lumber dispute. At one point Enright asked Carter (who was actually being played by a Canadian actor), "How did a washed up peanut farmer from Hicksville such as yourself get involved in such a sophisticated bilateral trade argument?" The interview went downhill from there and ended with "Carter" terminating the interview and hanging up.[citation needed]
  • Free concert: Radio station 98.1 KISS in Chattanooga, Tennessee falsely announced in 2003 that rapper Eminem would be doing a free show in a discount store parking lot. Several police were needed to deal with traffic gridlock and enraged listeners who threatened to harm the DJs responsible. Both DJs were later jailed for creating a public nuisance. Also, radio station WAAF 107.3 in Boston announced that Pearl Jam was having a free concert in a fictitious city in New Hampshire. A gas station in New Hampshire reported that several streams of car drivers stopped in asking for directions to the fictional town.[citation needed]
  • New format: Radio station KFOG in San Francisco, claiming new corporate ownership, switched to a new format - the best 15 seconds of every song. All morning they mixed in false calls from perky listeners calling with compliments. This hoax can also be considered a parody of late 1990s media consolidations.
  • New format: in 1998, radio station KITS in San Francisco played gay-themed songs and changed its call letters to "KGAY" for an hour.[citation needed]
  • Sydney Olympics (1): Australian radio station Triple J breakfast show co-host Adam Spencer announced in 1999 that he had a journalist on the line at the site of a secret IOC meeting and that Sydney had lost the 2000 Summer Olympics. New South Wales Premier Bob Carr was also in on the joke. Mainstream media (including Channel 9's Today Show) picked up the story.
  • Sydney Olympics (2): Australian radio station Triple M breakfast show The Cage announced in 2002 that Athens had lost the 2004 Summer Olympics because they couldn't be ready in time and that Sydney would have to host it again.[citation needed]
  • Cancellation of the Howard Stern Show: The April 1st, 2004 show started off with an announcement by the station manager stating that due to increased pressure from the FCC, Viacom had cancelled The Howard Stern Show. The station played pop songs until 7:00 am, when Stern came back on.
  • Change of drinking age: On the Gold Coast, Australia's biggest tourist destination (particularly amongst schoolies), radio station Sea FM announced the drinking age would be changed from 18 to 21. This left a huge number of under-21s angry and frustrated, and incited protests. It was later announced at the Sea FM dance party that it was a hoax.[citation needed]
  • Second Audio Program (SAP): In 2005, Micky Dolenz told listeners WCBS-FM was broadcasting in foreign languages, and they could make use of the SAP Language control. Callers to the radio station were told that if you didn't have an SAP button, then twist the antenna a bit.
  • Tsunami warning and intense storm: In 2005, Estonian Radio's station, Vikerraadio, perpetrated a hoax during a broadcast of their morning program Vikerhommik, right after the 9 o'clock news. Station said that Finland had been put under a tsunami warning and that the waves were expected to be more than 5 meters high. They also said that Estonia was expecting heavy storms and that Finland might be subjected to hurricane force winds. Hosts also said that they were looking at real satellite imagery, and that it showed intense cyclones in Northern Europe. It was immediately proven to be hoax after a quick look at the weather maps.
  • Theft of a Locomotive: In 2006, a Cheyenne, Wyoming radio station reported to listeners that during the previous night, a Union Pacific 4-8-8-4 "Big Boy" steam locomotive was stolen from Holliday Park. Although the locomotive weighed more than 550 tons (500 tonnes) and had no tracks connecting it to any nearby railroad, thus making its theft near-impossible, several listeners fell for the joke and went to investigate. The road that overlooks the park was jammed for hours as people realized that it was a hoax, and the locomotive was still on display in the park.
  • "The Great Iceberg" On April 1, 1978 a barge appeared in Sydney Harbour towing a giant iceberg. Dick Smith, a local adventurer and millionaire businessman, had been loudly promoting his scheme to tow an iceberg from Antarctica for quite some time. Now he had apparently succeeded. He said that he was going to carve the berg into small ice cubes, which he would sell to the public for ten cents each. These well-traveled cubes, fresh from the pure waters of Antarctica, were promised to improve the flavor of any drink they cooled. Slowly the iceberg made its way into the harbor. Local radio stations provided excited blow-by-blow coverage of the scene. Only when the berg was well into the harbor was its secret revealed. It started to rain, and the firefighting foam and shaving cream that the berg was really made of washed away, uncovering the white plastic sheets beneath.
  • "Michael Jackson moves to Birmingham" In 2007, West Midlands radio station 100.7 Heart FM reported that newspapers were claiming that Michael to the region. A station employee posed as a caller into the radio station, claiming he'd seen Jackson walking through Birmingham, and filmed it. Presenters Ed James and Hellon Wheels directed listeners to the website to watch the video, only for it to show James doing a caricature-like impersonation of the singer. Meanwhile, angry listeners telephoned the station to register their disapproval of such a controversial figure moving to the Midlands.
  • 95.5 WBRU FM Becomes "Buddy FM": On March 31, 2006, WBRU claimed to be sold for two million dollars to Initech (a reference to the 1999 film Office Space) and changed the format of the station from alternative rock to "Buddy FM" - mainstream popular music. It was later found out to be an April fools joke, and, as of noon on April 1, 2006, WBRU had "regained" control of their radio station and began playing their normal playlist once again. Later that day, they confirmed that they were back to being WBRU, and that Buddy FM was no longer functioning.
  • "97.3FM" in Brisbane, Australia reported the polluted Brisbane River to be a shining blue on April 1st, 2005. This was said to have been caused by a rare movement of the moon, causing high tides and the sea water to run upstream to the river to give it clean blue water. Multiple personalities were in on the joke and interviewed through the morning, and calls were screened so that those living by the river didn't ruin the joke. Some listeners even called in reporting how beautiful it was to see the river unpolluted and clear.
  • "The Edge" New Zealand, a popular youth radio network hosts reported in 2006 that the Government were to ban cellphones to under 16s. This of course stirred many frustrated naive callers to have talkback sessions with the hosts until the Prime Minister Helen Clark was interviewed and announced that it was a hoax.
  • "The Edge 2" New Zealand in 2008 they announced every Tuesday would be "Hook me Up Tuesday" ie they would just play the chorus of songs.
  • "Nova 106.9FM" in Brisbane, Australia and "Hot Tomato" on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia shared an April Fools' joke in 2008 when identical twins Ashley and Luke Bradnam swapped morning show hosting roles. Ashley Bradnam is a personality on the Nova 106.9 morning show and filled in for Luke Bradnam at Hot Tomato. Luke Bradnam is a personality on the Hot Tomato morning show and filled in for Ashley Bradnam on Nova 106.9. Listeners were not fooled for long and called both stations to guess at the switch.
  • In 2008, Chicago-based Urban station Power 92 morning host Trey the Choklit Jock announced that presidential candidate Barack Obama had dropped out of the race due to racial tensions, prompting a massive amount of calls from angry listeners.
  • WSFM, in Sydney, annonced after the 7:00 news that comedy duo Merrick and Rosso had taken over the morning show, replacing regulars Brendan Jones and Amanda Keller. They went on to play pop music (replacing the stations original '70s and 80s' mix) until disgusted callers expressed their dissatisfaction at the prank.

By television stations

  • In April 2006, the "Best Damn Sports Show Period" staged a fight between Tom Arnold and Michael Strahan. On Friday March 31st the show went off the air as Tom Arnold was wrestling NY Giant's defensive end Michael Strahan to the ground over comments Tom made in a tell-all book. Strahan pretended to be very hurt by screaming and clutching his shoulder as the cameras cut to black. It fooled cast members Rodney Peete and Rob Dibble enough to have them intervene in the fight. Rodney Peete went so far as to give Tom rabbit punches while he broke up what he thought was a real fight. It also worked enough to fool the popular internet site "deadspin.com" into reporting it as a real event.
  • In 2005, TV 3 Estonia broadcast a news story, in which the station claimed that, thanks to new technology, they knew exactly how much they were being viewed at the moment. They also asked viewers to put a coin against their TV screens if they liked the running broadcast.
  • Swiss network TSR (Télévision Suisse Romande), broadcast a hoax report every year, usually at the end of the 19.30 news. For example, in 2005, they reported that instead of being helicoptered out when a person is injured while skiing, they are parachuted down the mountain. In 2006, it was that the town of Fribourg was planning to make people release their handbrakes in designated areas, so that if parking spaces were too tight, all people would have to do was to call for the police and they would push the car.
  • The night-time channel Adult Swim has had several pranks over the years.
    • In 2004, mustaches were drawn on characters during the shows.
    • In 2005, an unfinished pilot of Squidbillies aired followed by a reairing of the "panel discussion". This pilot did not reair the same night, instead the first episode of Perfect Hair Forever reaired. The rest of programming had stuff drawn on it, similar to the mustaches of the previous year.
    • In 2006, the channel significantly changed its programming. InuYasha was replaced by the 1980s cartoon Karate Kommandos starring Chuck Norris, while Neon Genesis Evangelion was replaced by Boo Boo Runs Wild and Cowboy Bebop was replaced by Mister T. Full Metal Alchemist and Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG had their episodes edited so characters farted throughout the show, although they showed an unedited version of the Ghost in the Shell episode later in the night.
    • In 2007, which also fell on a Sunday, Adult Swim once again had a revised schedule. The station played only Perfect Hair Forever starting at midnight. The first episode shown was actually the premiere of the show's second season. After that, season 1 was rebroadcast in modified form, made to resemble old VHS fansubs,in one episode the subs oddly turned into a script from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Throughout the night the station also had short clips entitled "Fan Service Moments" in which they showed short shots of scantily clad anime girls. Adult Swim also ran commercials saying that Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters would air 10 PM on April 1st, almost two weeks before its scheduled theatrical release date. They actually did, in fact, play the movie, however it was in a box in the bottom-left corner of the screen during the channel's regular programming. The box the movie was played in was too small to be viewed and the sound was that of the regular show. However, the channel did play the opening scene of the movie on the full screen with sound.
    • In 2008, viewers expecting to see an encore of Sunday evening's Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters were instead treated to unscheduled sneak previews of the upcoming shows Young Person's Guide to History, Delocated, Superjail and Fat Guy Stuck in Internet, along with new episodes of The Venture Bros., Metalocalypse, Robot Chicken, and Moral Orel (which otherwise will not air until the months of May, June, and August). The movie aired later with title cards inserted between all commercial breaks depicting real people wearing body costumes of Aqua Teen characters Master Shake, Frylock, and Meatwad accompanied with text reading "You Missed The April Fools Stunt. Enjoy The Movie."
  • On April Fools' Day, 1997, Cartoon Network ran the 1944 Screwy Squirrel cartoon Happy-Go-Nutty repeatedly from 6 AM to 6 PM, suggesting that the cartoon character had taken over the network.
  • In 2002, Toonami showed 4 episodes of Batman: The Animated Series featuring The Joker, suggesting that the villain had taken over the block by using his Joker virus to infect the computer system on board the Absolution.
  • In 1989, Seattle area TV program Almost Live! set up a phony broadcast room and dressed up actors as TV anchors to pull an April Fools' joke explaining that the Space Needle had collapsed in a windstorm.
  • The BBC's Saturday lunchtime show Football Focus broadcast a piece centred on the upcoming change of the size of goals. Using West Ham United manager, Harry Redknapp, the report claimed that the size of the goals would increase by two feet in height and four feet in length. Redknapp was being 'interviewed' on the training ground where his goalkeepers were getting to grips with bigger goals. They told the truth on the following week's show, where outtakes of Redknapp messing up his lines were also shown. The BBC's Grandstand sports magazine programme once featured a dispute between two production staff that turned into a fight, while the presenter continued oblivious to the scuffle behind him.
  • In 1998, the Channel 4 morning show The Big Breakfast got into trouble with various authorities[citation needed] for pulling an April Fools stunt showing video footage of the Millennium Dome on fire.
  • In 2004, MTV's Total Request Live reported that the band Simple Plan was breaking up. Lead Singer Pierre Bouvier even called in and claimed that constant fighting had led to the break-up. "Things have been said and lines have been crossed. It's hard to forget things. For the moment now I just really can't stand being around those guys. I just need some time to relax," he told viewers. Throughout the show, VJs Damien Fahey and Quddus took calls from distraught fans about the band's break-up. However, at the end of the show, Bouvier called back to confess that it was all just an elaborate April Fool's Day prank. "So you're not breaking up?" asked Fahey. "Are you kidding me? No, man. How the hell could we break up? We couldn't do that. I love those guys," Bouvier replied. TRL carried out a similar prank on April Fool's Day of 2002 when Kevin Richardson of the Backstreet Boys was a guest host. He opened the show by saying that the group had decided to go their separate ways, at which point many of the girls in the audience began to cry. "Before we get started, though, I want to take a minute to clear up some things. There's been a lot of rumors going around about Backstreet and our future and what's going on. Since I'm hosting today, the rest of the guys thought it would be a good idea while I was on here that I cleared up all those rumours and allegations. Uhm, as of today, the fellas and I will no longer be performing together," Richardson said. "I'm joining a punk rock band and Nick's doing a solo album and, uh, we'll get into that a bit later," he went on to say before revealing it was just an April Fool's joke.
  • The 1977 British documentary Alternative 3 was originally intended as an April Fools' Day hoax and the date of April 1, 1977 is specifically given in the program's credits. This documentary detailed the discovery of a major cover-up involving the American and Soviet Space Agencies, who had been collaborating on plans to make the moon and Mars habitable in the event of a terminal environmental catastrophe on Earth. The program gave birth to a large number of conspiracy theories.
  • In 1979 the BBC programme That's Life!, which often featured talented pets, fooled many viewers with its story about an Old English sheepdog that could drive a car.
  • In 1962, one of the most famous April fools jokes in Sweden was performed. A well-known person on SVT claimed that one could get color images from a black-and-white TV set by covering it with a nylon stocking. Thousands of people tried it.
  • In 1991, during the time block of the student comedy show Coo-Coo, the Bulgarian National Television aired breaking news that "...the situation in the nuclear power plant of Kolzoduj is fully under control." This brought back memories of the communist censorship during the reporting of the Chernobyl disaster half a decade earlier. 90% of the viewers became convinced that reactor No.4 in Kozloduj had exploded. The authors of the comedy show were later accused of manipulating the public in order to destabilize the Bulgarian government.
  • NESN, a New England sports network, announced that Tom Brady, the quarterback for the New England Patriots, had resigned, and that he would become a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.
  • South Park: April 1st, 1998 was advertised as being the premiere of the show's second season — and also the resolution of a cliffhanger where Eric Cartman was about to discover the identity of his father. Fans spent weeks speculating on the father's identity, but when they tuned in to watch it they were instead treated to Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus, a half-hour of Terrance and Phillip fart jokes. The true resolution to the cliffhanger aired several weeks later. The show's creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone claim during the DVD introduction to this episode that they received death threats over pulling the prank.
  • When the movie Volcano, starring Tommy Lee Jones, came out, a TV station prepared scenes from the movie to run as if they were an actual news broadcast. At the end of the report stating that a volcano had erupted in the middle of Los Angeles and that the city was completely engulfed in flames, the announcer added that it was all an April Fools' prank.
  • Going Live!: In the 90's, Phillip Schofield did a section on a new type of music player that had every top 40 single loaded into it, that could play a song just by speaking the name of the song into it. He said it would be available to buy soon. He invited viewers to ring in and request a song, Then he would ask the machine to play it. The studio was of course inundated with calls, and Phillip revealed later that it was a prank and the machine didn't exist.
  • In 2008, The BBC released a short Doctor Who spoof using mostly pre-existing footage and advertised it as the first episode of Season 4 of the new series.
  • In 1993, after the end of the final match of the Swedish Ice Hockey championships, the commentator said that the match had to be cancelled and be played once again. This match would start immediately. He was standing with the spectators going back into the arena behind him. Unfortunately the network could not broadcast this match, he said. However, this was all a joke recorded before the match.

By magazines, newspapers, and book

  • In April 1990, the British magazine Classic CD announced the discovery of the first recording ever made : Frederic Chopin himself interpreting his minute waltz. This event followed the discovery of 3 glass cylinders and a letter discovered buried in a garden next to Chopin's house in Montfort l'Amaury (France). In that letter, an inventor wrote he had built a recording device in the year 1849 (several years before the phonograph was invented). The sound was inscribed into tracks by a stylus and a vibrating membrane on a lamp-blackened glass cylinder. He asked his neighbour Frederic Chopin to record some music for him. But since he could not play back the sound, he buried it in his garden and died anonymously. The magazine Classic CD offered a CD on which one could hear a dim and muffled music, dominated by a repeating grinding noise that sounded like Chopin playing. The next month the readers learned that the music was played in a room next to the recorder. The tempo was modified so that it would last just one minute, and the hypnotic grinding noise was made by scratching the microphone with a fingernail.
  • In 2005, the Maryville Daily Forum newspaper in Maryville, Mo., published an entirely fake front page on April 1. Stories detailed a plan to drain a local lake to find the city manager's lucky golf ball; the city's efforts to annex the entire town from Missouri into Iowa; and the arrest of the newspaper's publisher for smoking a cigar in a restaurant (only a few months after a city-wide no-smoking ban was put into effect). Page 2 of that day's newspaper proclaimed "APRIL FOOLS!" across the top of the page, followed by that day's real news stories. The newspaper received hundreds of phone calls that day from readers who thought the stories were real, and Maryville City Hall also received dozens of phone calls from citizens outraged that the city would drain a lake or annex into Iowa.
  • In 2008, Hot Rod Magazine released an extremely convincing article claiming that American Motors would be revived, complete with info and detailed artist renderings.
  • Discover Magazine frequently runs one fake article in their April edition as an April Fool's joke. The articles are often so outrageous that they are hard to miss, yet the next month's issue frequently has angry letters from readers who feel misled or quote bad science. Examples have included the discovery of the "Bigon"[4] (a subatomic particle the size of a bowling ball) and of the "Hotheaded Naked Ice Borer" (an Antarctic predator resembling a Naked Mole Rat that burrows through ice).
  • Road & Track Magazine also runs an atypical article in their April edition, testing a unique form of transportation instead of a normal car. In 2008, this article focused on the Mach 5 from the Speed Racer movie, and mentioned at the end that they had tested it via simulation from Polyphony Digital.

By game shows

  • In a famous edition of the British version of The Weakest Link transmitted on April Fools' Day 2006 Anne Robinson surprised the contestants by being initially very pleasant to them. However, after a period she reverted to her usual haranguing self stating that "I can't be bothered with this anymore".

By websites

  • 2600: The Hacker Quarterly changed their biannual conference (H.O.P.E.) website to look identical to Presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign site but "hacked'.
  • ActBlue 2008 ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising hub, announces on its blog that it will begin collecting funds for US candidates in Euros, due to the decline of the dollar.
  • Polar Bear Conservancy 2008 Grist reports a Seattle-based nonprofit is preparing to relocate polar bears to Antarctica to protect them from climate change.
  • StreetPrices 2008 released its entire product guide on paper, delivered every half hour.
  • RISKS Digest publishes a special April 1st issue.
  • Slashdot unveiled a new pink "OMG PONIES" theme in 2006. [14]
  • Neopets has performed numerous April Fools' jokes, including releasing 50 new pets, abolishing Neopoints completely, and charging Neopoints to use the site.
  • Homestar Runner creators, The Brothers Chaps, now regularly put up April Fools' jokes, such as the most recent one in which the entire site was flipped upside-down.
  • Throughout production of the 2005 remake of King Kong, director Peter Jackson produced behind-the-scenes featurettes for the Internet providing updates on the project. On April 1, 2005, Jackson (aided by cast members, crew members, and even a studio representative) announced that King Kong would be followed by a sequel, Son of Kong, which would see Kong's offspring battling Nazis after being equipped with shoulder mounted machine guns. Jackson went so far as to have faux production drawings and computer animation test footage created for the film. The joke report was later included on the Peter Jackson's Production Diaries DVD set but was not identified as an April Fools' joke; it is incumbent upon the viewer to notice the date of the installment.
  • The semi-official site [15] of the rock band Tool publishes an April Fools' joke every year, sometimes with the help of the official website [16]. For example, in 2005 Tool announced that their singer Maynard James Keenan had found religion and quit the music business. Also in 1997, a serious tour bus crash was reported to have taken place.
  • Andrew Carlssin was a hoax created by the Weekly World News about a time-traveling man, that was later printed on Yahoo News as an April Fools' Joke.
  • Facebook and the News-Feed: On April 1, 2007, Facebook posted fake updates on the News-feed page reading [17]:
    • "Introducing LivePoke! Facebook will dispatch a real live person today to poke a friend of your choice. (offer good for only the first 100 pokers in each network)"
    • "Harry and Voldemort have set their relationship status to 'Mortal Enemies.'"
    • "You are on Facebook, reading your News Feed."
    • "Meredith and McDreamy have changed their relationship status to 'It's Complicated' ... oh wait ... 'In a Relationship' ... oh wait ... 'It's Complicated' again."
    • "Two of your oxen drowned when you tried to ford the river."
    • "Bracket Buster: Ohio State and Florida have mutually agreed on a tie and will not play the championship game."
    • Changing the copyrights from "a Mark Zuckerberg production" to a random Facebook employees' name or the user's own.
  • In 2007, wordpress.com set up their main page so that when logged in, your latest post would appear as 'Blog Of The Minute'. This raised several questions on their support forums.
  • Club Penguin's April Fool's Day parties have always changed almost all of Club Penguin. In the 2008 one, the iceberg looked like a cup of ice water, and the dock was changed to a super fast ice rink, as well as the forest going completely upside down and the cove having various effects. Also, several buildings' graphics looked as if they had been drawn with crayons, pencils, or as if they had been rapidly made with Microsoft paint.
  • In 2008, YouTube pranked unsuspecting viewers by hyperlinking all featured videos to a Rickroll posted by the username YTRickRollsYou. ThinkGeek added a double measure when his front page feature all prank items that could not be purchased, as well as when a user clicked on the Beta Max to HD-dvd converter, the video instruction rick-rolled its viewers after fourteen seconds of play.
  • Popular online webcomics xkcd, Questionable Content, and qwantz exchanged their URLs, meaning that http://www.xkcd.com/ led to QC, http://www.questionablecontent.net/ led to qwantz, and http://qwantz.com/ led to xkcd. XKCD's alternate URL, http://cu.nniling.us/, also led to QC.
  • In 2008, Boeing announced that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner project was being cancelled because of difficulties with foreign suppliers. An alternate was given, a new Boeing 767 dubbed the 'Miserliner.' An in-depth explanation was given, citing multiple reasons why it would be wise to cancel the 787, even though a prototype had already been built months ago.
  • In 2008 Wookieepedia changed every word into Aurebesh .

Another April Fools Joke?

I heard there was going to be a computer virus that will screw up computers worldwide on april fools.I dont think its true. 173.35.179.194 (talk) 20:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

It is true, see Conficker. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 09:23, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Yeah... Not buying it. It's april fools and OH LOOK! Nothing happened. --86.87.28.191 (talk) 23:39, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Well it didnt affect my computer so idc lol 173.35.179.194 (talk) 02:26, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Blocked?

Any particular reason, or is some admin being a dick? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.109.109.8 (talk) 12:45, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

For obvious reasons, this page will be vandalised a lot today, so it has been semiprotected. Queenie 16:25, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Is vandalism of the April Fools Day article on April Fools Day so bad? Tempshill (talk) 18:54, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Query

It is listed in the opening paragraph that there is some sort of tradition in Australia about jokes only lasting until midday. Not that April Fools' Day is really ever taken advantage of here in Australia, but I have never heard anything of this so called tradition here, and have certainly never heard of it put into practice ever by anyone. It is true that the jokes last all day here and I have never heard of someone being called an 'April Fool' for practicing a joke after midday. Seems to be sort of a lost or misguided tradition to me; there is no etiquette for April Fools' Day in Australia any more. Escapomobil (talk) 13:00, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Live.com

...is doing April fools stuff too, including saying that chuck norris is the head of homeland security.--Ryudo (talk) 17:17, 1 April 2009 (UTC) Jimmy Wales annonced on 1 April 2009 that Wikipedia is going to be sold to Google Inc. because of a big loss of the Wikimedia foundation due to the world finance crisis. [2] --Noebse (talk) 17:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

  1. ^ As an observance In all of the English-speaking world including North America, a holiday can refer to a day set aside by a nation or culture (in some cases, multiple nations and cultures) typically for celebration but sometimes for some other kind of special culture-wide (or national) observance or activity.
  2. ^ The Wall Street Journal World finance crisis victim Wikipedia sold to Google

The sentance saying a Purim Speil is similar to April Fools Day is NOT true. It needs to be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.190.205.196 (talk) 18:27, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Spaghetti Trees Double Mention

Is it really necessary to mention them twice? The second mention in the Television section doesn't seem to add anything. Please ignore if this has been discussed and i missed it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.89.94.202 (talk) 19:40, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Youtube 2009 (upside down prank)

It seems to me that the Youtube prank of 2009, which uses the terms 'new/old layout' as part of the joke, is a mocking reference to the new facebook layout - original research though this may be, I wonder if this can be substantiated and mentioned...

86.168.125.124 (talk) 21:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Facebook

On April Fools' this year me, amongst others got a message from one "Barack Obama" requesting we accept his proposal to add him as our cousin in the family tree section.

Just wondering did anybody else get this and is it worth noting?

Cheers 82.4.66.153 (talk) 18:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Julian Calendar

... the term referred to someone still adhering to the Julian Calendar, which it replaced.[2] In many pre-Christian cultures May Day (May 1) was celebrated as the first day of summer, and signalled the start of the spring planting season. An April Fool was someone who did this prematurely.

Um, that's backwards, right? Someone still adhering to the Julian Calendar would celebrate May Day later, much as they celebrate Christmas in January in modern times. 72.75.93.12 (talk) 08:47, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

  • is it only one day, I thought it was two weeks? 71.178.119.46 (talk) 01:31, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Possible April Fool's Day pranks

1. Edit the page so that the beginning of each part makes perfect sense but then digresses into hilarity. 2. Put up fake banners requiring that you do the impossible (e.g. "Take a breath of that nice ocean air...But don't breathe!!!") 3. Delete the page!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Maxaxle (talk • contribs) 01:40, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Apple launch date

Hello there. I am wondering, maybe we can squeeze in the fact that the Apple I personal computer launched on the date of April 1st, 1976. :) -user:97.103.58.2 00:59, 2 April 2009

Is it true? 71.178.143.66 (talk) 03:00, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

2010 Olympic Tower

Has this been confirmed as an April Fool? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.178.99.24 (talk) 21:56, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Left handed mugs

Do exist: the hand the drinker has to use to see the image. Jackiespeel (talk) 18:22, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Calandars

I thought it has something to do with the switch from one form of calandar to the next. Julian to Gregorian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GwaiiEagle (talk • contribs) 23:58, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

The Gregorian calendar was created in 1582 and there are several references to April Fools Day that predate this. There are various stories to the effect that somebody or other celebrated New Year's Day on April 1 and that other people who celebrated on January 1 made fun of them. In the Middle Ages, New Year Day's was March 25. So if a town celebrated for a week, April 1 would be the final day of celebration. That's the strongest New Year's/April 1 connection I could find. If someone celebrated on March 25 using the Julian Calendar, that would be April 4 on the Gregorian calendar, which still wouldn't explain April 1. Kauffner (talk) 03:46, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Kill spammers

Please remove the blogspot links at the bottom of external links. Thanks. Testpath (talk) 03:51, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

You can do that? 71.178.117.104 (talk) 02:38, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

New How Stuff Works Entry

Should add "2010: How the Twapler Works" to howstuffworks entry on website section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.174.183.123 (talk) 04:52, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

its today--118.172.189.233 (talk) 07:10, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Umm ... fact

On April 1, 2010, President Barack Obama fell to his death when he accidentally triggered the Air Force One's secret trap door.

This was in the "true stories" section of the April 1st article. I think something like that is a little irresponsible. And yeah, maybe only a little bit funny. But someone with the authority should fix it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.91.28.231 (talk) 15:23, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia, take a joke for once

Article considered for deletion. Wow. You guys act like changing an article's contents changes reality itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.112.186.47 (talk) 19:27, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeh it's all our fault. Encyclopaedias are known for humour and we just can't accept that. G.R. Allison (talk) 21:38, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Bahman, 2 April 2010

{{editsemiprotected}}

The origin of April fool's day is probably rooted in the festive period immediately before and after the ancient spring holiday. As has already been noted the Christian calendar initially started the year on March 25th, the approximate date for winter's end and spring's start. As some have argued, April 1st might have been chosen as the date marking the end of the first week of the new year starting on March 25th. Another, related possibility is the relation with the Iranian Sizdeh bedar holiday ([18]). In Iran and the countries surrounding it New Year is still celebrated officially on March 21st ([19]). The first 13 days of the new year, starting on March 21st, are official holidays. The 13th day is celebrated by Sizdeh bedar, which can be translated as "getting rid of the 13th", but also "going out on the 13th". This traditional and pre-Islamic and pre-Christian holiday is celebrated by families leaving their houses for the whole day and going to parks and gardens for a whole day picnic. The date corresponds to April 1st or 2nd, depending on the year. The roots of this holiday are clearly pagan and were probably a celebration of the renewal of the nature and the end of dark cold winter. The traditional holiday is light hearted and focused on having fun and exchanging jokes, which may explain the link with April fool's jokes. Also, families release the gold fishes they have been keeping since Nowrooz, on March 21st, back into streams. This may be an explanation for the French name of April fool's day, Poisson d'Avril, or April's fish.


bahman (talk) 08:00, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

File:Hp sauce & hp fruity.jpg We need saucessources
Requests to edit semi-protected articles must be accompanied by reference(s) to reliable sources.

We can only add verifiable information. If you can find an appropriate source, please re-submit your request. Thanks.  Chzz  ► 

 Not done

I should note that the article already mentions that April Fool's Day is exactly one week after Medieval New Year's Day, even though I suspect this is just coincidence. March 25 was the equinox on the old Roman calendar, which is why Christians used it as the first day of the year. Kauffner (talk) 13:42, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
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