April Fools Jokes By The Mass Media

1957 April Fools Joke

Number 1 of 19

The Year is 1957 and the BBC creates a hoax Panorama programme about growing spaghetti crops in Switzerland and showing women carefully plucking strands of spaghetti from a tree and laying them in the sun to dry.

10,000's of thousands were taken in by this one

The BBC was criticised by many for using Panorama because it was considered one of the best factual series of it's time

It should be remembered in context that Spaghetti was not a widely-eaten food in the UK in 1957 and considered by many as an exotic delicacy.



Below is the link to the BBC Story
BBC 1957 Spaghetti Hoax

1965 April Fools Joke
Number 2 of 19

The BBC interviews the "inventer" of Smell O Vision and conducts a trial of the new technology ( Smell-o-vision ) on April 1st 1965 which allows the transmission of smell over the airwaves to all viewers, the "Inventer" cut up onions and made fresh coffee.

Many dozens of viewers reportedly contacted the BBC to report the trial's success.



I did try to find a link on the BBC with more information but sorry was not successful


1976 April Fools Joke

3 of 19

BBC Radio interviewd the renowned British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore who told listeners that unique alignment of two planets would result in an upward gravitational pull making people lighter at precisely 9:47 a.m. that day.

He invited his audience to jump in the air and experience "a strange floating sensation." Dozens of listeners phoned in to say the experiment had worked.





1977 April Fools Joke

4 of 19

The Guardian printed a supplement in 1977 celebrating the 10th anniversary of San Serriffe, its two main islands (Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse), its capital (Bodoni), and its leader (General Pica). ( San Serriffe is a typeface used in computers .

The use of fonts as name continued throughout the article including

Berlin Sans discovers a vibrant nation transformed by a visionary leader





Full Link Below to the original story

The Original Guardian

1978 April Fools Joke

5 of 19
Iceburg To Australia From Antarctica

In Australia on April 1st 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. 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 fire fighting foam and shaving cream that the berg was really made of washed away, uncovering the white plastic sheets beneath.




1980 April Fools Joke

6 of 19
On April 1st 1980 BBC Radio announces that Big Ben would be replaced with a digital readout to bring it into the modern era and the BBC was inundated with angry listeners protesting the change.




1982 April Fools Joke

7 o 19

On April 1st 1982 The Hong Kong South China Morning Post announced that a solution to Hong Kong's water shortage was at hand.Packets of powdered water imported from China would be distributed to all the residents of Hong Kong. A single pint of water added to this powdered water would magically transform into ten pints of drinkable water.




1985 April Fools Joke


8 of 19

On April 1st 1985 Sports Illustrated writes an article about a New York Mets prospect named Sidd Finch, who could throw a 168 mph (270 km/h) fastball with pinpoint accuracy, reportedly learned to pitch in a Buddhist monastery. ( the highest speed recorded for a FASTBALL is officially 100.9 mph )




More Information Here
Sidd Finch


1989 April Fools Joke
9 of 19

Richard Branson the owner of Virgin lands a hot-air balloon that had been specially built to look like a UFO lands in a field on the outskirts of London where local residents immediately called the police to warn them of an alien invasion. A Local Policeman approached the UFO with truncheon in hand but as the doors open and a small, silver-suited figure emerged, the policeman ran in the opposite direction.




1992 April Fools Joke
10 of 19

On April 1st 1992 National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation program announced that Richard Nixon, in a surprise move, was running for President again. His new campaign slogan was, "I didn't do anything wrong, and I won't do it again." . The radio station received many calls from outraged citizens who could not believe after being impeached he should run again for President.




1995 April Fools Joke
11 or 19
On April 1st 1995, Discover Magazine runs an article about the Hotheaded Naked Ice Borer that caught its food by a group of these animals would burrow into the ice underneath suitable prey, and use their heads to melt through the ice. The animal was discovered by Aprile Pazzo ("April Fool" in Italian) but still thousands believed it and the magazine received more mail about this article than about any other article it had ever published, including multiple Zoos asking where they could acquire specimens of the creature.





1996 April Fools Jokes

12 of 19

On 1st April 1996 Taco Bell took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times announcing that they had purchased the Liberty Bell to "reduce the country's debt" and renamed it the "Taco Liberty Bell."



13 of 19

On April 1st 1996 Canada introduces the Two Dollar Coin to replace the Two Dollar Note in February of 1996 and DJ's on Chez FM fooled listeners into believing that April 1st 1996 would be the last day the Treasury would honour the Two Dollar Note. Thousands of Citizens contacted local banks and the Royal Canadian Mint outraged that they would lose their money.



1997 April Fools Joke

14 of 19


An e-mail is sent round the world stating the Internet would be shut down for cleaning for twenty-four hours from March 31st until April 2nd and was necessary to clear out the "electronic flotsam and jetsam" that had accumulated in the network. No Internet access would be available world wide on the day.





1998 April Fools Joke

15 of 19

Burger King ran an ad in USA Today, saying that people could get a Whopper for left-handed people whose condiments were designed to drip out of the right side.




2000 April Fools Joke

16 of 19

Google announces a new "MentalPlex" search technology that supposedly read the user's mind to determine what the user wants to search for, thus eliminating the step of actually typing in the search query.




2004 April Fools Joke

17 of 19

BBC Radio The Jeremy Vine Show reported that Germany had pulled out of the Euro but, as the German Mark was no longer in existence, they were in negotiations to join the British pound.




2005 April Fools Joke

18 of 19

97.3FM Radio Station in Brisbane, Australia told listeners that the highly poluted Brisbane River is shining blue which is 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.




2006 April Fools Joke

19 of 19

A Cheyenne 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.