Hoax Museum Blog: April Fools Day

Killer Whale Attacks Bear

Does this photo show a killer whale attacking a bear? No, it's just an April Fool photo hoax that's apparently still fooling some people.

Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2015. Comments (0)

Kenya’s Best April Fools

Standard Digital News offers a round-up of April Fool's Day hoaxes that's a bit different. The 10 best ever from Kenya. I hadn't heard of any of them before. more…

Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2015. Comments (0)

For many years, I've had Burger King's left-handed whopper hoax from 1998 listed as one of the most popular April Fool hoaxes of all time. But in all that time, I had never seen a copy of the actual ad that Burger King ran in USA Today. I tried contacting Burger King repeatedly asking for a copy, and they ignored me. And no libraries had back issues of USA Today that included the ads. But finally, I managed to track down a copy at the Library of Congress. So here it is. The original left-handed whopper ad.

Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015. Comments (2)

Brides for Liechtenstein

In 1928, the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung published an article about a Bride Import company that was supplying wives to the men of Liechtenstein. Women were being shipped into the country in freight cars, the magazine claimed, and were sold at marriage markets. The article provoked outrage in Liechtenstein, particularly because all the brides shown being imported seemed to be extremely overweight. more…

Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2015. Comments (4)

Lard From Live Pigs

Back in 1921, a widely reprinted story claimed that German farmers had developed a method of obtaining lard from live pigs by operating on the pigs to remove the rashers, then bandaging the pigs up and letting them heal. Supposedly the operation could be repeated three times a year. The story was actually a German April Fool's Day spoof that was mistaken by the American and British press for real news. more…

Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015. Comments (1)

Microsoft skips Windows 9

Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2014. Comments (1)

Hamburger Helper Restaurant

Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2014. Comments (0)

Das Can-in-Stein

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2014. Comments (0)

Mummified Fairy Kit —

Seven years ago Dan Baines created a mummified fairy as an April Fool's Day hoax. Now he's taken to Kickstarter to raise money so that he can produce a "Mummified Fairy Kit" that will contain everything a person needs to create their own mummified fairy.

He hoped to raise £5,000, and he's already raised more than that: £8,106 as I write this, with six days left before the funding period closes. So it seems like he's discovered a strong market demand for mummified fairies!

Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2014. Comments (0)

Paradise Closed

Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014. Comments (0)

Speakerphone Pregnancy Call Terrifies Teacher — The video of this April Fool's Day prank, played by students at Aquinas College on their Macroeconomics professor, now has over 25 millions views on YouTube, which has to make it one of the most popular April Fool pranks this year (if not the most popular). It's nice to see that a low-budget prank by amateurs still can overshadow all the April Fool marketing efforts of the advertising professionals.

The premise of the prank is that a female student receives a call on her cell phone during class. The professor has a rule that if a student has failed to turn their phone off, and it rings during class, they have to answer it in front of everyone. So the student proceeds to take the call, only to learn that it's from the "pregnancy resource center" informing her that she's pregnant. The look of horror on the professor's face as he hears this, and begins to imagine the repercussions of having forced the student to share this news with the class, is classic.

Fake pregnancy announcements are actually a fairly common prank on April Fool's Day. The typical set-up is that female employees will tell their boss on April 1 that they're pregnant and have to take time off. The prank works best if multiple female employees make the same announcement, leaving the boss to imagine the prospect of losing half his staff. I've recorded an example of this from 1963 in the April Fool Archive:

Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2014. Comments (1)

No, Beyonce is not offering to pay her interns with selfies

Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2014. Comments (0)

Has April Fool’s Day Marketing Jumped The Shark?

Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2014. Comments (1)

Why doesn’t America read anymore?

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2014. Comments (2)

Siamese twins joined by their beard, 1937

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2014. Comments (0)

Happy April Fool’s Day! — It seems like the site's server isn't crashing, as it usually does on April 1! So that's good news.

I've been posting a bunch of today's April Fools over at the Hoax Museum Facebook page, since it's easier to post stuff quickly over there.

I'll add the best to the April Fool Archive later.

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2014. Comments (0)

Salton Sea Freezes, 1906—the NYT’s only April Fool’s Day Hoax

Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2014. Comments (0)

What’s the earliest German reference to April Fool’s Day?

Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2014. Comments (1)

Hairy Chest Sweater

Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2014. Comments (0)

April Fool UFO Hoax — One problem is that the planned hoax is too late in the day. According to the rules of April Fool's Day, pranks have to be done before noon! If you do it after noon, then you become the fool. (Does no one care about the rules any more???)

So it would be better to do this early in the morning on the 1st, rather than in the evening.

RC Group Plans UFO Hoax
A Group of RC enthusiasts plan a April Fools Day UFO hoax.
This group of RC enthusiasts seem to have a secret plan to create an apocalyptic UFO doomsday hoax on April Fools Day. I not sure how long this big secret can be kept seeing that the entire plan is posted on their public forum.
The group plans on getting as many people as than can to rig their flying RC quadracopters
(or anything else they can get in the air) with lights and release them to the skies on April 1st at 8 pm. The preferred color is blue but they say any color will do. The plan is to get them in the air while it is dark but early enough that people are still out and about.

Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2014. Comments (2)

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