The April Fool Archive

MITkey Mouse    (April Fool's Day - 1998)

The homepage of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology displayed some startling news: the prestigious university was to be sold to the Walt Disney Co. for $6.9 billion. A photograph of the university's famous dome outfitted with a pair of mouse ears accompanied the news.

A press release explained that the university was to be dismantled and transported to Orlando where new schools would be added to the campus including the School of Imagineering, the Scrooge McDuck School of Management, and the Donald Duck Department of Linguistics. The fact that the announcement appeared on MIT's homepage lent credibility to it. But in reality, the announcement was the work of students who had hacked into the school's central server and replaced the school's real web page with a phony one.
American April Fool's Day Hoaxes April Fool's Day, 1998 April Fool's Day School Pranks The April Fool's Day "Unlikely Acquisition" Hoax

More content from the Hoax Museum:

The Diaphote, a television hoax, 1880

Mencken's fake history of the bathtub, 1917

Jernegan's Gold Accumulator Scam, 1898

Comments

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
Posted by Don  on  Wed Apr 06, 2005  at  02:35 AM
That is pure genius. I would be very tempted to do that to my college's web site, but considering I am an employee as well as student I think I might get fired.
Posted by IT Student in AR  on  Sat Apr 01, 2006  at  12:32 PM
This is actually a true story that was generated by a couple of unknown historians (Crowther and Woods?) years ago. The true purchaser of the establisment was a "Wizard of Frobozz" for 4,106 Zorkmids. 😉
Posted by Dimwit Flathead  on  Sun Apr 02, 2006  at  10:10 AM
Looks like staff, not students, did this one. Note tjcoppet (Tom Coppeto) as the contact, who works in the network group and could easily post such a fake.
Posted by Bruce Lewis  on  Mon Apr 03, 2006  at  09:07 AM
But you have to realize that MIT actually has a history of pranks (mainly dealing with the dome). So no one would really get fired over this one because it is not really out of the norm and they actually have a good temprament towards pranks as long as they do no damage to property.
Posted by Joseph  on  Wed Apr 05, 2006  at  12:12 PM
This one is the best one I've read so far :lol:
Posted by Dominique  on  Thu Apr 20, 2006  at  05:30 PM
No, it wasn't me.
Posted by Tom Coppeto  on  Sat Apr 22, 2006  at  09:06 PM
Yeah, with MIT's history of pranks, that doesn't surprise me at all. But still... MITkey Mouse? I'm trying to stop laughing... I'm failing to stop laughing... wow.
Posted by Travis  on  Tue Dec 11, 2007  at  10:40 AM