Hoax Museum Blog: Urban Legends

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:

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.

Miracle Machine wine maker — Several weeks ago, some wine-industry veterans (Kevin Boyer and Philip James) announced the invention of a gadget that would allow people to make wine at home in only 3 days. They called it the "miracle machine."

The gadget seemed somewhat plausible, given the existence of home-brewing kits for beer. Plus it was promoted by a slick video and accompanying website. So over 600 media outlets took the bait and reported it as news.


But yesterday, the "inventors" issued a press release revealing that the 'miracle machine' was just a hoax. But it was a hoax for a good cause. The idea was to promote a non-profit organization called "Wine to Water," which is trying to provide global access to clean water.

Small or Large Beer? — Would you like a small 12 oz beer for $4, or a large 12 oz one for $7? Your pick!

It reminds me of that old Dunkin' Donuts offer: "Free 3 muffins when you buy 3 at the regular half-dozen price!"

Except in the beer case, people were (allegedly) paying more for nothing but a different cup design.

Hockey Fans Suing Arena Over Misleading Beer Prices
By REBECCA BOONE Associated Press
A handful of Idaho hockey fans sued a Boise arena on Tuesday, saying they were duped into thinking a $7 beer contains more brew than a $4 beer. The lawsuit says CenturyLink Arena, home of the Idaho Steelheads hockey team, defrauded customers by charging $3 more for a tall, narrow cup advertised as a "large" that actually holds the same amount of beer as the shorter, wider cup described as a "small."