April Fools Day 2006

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April 1, 2006 was an April Fools' Day falling on a Saturday.

Contents

[edit] On television

[edit] In sport

  • T-Mobile (U.K.): Told BRMB and Heart 100.7 (Birmingham and Midlands) that they will be sponsoring a premiership team from the Midlands, and that the sponsorship will include a pink away shirt for the sponsored team.[citation needed]

[edit] On the radio

  • 2-Ten FM (U.K.): Reported that an elephant was causing traffic problems on the M4 motorway.
  • 702 ABC Sydney (Australia): Weekend presenter Simon Marnie conducted the last hour of his show from a Collins class submarine in Sydney Harbour that departed from the Australian National Maritime Museum. The submarine docked to pick up passengers including fellow presenter Tony Eastley and a lucky 702 Sydney listener. The program ended when the submarine was submerged and attacked by a sea monster.
  • All Things Considered (NPR, U.S.): Aired a piece about the "Positive Opera Company" on Cape Cod. Its impresario wants to rewrite the world's great tragic operas to give them all a happy ending.[2]
  • CHNO-FM (Sudbury, Ontario, Canada): Ran commercials stating that the government of Ontario was switching to Double Daylight Saving Time to keep up with new American regulations.
  • East Coast Radio (Ireland): Micheal Harrington announced that Bray was to become part of County Dublin. This let to many texts of anger from people living in Bray but also jokes and jeers from people in towns further South like Arklow, Wicklow and Graystones.
  • The Edge (New Zealand): Claimed that New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark had banned cellphones to people under 16.
  • Heart 106.2 (U.K.): Usually a "Time Tunnel" feature in the mornings, playing songs from the same year and inviting listeners to call in and guess the year. On April 1, the DJ played songs from different years, causing confusion amongst listeners phoning in.
  • Magic 105.4 FM (U.K.): Played Christmas songs all morning.
  • Quirks and Quarks (CBC Radio, Canada): Bob McDonald interviewed a zoologist who had discovered a Vietnamese dog-like animal whose metabolism could cure global warming, and then ate the sole specimen because he was hungry.[3]
  • QMR.fm (Internet): James Freir started his show by pretending to be fellow presenter Adam Croft, with whom he has a long-running on-air 'rivalry'.
  • Radio Sport (New Zealand): Show host Phil Gifford and Doug Golightly claimed that rugby league star Stacey Jones was going to play rugby union for Northland upon the expiry of his French rugby league contract. They added that he had also received a special dispensation from Les Catalans to join the Auckland Blues squad for the last six matches of the Super 14 season. This was perpetuated by Jones' close friend Peter Leitch appearing on the show 'furious' about his personal conversation with the hosts being put on air.
  • RTÉ 2fm (Ireland): On his show, Michael Cahill announced that the government were to introduce tolls on Northbound on O'Connell Street in Dublin and on Patrick Street in Cork.
  • Today Programme (BBC Radio 4, U.K.): Announced that its UK Theme (which really had been scheduled for scrapping) was to be replaced with a European Union theme.
  • Triple J (Australia): Morning hosts claimed that, to celebrate 'Urban month' the station was going to be changing the entire month's play list to only feature hip hop, much to the complaint of many listeners calling in. Triple J played non-stop hip hop until noon and had many promos already set up to play for the upcoming month, increasing the joke's credibility.
  • WBRU (Providence, Rhode Island, USA): On March 29, announced that they were being bought out, and would cease operations by 5 p.m. March 31. Soon after WBRU went off the air, Buddy FM, a parody of the Jack FM radio format, began broadcasting random pop and techno music along with occasional pre-recorded station bumps until a mock takeover was staged by WBRU DJs at 12:16 p.m. on April 1. The prank continued in some form until roughly 4:09 p.m. April 1.

[edit] In newspapers, magazines, and websites

  • The Economist claimed that a company called GeneDupe, owned by a Paolo Fril, plans to genetically engineer pet dragons as well as Gryphons and various other mythological creatures. [5]. This story actually leaked out on March 31, 2006, due to the need to issue press releases on the day before publication. Five years earlier, the Economist published a story about the same company allegedly genetically engineering fish with real gold in their skin.
  • Electronic Gaming Monthly claimed that the new iGame, an Apple portable gaming device, is being released. It also claimed that iTunes was to have an iGame section for buying games for the new device.
  • GameFAQs announced that it is permanently shut down due by the court orders of the ACAA (Anti-Cheating Association of America), parodying the MPAA and its slogan[6]
  • Google announced the launch of Google Romance.
  • In a story by Olaf Priol, The Guardian discovers that Coldplay's front man Chris Martin plans to do what he can to get people to vote for David Cameron's Conservative Party[7].
  • The Homestar Runner website is flipped upside-down.
  • The Independent explored Sylvia Plath's forgotten affair with Chuck Berry, along with various other unlikely celebrity pairings. [8]
  • The Justice at Brandeis University released an April Fools' edition on April 4. The editorial condemned University President Jehuda Reinharz for telling The Aristocrats joke to the university's board of trustees. Top news stories included a claim that leading donor Carl Shapiro was not a Jew and was in fact from Cossack and Gypsy stock.
  • Lazerzero.com announced they would be changing their name and URL to furfags.com. This was announced to be a hoax the next day - however, the users actually liked the fake name, and the admin officially adopted the name on May 1st.
  • New Zealand's Otago Daily Times claimed that a sponsorship and advertising deal had been done between the Mitre 10 chain of hardware stores and the New Zealand Department of Conservation over the Otago Royal Albatross colony [9]. The DoC would get funds to protect the birds, and in return the adult birds would be dyed in the chain's corporate colour, orange.
  • Science News found a new work by Euclid. [10]
  • The Straits Times in Singapore published an article with the headline "Visitors going ape over Zoo's new primate exhibit", claiming that Singapore Zoo is set to extend its primate family with "a pair of the highly intelligent apes Simia mina - close relatives of gorillas and chimpanzees which have been documented communicating vocally, using tools and even walking upright". However, this is "stirring up a controversy" as the "Simia mina are in an enclosure not much bigger than the bedroom of an HDB flat, and will be kept there till April 31".
  • The Sun published an article about a penguin found on the River Thames. The article had a comment from Lil Faroop, an anagram of April Fool.
  • The Taipei Times in Taiwan claims to have blown the cover of a secret weapons program utilizing betel nut extract, employing "an aerosol-dispersal device to shower enemy positions with red betel-nut juice, leaving enemy personnel feeling slightly ill, while possessing them with an uncontrollable desire to sing at a KTV." [11]
  • The Tiger Pep Band at DePauw University [12] again modified its Web site to appear in the school colors of arch-rival school Wabash College, and presented false news coverage purporting that the Wabash band had an unusually long 24-hour sober spell, playing on the stereotype that students at the all-mens college are constantly inebriated.
  • The online retailer ThinkGeek offered for sale various fake products such as a grow your own 1-up mushroom kit, a caffeine inhaler, wireless extension cords, the iZilla Media Monster, and a USB desktop tanning center. One product, the Screened Sphorb, included a full paragraph of inscrutable descriptive text, plus a photo that only showed "Loading Quicktime 360° view". (ThinkGeek's tagline: "Stuff for the Smart Masses" has the "M" crossed out to say, "Stuff for the Smart Asses".)
  • The webmasters of MuggleNet (Emerson Spartz) and The Leaky Cauldron (Melissa Anelli) temporarily shut down their sites to redirect to one called The Leaky Mug. The site claimed that the two webmasters were to marry.
  • The homepage of Stick Figure Death Theatre was changed to that of 'San Francisco Dance Troupe'. Clicking any links would redirect you back to the real website.
  • Estonian newspaper Postimees published more than 5 fake news stories. One of their stories was about another major newspaper going out of business. Postimees arranged a contest where readers could find the fake news and e-mail them. Many readers thought that the contest was fake even though it was true.
  • A Canadian newspaper, the Hamilton Spectator reported that the local Baptist Church was about to install Pokie Machines.
  • On the US version of the Finnish-based virtual community Habbo Hotel, the hotel staff announced the release of a new piece of rare furniture, the Holocrab (as a companion to Holoboy and Hologirl, which actually exist as rares). Eager furni catalogue shoppers as well as skeptics searched the catalogue for the new rare, only finding in the rare menu at the bottom of the catalogue list the message "April Fools!" (In the sale of an actual rare, the "Rares" menu is found near the top of the list of catalogue menus.)
  • YTMND announces that the site has been purhcased by eBaum's World.
  • Blizzard Entertainment announces a new playable race in their upcomming expansion for World of Warcraft, "The Burning Crusade." A long anticipated announcment of the alliance race was finally announced. Willow Wisps would start in Mount Hyjal, they would have no displayable features, and had a long list of pointless racial traits.
  • OGAE Malta reported that a new "Eurovision Pyramid Arena" was to be set up in Gozo, Malta's sister island. The Maltese Eurovision club, OGAE Malta came up with this "April's Fool!" following the wish of many local fans that Malta should have its appropriate venue for the eventual Eurovision Song Contest to be held locally! Eurovision Pyramid Arena,

[edit] April Fools' Day pranks gone awry

  • 5 teenage girls, aged between 16-17, created 17 question mark boxes from Super Mario Brothers with info gleaned from website Qwantz.com and placed them in public places around the town of Ravenna, Ohio as a joke. One box was noticed by a concerned citizen, who reported the "suspicious package" to local authorities. Haz-mat Units and a Bomb Squad were called out to investigate, but were cleared of not having anything dangerous in them. One of the girls turned herself in. Authorities plan to press criminal charges, which some have viewed as too harsh. [13]

[edit] Events mistaken as April Fools' Day hoaxes

Genuine events that had been interpreted as April Fools' Day hoaxes included:

  • Anime News Network staff cites in a forum posting that the site has refrained from making April Fools articles, citing the possibility that such articles by the site would do more harm than good. [14]
  • Bob Ross Inc. announced a Bob Ross video game [15].
  • De Telegraaf, a newspaper in The Netherlands, opens with a shocking headline: Loads of the Queen Beatrix's private correspondence got lost and has been published on Limewire, a popular file-sharing program. Later it was revealed that this was not a hoax, but a real leak in the Dutch Ministry of Defence.
  • Ogrish reports a bizarre baby born in Nepal (note: these links contain images of the child's body) [16] The baby, who appeared to have anencephaly, died shortly after birth. This was reported on a major Nepal news site on March 29th.
  • Radio 538 awarded a select group of listeners who would come with their bags packed to a train station in Rotterdam, a major city in the Netherlands, with a weekend trip to a yet-to-be-revealed destination. Only three people showed up at the event.
  • In the United Kingdom, people will not be able to renew their television licence from the Post Office, as the BBC has given the contract from the Royal Mail to PayPoint. Plus, television licence savings stamps will be scrapped. (Statement was given on the 31 March, but some may have heard on the 1 April)
  • Several UK newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph [17], reported on the Dorset Naga, a chilli pepper grown in Dorset, England and claimed to be the world's hottest at 876,000 Scoville units.
  • The Simpsons Movie was confirmed in many newsites and papers. Also the trailer was paired with Ice Age: The Meltdown.
  • Sarah Lane of G4's Attack of the Show! announced her marriage to co-host Brendan Moran and will be leaving the show. [18]
  • F-Secure announced a new software bundle with the Moomin characters as its mascots.

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