April Fools Day 2007

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

April 1, 2007 was an April Fools' Day falling on a Sunday.

1 In newspapers, magazines and news websites
2 In websites
3 On television
4 On the radio
5 In sport
6 Events mistaken as April Fools' Day hoaxes
7 References
8 External links

[edit] In newspapers, magazines and news websites

BMW: BMW UK traditionally runs an April Fools' newspaper ad;^[1] this year's, in The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph and The Observer announced a new instant messaging technology that allows drivers to display text (in mirror writing) on their windshield to "communicate advice, warnings, helpful driving tips and salutations ... without even lifting a finger".^[2]
Burning Man: The annual festival announced on their website that the annual theme will be changed from "The Green Man", a nature related theme, to "Sports", "to celebrate man's relationship to games of skill, and competitive challenges with small round balls".^[3]
Christ Church Cathedral, New Zealand: According to a newspaper report, the cathedral was to be pulled down next week due to structural damage, and the site was purchased by a Russian businessman for a hotel and aquarium.^{[citation needed]} The office of Dean of Christchurch received numerous phone calls about the story from concerned locals.^[4]
CNET:
- CNET News.com carried a number of fake stories, including Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales inviting 100 people to perform cataract surgery on him, and the exile of the Dalai Lama to virtual world Second Life.^[5]
- CNET TV carried a story about the 'top secret' Apple TiVo.^[6]
Daily Mirror magazine Celebs on Sunday, claimed that Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair was to become a full time actor once he left Number 10 - starting off as Catherine Tate's Nan character's boyfriend.^{[citation needed]}
Dead fairy hoax: An illusion designer for magicians posted on his website some images illustrating the corpse of an unknown eight-inch creation, which was claimed to be the mummified remains of a fairy. He later sold the fairy on eBay for £280.^[7]
Google announced new services:
- Gmail Paper, a free paper archiving service for any and all Gmail messages.^[8]
- Google TiSP (beta), free in-home wireless broadband "via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines."Welcome to Google TiSP (2007-04-01). Retrieved on 2007-04-15.
The Independent reported that a "Grow-your-own Viagra craze" was occurring, because the active ingredient could be extracted from winter heath.[1]
The Japan Times reported that the famous landmark/meetingplace statue of Hachikō had been stolen, and that a sister city in France had offered to replace it with a bronze poodle.[2]
The Mail on Sunday reported 'Council inspectors to demand £5 'carbon offset' for barbecues'. [3]
NASA posted a picture of the "First Space Quidditch Match" on their Astronomy Picture of the Day website.[4]
News of the World published an article announcing the introduction of the square dartboard at this year's PDC UK Open Darts. [5]
The Observer reported that Tony Blair will be taking up acting in a production of The Crucible.[6]
PC Magazine discussed "10 Revolutionary Technologies" including a helmet for Wii usage and a Wi-Fi toothbrush. [7]
Ryanair's website has a picture relating to Ryanair space travel, which when click goes to a "GOTCHA" page with an offer of free flights
Second Life added a series of humorous messages to their teleport loading screens. Examples include “Teleporting to preview of Second Death” and “Loading parameters... Finding destination... Deleting inventory... I mean LOADING inventory...”.
The Sunday Telegraph ran a story about the organisers of the 2012 Olympics in London considering the possibility of sharing the Olympics with Paris due to lack of funding. Also, in the section where the newspaper normally profiles a well-known figure, the well-known figure of the week was Satan. The newspaper also contained an advert for "ParkUp", a new vehicle technology that allowed cars to park up walls to save urban parking congestion.
The Sunday Times Travel section reported the launch of Filipino budget airline "QuikAir" which offered "the world's first commuter service" with middle and aisle seats removed to provide standing room on flights.

[edit] In websites

Ask.com's CEO released a video announcing that Ask is acquiring searchwithkevin.com, and merging the two services into Ask Kevin, with Kevin Federline as the new CEO. [8]
The BBC's UK website[9] announces "New Sniff-Screen Technology" in their regular promotion area.
Locus announced the beatification of Neil Gaiman.[10]
Earlier in the week, the legal team for Warner Bros. Records announced that they wanted the primary fansites of popular British band Muse shut down under the threat of legal action because they owned the copyrights for the band's name and several song titles. A message was posted on the band's message board on April 1 by Sofia Proll (an anagram of April Fools) who was "representing" the legal team and revealed the hoax declaring that no legal action was being taken by the label against any of the fansites.[11]

[edit] On television

Adult Swim, instead of airing its usual Saturday night anime line-up, aired a new episode of Perfect Hair Forever, followed by the first season of the series shown in reverse order and done in the style of early fansubs complete with the lower generation quality visuals and grammatically incorrect English subtitles. Adult Swim also put what they called "Fan Service Moments" instead of their normal bumps which were shots of fan service from various Adult Swim shows. Adult Swim has also been advertising for several days that they would be airing the entire Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters starting at 10pm Eastern Standard Time on April 1st. They aired the first two minutes of the movie, then the movie was minimized into a very small picture-in-picture at the corner of the television screen while the normal Sunday block played over it. This joke can also been seen as advertising as graphics tell viewers to look at the lower left corner of the screen, Advertisements also appeared during the Sunday block with sound and the release date, All bumps were interrupted with advertisements for Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters.
On Channel 4's Deal or No Deal, the logo at the start read 'Beard or No Beard' instead of the correct name of the show (referring to the beard of host Noel Edmonds) to much laughter from the studio audience. In the end credits, 'The Banker', usually credited as being played by 'Himself', was credited as 'Titus Aduxas', which when read out loud becomes the phrase 'Tight as a duck's ass'.
On Channel 4's T4, presenter Steve Jones interviewed a seven year-old boy from Hollyoaks, asking some improper adult questions. The boy's supposed agent interrupts the interview and in a fit of rage pushes Mr Jones through the back of the set. The child jumps up on his seat and shouts "Fight! Fight! Fight!". A rather flustered co-presenter Miquita Oliver then suggests a cut to the next segment of the show.
On GSN, the PlayMania block started with a couple minutes of 100 Winners hosted by Shandi Finnessey. The first two callers were asked questions like "What show are you watching right now?" and "What is my name?". Both callers got each question right and $1,000 was hidden behind two doors. The third question, "What day is today?", was answered by someone who said "April Fools Day". After that, they cut to that night's episode of quiznation with Mel Peachey along an email theme of what was the greatest prank you have ever done. The crew, of course, decided to have a little more fun, inserting fake e-mails that concluded in a big "APRIL FOOLS!" graphic. It ended up becoming a guessing game, as Mel guessed whether the e-mails in question were real or a cleverly-disgused April Fools' e-mail from the crew. Mel correctly guessed 13 of the 20 e-mails on the night.
On Serbian television station B92, Central News aired a report that three political parties had created a new government. This was because after the parliamentary election on January 21, a government still hadn't been created.

[edit] On the radio

In Atlanta, WRAS Album 88's faked a file server crash and a backup feed from a fictitious "Radio Düsseldorf".[12]
The BBC Radio 4 programme Living World reports that due to global warming, the Vernal Lanternfish (Ludolampanyctus primavrilus) is becoming common in Swannage (sic) on the Dorset coast.
American Public Media's Marketplace Money profiled a wallet guardian for their weekly "Day in the Worklife" series. Keenan Herscheiser's occupation is described as wallet carrier to an undisclosed businessman ranked 504 on Fortune (magazine)'s Fortune 500.[13]
National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Sunday describes a New York City proposal to combat "ring rage" by limiting cell phone users to one of four city-approved ring tones.[14]
Following the "Ring Rage" piece, National Public Radio aired a faux sponsorship message from the Soylent Corporation with the tagline "Soylent Green is People".
National Public Radio's All Things Considered ran a report by Naomi Lewin of member station WGUC about a group named the Indigenous Sculpture Society dedicated to creating art commemorating the name of a town. The group is constructing a giant pair of eyebrows over the highway in Monkeys Eyebrow, Kentucky. [15]
Scottish station Real Radio convinced many listeners that it was Monday rather than Sunday and they had over-slept by 24 hours.
WNYC's On the Media interviewed Rex Van Ommeran vice-president of the fictional Terror Channel about a new sitcom entitled "Jihad to be There." The program is similar to Hogan's Heroes with actors playing modern day terrorists and is described as a “madcap romp through a terrorist training camp, set in the primitive tribal north of Pakistan.” [16]

[edit] In sport

Oldham Athletic announced on their website that they were to be deducted points due to a FA charge surrounding the loan signing of Luigi Glombard from Cardiff City.

Walsall Football Club announced that English Female International Rachel Unitt has signed a deal to become the first female to play in the football league in 2007/08. [17]

The New Zealand Breakers announced they had signed former NBA star Dennis Rodman for the upcoming season.

[edit] Events mistaken as April Fools' Day hoaxes

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

Music publishing giant EMI announced a deal with Apple Inc. in which the entire EMI catalog (except for The Beatles) will be offered on the iTunes Music Store without Apple's FairPlay Digital Rights Management restrictions. [18] Because of the timing of the announcement, an EMI official had to inform the public that this was not an April Fools' Day hoax. [19]
The popular web series, Red vs. Blue announced the conclusion of the series at 100 episodes
Nintendo and Sega announced Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games for the Wii and DS - the first game to feature both Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog.
Sega confirms development of a sequel to the 1996 Sega Saturn game Nights into Dreams..., for Nintendo's Wii console. [20] As with the EMI announcement above, the timing of Sega's announcement, along with the timing of when the rumors popped up, caused some to believe that this was another hoax.[21][22]
A ball python named Kaiser went loose in Google New York office. [23] It started out as a rumor on a message board and Google later was forced to admit it.