List of April Fool's Day jokes

By tradition, in some countries, April 1 or April Fools' Day is marked by pranks and practical jokes.

Contents 1 Well-known pranks 1.1 By radio stations 1.2 By television stations 1.2.1 Adult Swim 1.3 By newspapers 1.4 By game shows 1.5 By websites 2 See also 3 References

Well-known pranks

• Write-only memory: Signetics advertised write-only memory (WOM) IC databooks in 1972 through the late 1970s.^[1]
• Decimal time: Repeated several times in various countries, this hoax involves claiming that the time system will be changed to one in which units of time are based on powers of 10.^[2]
• Taco Liberty Bell: In 1996, Taco Bell took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times announcing that they had purchased the Liberty Bell to "reduce the country's debt" and renamed it the "Taco Liberty Bell". When asked about the sale, White House press secretary Mike McCurry replied tongue-in-cheek that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold and would henceforth be known as the Lincoln Mercury Memorial.^[3]
  
• Left-handed Whoppers: In 1998, Burger King ran an ad in USA Today, saying that people could get a Whopper for left-handed people whose condiments were designed to drip out of the right side.^[4] Not only did customers order the new burgers, but some specifically requested the "old", right-handed burger.^[5]
• Apple buys the Beatles: In 2010, Bob Lefsetz released an April Fools' Day letter which had rumours circulating around the music industry.^[6]
• In 1983, Australian millionaire businessman Dick Smith claimed to have towed an iceberg from Antarctica to Sydney Harbour. He used a barge covered with white plastic and fire extinguisher foam to convince witnesses.^[7]
• A 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated, dated April 1, featured a story by George Plimpton on a baseball player, Hayden Siddhartha Finch, a New York Mets pitching prospect who could throw the ball 168 miles per hour (270 km/h) and who had a number of eccentric quirks, such as playing with one barefoot and one hiking boot. Plimpton later expanded the piece into a full-length novel on Finch's life. Sports Illustrated frequently cites the story as one of the more memorable in the magazine's history.^[8]

By radio stations

• Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect: In 1976, British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore told listeners of BBC Radio 2 that unique alignment of two planets would result in an upward gravitational pull making people lighter at precisely 9:47 am that day. He invited his audience to jump in the air and experience "a strange floating sensation". Dozens of listeners phoned in to say the experiment had worked.^[9]
• Operation Parallax: In 1979, Capital Radio staged an elaborate joke on their Sunday Soapbox, in which they told everybody about the government's plans to cancel the following two Thursdays. This so-called scheme was called Operation Parallax, and was the government's way of correcting errors that had occurred due to switching the clocks back and forth every year to account for British Summer Time. 48 hours had accumulated altogether, and these needed to be spent, so the following two Thursdays would be cancelled and the calendar would jump from Wednesday to Friday. As a result of this hoax being broadcast early on a Sunday morning, it fooled tens of thousands of Capital Radio's listeners, sparking panic. For a time, theatres cancelled their shows, airlines pulled flights, and emergency lines at Capital Radio and across London were jammed for hours. Operation Parallax was subsequently nominated by The Sunday Times as one of the top ten April Fool's jokes of all time. ^[10][11]Capital Radio received numerous calls as a result of this announcement. One employer wanted to know if she had to pay her employees for the missing days. Another woman was curious about what would happen to her birthday, which fell on one of the cancelled days.^[10][11]
• Space Shuttle lands in San Diego: In 1993, DJ Dave Rickards told listeners of KGB-FM in San Diego that Space Shuttle Discovery had been diverted from Edwards Air Force Base and would be landing at Montgomery Field, a small municipal airport with a 4,577 foot runway. Thousands of people went to the airport to watch the purported landing, causing traffic jams throughout Kearny Mesa.^[12] There was no shuttle in orbit at the time.^[13]
• Death of a mayor: In 1998, local WAAF shock jocks Opie and Anthony reported that Boston mayor Thomas Menino had been killed in a car accident. Menino happened to be on a flight at the time, lending credence to the prank as he could not be reached. The rumor spread quickly across the city, eventually causing news stations to issue alerts denying the hoax. The pair were fired shortly thereafter.^[14]
• Phone call: In 1998, UK presenter Nic Tuff of West Midlands radio station pretended to be the British Prime Minister Tony Blair when he called the then South African President Nelson Mandela for a chat. It was only at the end of the call when Nic asked Nelson what he was doing for April Fools' Day that the line went dead.^[15]
• BBC Radio 4 (2005): The Today Programme announced in the news that the long-running serial The Archers had changed their theme tune to an upbeat disco style.^[16]
• National Public Radio: Every year, National Public Radio in the United States does an extensive news story on April 1. These usually start off more or less reasonably, and get more and more unusual. A recent example is the story on the "iBod," a portable body control device.^[17] In 2008 it reported that the IRS, to assure rebate checks were actually spent, was shipping consumer products instead of checks.^[18] It also runs false sponsor mentions, such as "Support for NPR comes from the Soylent Corporation, manufacturing protein-rich food products in a variety of colors. Soylent Green is People".^[19]
• Three-dollar coin: In 2008, the CBC Radio program As It Happens interviewed a Royal Canadian Mint spokesman who broke "news" of plans to replace the Canadian five-dollar bill with a three-dollar coin. The coin was dubbed a "threenie", in line with the nicknames of the country's one-dollar coin (commonly called a "loonie" due to its depiction of a common loon on the reverse) and two-dollar coin ("toonie").^[20]
• Country to metal: Country and gospel WIXE in Monroe, North Carolina does a prank every year. In 2009, midday host Bob Rogers announced he was changing his show to heavy metal. This resulted in numerous phone calls, but about half were from listeners wanting to request a song.^[21]
• U2 live on rooftop in Cork: In 2009, hundreds of U2 fans were duped in an elaborate prank when they rushed to a shopping centre in Cork believing that the band were playing a surprise rooftop concert. The prank was organised by Cork radio station RedFM. The band were a tribute band called U2opia.^[22]
• Cellphone ban: In New Zealand, the radio station The Edge's Morning Madhouse enlisted the help of the Prime Minister on April 1 to inform the entire country that cellphones are to be banned in New Zealand. Hundreds of callers rang in disgruntled at the new law.

By television stations

• Spaghetti trees: The BBC television programme Panorama ran a famous hoax in 1957, showing Swiss harvesting spaghetti from trees. They had claimed that the despised pest, the spaghetti weevil, had been eradicated. A large number of people contacted the BBC wanting to know how to cultivate their own spaghetti trees. It was, in fact, filmed in St Albans.^[23]
• In 1962, the Swedish national television did a 5-minute special^[24] on how one could get color TV by placing a nylon stocking in front of the TV. A rather in-depth description on the physics behind the phenomenon was included.
• Smell-o-vision: In 1965, the BBC purported to conduct a trial of a new technology allowing the transmission of odor over the airwaves to all viewers. Many viewers reportedly contacted the BBC to report the trial's success.^[25] In 2007, the BBC website repeated an online version of the hoax.^[26]
• TV license fee evasion discovery: In 1969, the Dutch TV news notified the public of a new device that would be handed out to civil servants tasked with finding TV license fee evaders. This device would be able to detect the presence of a television set in the house from the outside. Asked whether there was nothing that citizens could do about this, the interviewed "civil servant" said 'No', as - he said - it would be unlikely that people would be willing to wrap their TVs in aluminum foil. The next day aluminum foil was sold out in most stores in a matter of hours.^[27]
• In 1980, the BBC reported a proposed change to the famous clock tower known as Big Ben. The reporters stated that the clock would go digital.^[28]
• In 1989, a fight broke out on air between staff in the newsroom behind presenter Des Lynam on the BBC sports programme, Grandstand. This was later revealed to be an April Fool's Day joke^[29][30]
• On Comedy Central, the creators of South Park aired a fake episode of Terrance and Phillip titled "Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus" instead of running the season premiere which was supposed to reveal the father of Eric Cartman. This caused angered fans to write about 2,000 complaints to Comedy Central in the week following the broadcast.^[31] The incident was parodied in the Season 13 episode "Eat, Pray, Queef", the first episode to broadcast on April Fool's Day since the incident.
• The Trouble with Tracy: In 2003, The Comedy Network in Canada announced that it would produce and air a remake of the 1970s Canadian sitcom The Trouble with Tracy, widely considered to be one of the worst sitcoms ever produced. Series star Diane Nyland Procter even gave interviews and press conferences promoting the alleged "revival", and several media outlets fell for the hoax.^[32]
• In 2004, British breakfast show GMTV produced a story claiming that Yorkshire Water were trialing a new 'diet tap water' that had already helped one customer lose a stone and a half in four months. After heralding the trial as successful, it was claimed that a third tap would be added to kitchen sinks, allowing customers easy access to the water. Following the story, Yorkshire Water received 10,000 enquiries from viewers.^[33]
• In 2004, the Italian television station Rai 2 reported that NASA discovered crude oil on Mars.^[34]

• In 2006, the same station reported the invention of a miraculous diet pill that should be accompanied to a diet rich of fish.^[35]
• In 2006, the BBC reported that the door to No. 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, had been painted red. They showed footage of workmen carrying a red door. Red was the official colour of the political party which formed the government at the time. The same story was also reported in the British newspaper, The Daily Mail which credited the new design to April Fewell. The door is in fact black.^[36]
• In 2008, the BBC reported on a newly discovered colony of flying penguins. An elaborate video segment was even produced, featuring Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) walking with the penguins in Antarctica, and following their flight to the Amazon rainforest.^[37]
• In 2011, PBS Kids Sprout's programming blocks were reversed. Additionally, Nina and Star (hosts of the Good Night Show) made a guest appearance on the Sunny Side Up show. Because April Fools day of 2011 was on a weekday, Sprout's Wiggly Waffle was played last (it does not play on weekends). The segment reran somewhere around 11:00 (which The Good Night Show usually does as a filler).

Adult Swim

Basic-cable station, Adult Swim has an annual tradition of celebrating April Fools' Day by tricking and fooling their audience by altering programs or airing different and obscure programs.

• • 2004, all of the regularly scheduled episodes were aired with random mustaches drawn on the characters; however, the next night the episodes were aired again this time without the random mustaches.
  • 2005, Adult Swim aired an early, unfinished version of the Squidbillies, instead of Robot Chicken.
  • 2006, Adult Swim aired old re-runs of Mr. T and Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos, and then aired episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex with fart-noises added to the dialog.
  • 2007, Adult Swim aired every episode of Perfect Hair Forever in reverse order. The episodes were digitally degraded to look like several generation old videotapes with grammatically incorrect subtitles. At one point, the subtitles shown on screen were actually for an Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode. The following night Adult Swim teased that they would air the entirety of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters before its release in theaters. They made good on their promise, showing the first few minutes fullscreen, then shrinking it down into a small picture-in-picture screen over their regular programing block.
  • 2008, Adult Swim aired a night of unfinished sneak peeks of future upcoming shows in place of their typical programing.
  • 2009, Adult Swim aired The Room, with sex scenes obscured with black boxes.
  • 2010, Adult Swim re-aired The Room for a second year in a row, with bumps featuring Tommy Wiseau being interviewed on Space Ghost Coast to Coast. Sex scenes remained censored, but the parental rating was raised to TV-MA.
  • 2011 The Room was aired once again with the TV-MA rating and was followed by a 15 minute special entitled Earth Ghost, a CGI version of the Lowe Country pilot shown on Adult Swim Video in 2007.

By newspapers

• In The Guardian newspaper, in the United Kingdom, on April Fool's Day, 1977, a fictional mid-ocean state of San Serriffe was created in a seven-page supplement.^[38]

• In 2011, The Daily Telegraph posted an internal labour memo advertising a party requirement to celebrate the marriage of Ed Miliband and Justine Thornton by ordering trifle and having a street party. ^[1]

• In 1994, adverts were displayed in newspapers advertising a new Mars bar, the Emperor. It was "32 pounds(14kg) of thick chocolate, glucose and milk". It was only "on sale" for one day - April 1.^[39][40]

By game shows

• Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune
  • As part of an April Fools' joke, on April 1, 1997, Alex Trebek and Pat Sajak switched hosting duties. Sajak hosted Jeopardy! that day (which featured Jeopardy! categories with several "Wheel of Fortune"-inspired and Double Jeopardy! categories about the word "Fool") and Trebek hosted Wheel of Fortune where Sajak and Vanna White played as contestants. Jeopardy! announcer Johnny Gilbert did double duties that day while regular Wheel announcer Charlie O'Donnell announced some parts, including the opening with Gilbert, as well as telling Sajak and White that they won $25,000 in the bonus round, which they split with their respective charities in addition to their main game winnings. A puzzle during the episode also featured "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" as an answer, with the category being "Really Long Title".^[41]
  • On April 1, 2008, Alex Trebek appeared on Jeopardy! wearing a false mustache. Also, Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak wore a bald cap underneath a wig he later removed.^[42]
  • On April 1, 2010, Sajak appeared during Trebek's introduction during the opening of Jeopardy!. At other non-critical points in the game, such as reading the round's categories, other people appeared in place of Trebek, including Jeff Probst and Neil Patrick Harris. On that day's Wheel of Fortune, people were alerted to find 10 things "out of the ordinary" with that day's episode; the show's website even included a printable checklist noting when each abnormality would occur (but not what it would be). On April 2, the site posted a photo gallery showing all 10 mistakes, as well as the end of that day's episode in which Pat & Vanna went over each change. The gags involved Sajak, White, and announcer Charlie O'Donnell.^[43]
• The Price Is Right has often celebrated the day by featuring Showcases with assortments of gags, which have often included joke prizes (such as cheap items or trips to fictitious locations), or gags involving their presentation (such as most of the prizes being destroyed throughout the course of the skit). In most cases, once the contestant learned that it was an April Fools' joke, the real Showcase would consist of extravagant prizes, such as luxury and sports cars. The practice is best known from the 1980s, but was revived during the Drew Carey era; though all the prizes presented now are real, the prizes may have funny connections or may be presented in some comical way.
  • In 2009 and 2010, Kathy Kinney, in character as Carey's nemesis Mimi Bobeck from The Drew Carey Show, appeared to taunt Carey.
    • The 2009 episode featured Match Game's think music for games using think music, Bobeck stripping tires from one car prize, placing a wheel lock on another, unusual sound effects on the Showcase Showdown wheel, incorrect photographs for trip videos, and one Showcase where all prizes were facing the wrong way.
    • The 2010 episode featured all contestants referred as one name (although the CBS PR showed the real names), Mimi seizing the show as executive producer as well as the "mighty sound effects lady" in One Away. Pick-a-Pair used various holiday-themed grocery products while Plinko used "As Seen on TV"-themed small prizes. The models traded places with stagehands, with the One Bid placards and their holders not matching (six distinct placard designs were adopted early 2009, each with various colors and designs; they are required to match). Finally, the day's two Showcases were nearly identical, resulting in Carey being stuck on the turntable when he attempted to call out Bobeck for two identical Showcases, when a second car was added on the second Showcase.
  • The 2011 episode featured a 10,000th of something that was set to occur sometime during the normal course of the show. But anything that could go wrong wound up going wrong and the show's staff worked to keep the show going around it. This included the models breaking a new plasma TV, the turntable getting stuck, the mechanism for door #2 breaking down requiring it to be pushed open, a model crashing a new car into door #3 destroying it. and the displays on Contestant's Row malfunctioning requiring a stagehand to manually write down each contestant's bid. At the end of Showcase Showdown #1, Drew began explaining how to sign up for tickets on CBS.com with explicit detail while the crew worked behind him to dismantle the big wheel prop. At the end of the second showcase showdown, a light in the studio malfunctioned and crashed to the ground plunging the studio into darkness until halfway through the first showcase being revealed. The models also accidentally set the set for the second showcase on fire. At the end of the show, the 10,000th thing never occurred but Drew remarked "Maybe tomorrow" (itself a mistake because it was a Friday episode).
• Hollywood Squares featured April Fools' gags on three occasions:
  • In 1987, it was announced that the returning champion was ill, and another contestant went on in his place. After the first question of the game, the contestant's female opponent accused him of cheating, and the confrontation grew more heated until the male contestant was pushed off the elevated contestant platform, completely stunning host John Davidson. Afterwards, it was revealed that the "substitute" contestant was a stuntman, and his opponent an actress.
  • In 1988, center square Joan Rivers swapped places with Davidson to be the show's host that day (Davidson called out "April Fools!", after being introduced in his square during the opening).
  • In 2003, producers Henry Winkler and Michael Leavitt played an April Fools' joke on host Tom Bergeron and the stars by booking two of the most difficult contestants ever, one quite obnoxious and the other overly emotional, who thoroughly tested Bergeron's patience. In reality, the contestants were actors (E. E. Bell and Carrie Armstrong), similar to the 1987 gag on the Davidson version.
• Other game shows:
  • In 1987, an audience polling group of 10 engaged men on Card Sharks was asked how many of them would eat real ants dipped in chocolate if their fiancé asked them to. Afterwards, one of the men actually was asked to do so by his fiancé and reluctantly complied, only to learn afterwards that it was just an April Fools' gag.
  • In 1991, contestants on The Challengers were surprised to see the gameboard reveal such extremely difficult categories as "Pre-Colombian Architecture", "Existential Poets", and "The Politics of Burundi"; after the first contestant chose a category, a large graphic appeared on the screen to let him know it was April Fools' Day. Having realized something was amiss when the joke categories did not match up with what he was seeing on his card, host Dick Clark asked head writer and series judge Gary Johnson if he had anything to do with it, which Johnson admitted and then expressed disappointment at not being able to find out more about Burundi politics. Clark then responded, "Yeah...go to your room, will you?"
  • On April 1, 2003, the hosts of Game Show Network original programs guest hosted on other hosts' shows similar to 1997 when Pat Sajak hosted Jeopardy! and Alex Trebek hosted Wheel of Fortune:
    • Graham Elwood from Cram guest hosted Whammy! The All-New Press Your Luck.
    • Todd Newton from Whammy! guest hosted Russian Roulette.
    • Mark Walberg from Russian Roulette' guest hosted Friend or Foe?.
    • Kennedy from Friend or Foe? guest hosted WinTuition.
    • Marc Summers from WinTuition guest hosted Cram.
    • Meanwhile, Lingo was still hosted by Chuck Woolery but had Newton announcing and the other GSN hosts (Walberg and Summers on the yellow team, and Kennedy and Elwood on the red team) playing a charity game.

By websites

• Kremvax: In 1984, in one of the earliest on-line hoaxes, a message was circulated that Usenet had been opened to users in the Soviet Union.^[44]
• The Canadian news site, bourque.org announced in 2002 that Finance Minister Paul Martin had resigned "in order to breed prize Charolais cattle and handsome Fawn Runner ducks".^[45]
• SARS infects Hong Kong: In 2003, during the time when Hong Kong was seriously hit by SARS, it was rumoured that many people in Hong Kong had become infected with SARS and become uncontrolled, that all immigration ports would be closed to quarantine the region and that Tung Chee Hwa, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong at that time, had resigned. Hong Kong supermarkets were immediately overwhelmed by panicked shoppers. The Hong Kong government held a press conference to deny the rumour. The rumour, which was intended as an April Fools' prank, was started by a student imitating the design of the Ming Pao newspaper website. He was charged and found guilty for this incident.^[46]
• Assassination of Bill Gates: In 2003, many Chinese and South Korean websites claimed that CNN reported Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, was assassinated, resulting in a 1.5% drop in the South Korean stock market.^[47]
• NationStates runs an annual hoax on April 1. In 2004, the hoax was that there was a population bug and all nations' populations would be reset to 5 million people. In 2005, there was a message (supposedly from the Department of Homeworld Security) that NationStates was illegal by US law. In 2008, NationStates created a new "World Assembly" in the place of the United Nations, as they had received a cease and desist notice from the United Nations for using its name without consent.^[48] This was later revealed to be a non-hoax, and that the inspiration to use it as an April Fools' joke came from the assumption it was too unbelievable.^[49]
• Water on Mars: In 2005, a news story was posted on the official NASA website purporting to have pictures of water on Mars. The picture actually was just a picture of a glass of water on a Mars candy bar.^[50]
• www.howstuffworks.com does an annual bogus article. In 2006, it was "How Animated Tattoos Work"; in 2007 "How Phone Cell Implants Work"; in 2008 "How the Air Force One Hybrid Works"; in 2009, "How Rechargeable Gum Works"; in 2010, "How the Twapler Works".^[51][52]
• RISKS Digest often publishes a special April 1 issue.^[53]
• Dead fairy hoax: In 2007, 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.^[54]
• Motoshi Sakriboto: In 2007, the Square Enix fansite Square Haven reported that game music composers Motoi Sakuraba and Hitoshi Sakimoto had announced a merger. The resulting amalgamated life form was named Motoshi Sakriboto. The hoax played off the fact that when rival role-playing game developers Square and Enix merged on April 1, 2003, many believed the news to be an April Fools' joke.^[55]
• IGN, a video game website, released a realistic-looking Legend of Zelda movie trailer on April Fool's Day 2007. Many people were excited and tricked into believing that a real Legend of Zelda movie was coming out, but IGN revealed that it was a fake. Later rumours were spread that a real Legend of Zelda film is going to be made.
• Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Wiki has pulled numerous April Fools pranks. In 2007, Wookieepedia's name was changed to "Katarnipedia" after Star Wars character Kyle Katarn.^[56] In 2008, they changed all the text of their main page to the Aurebesh language, and directed vistitors to Wookieepedia's sister site Darthipedia (which was actually the Star Wars Humor Wiki) to see English language versions of Wookieepedia articles.^[57] In 2009, Wookieepedia announced that they would no longer accept expanded universe material as canon and that the site would only accept information from the Star Wars films, rejecting their long-held policy of treating expanded universe material as equal to film material.^[58] In 2011, the entire wiki was converted to "3-D" in coordination with Lucasfilm's desire to re-release the entire saga in 3-D. A mock "cease and desist" announcement was also posted on the Main Page briefly after midnight Eastern time, and the Mofference page also was filled with jokes.^[59]
• Microsoft Research reclaims value of pi: In 2008, an executive with the Microsoft Institute for Advanced Technology in Governments posted on his personal blog an updated spoof of the 1998 April Fools' hoax claiming Alabama's state legislature had rounded the value of pi to the "Biblical value of 3". The 2008 hoax claimed that Microsoft Research had determined the true-up value of pi to be a definitive 3.141999, or as expressed in company literature, "Three easy payments of 1.047333".^[60]
• In 2008, Australian video gaming website company MyMedia, released information and previews on MyMedia: The Movie, the supposed upcoming movie was to be animated and produced by the Australian Film Commission. It was confirmed fake a few days after.^[61] The movie was supposedly based on a comic series created by one of the site's editorial staff, Matt Kelly.^[62] This has since become an on going website gag about over hyping the non-existent movie through various additional trailers.^[63]
• On April 1, 2008, Blizzard released images and articles onto their website depicting a new Hero class for World of Warcraft, that was to go along with the Death Knight in the expansion pack Wrath of the Lich King. They also released an article on the Starcraft II website for the new "Tauren Marine" for the Terrans.
• ScoringSessions.com announced that composer John Williams was replaced by Danny Elfman on the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - and provided photos from the scoring sessions.^[64]
• YouTube:
  • – In 2008, all featured videos on YouTube's front page hyperlinked to the Rickroll. The prank began with international YouTube portals before appearing on the main site.^[65]
  • – In 2009, the videos, links and most text (using Unicode substitution) were turned upside down and there was also a link to help users view the new site layout with hints such as hanging the monitor upside-down or moving to Australia.
  • – In 2010, a new option was created in the video quality settings called "TEXTp". Clicking on this option showed a message under the video which read "By using text-only mode, you are saving YouTube $1 a second in bandwidth costs. Click here to go back to regular YouTube and happy April Fools Day!"^[66]
  • – In 2011, YouTube contained featured videos on the homepage which were supposedly Viral Videos from 1911. YouTube Also added an option to all videos that did not contain ads that would mute the audio, give the video a grainy sepia-toned quality, and play jaunty piano music in a style similar to early 1900s silent movies.^[67]
• deviantART deviantART's most infamous April Fools' joke was in 2008, when all members' icons were changed to "So I herd u liek mudkipz". In 2010, each member's avatar was changed to any of a set of icons depicting Team Jacob, Team Edward, Legend of the Seeker, and Lady Gaga, along with signatures to match the icons.^[68] In 2011 "trollfaces" were popping up near the comments, journals and userpages doing pranks.^[69]
• President Barack Obama pulls fundings for NASCAR: On April 1, 2009, on the heels of the auto industry bailout, Car and Driver claimed on its website that President Barack Obama had ordered Chevrolet and Dodge to pull NASCAR funding. The article was removed from the website and replaced with an apology to readers, after upset NASCAR fans protested on the Car and Driver website.^[70]
• ThinkGeek sends an e-newsletter containing mostly false products each year. However, several of these products have eventually been produced due to customer demand. Most famous of these was the Tauntaun Sleeping Bag (based on a well-known scene from The Empire Strikes Back). The item was initially a prank, but the overwhelming response spurred ThinkGeek to seek permission from Lucasfilm to produce it. Lucasfilm eventually agreed, and ThinkGeek began selling actual Tauntaun sleeping bags in October of that same year.^[71][72] Similarly, in 2007, ThinkGeek advertised an 8-Bit necktie that was later realized due to customer demand.^[73] The most recent fake ThinkGeek product to become real is the iCade. After an April 1, 2010 announcement, it was developed over the next year and released on June 27, 2011.
• Expedia ran a prank on April 1, 2009, offering flights to Mars. This was internally known as Project Dawnstar.
• On April 1, 2009, gonullyourself.org appeared to be "infected" by Conficker.^[74][75]
• On April 1, 2010, the first letter of each headline on every tab of Fark comprised an acrostic, such as "All Hail Hypnotoad". The hidden message on the main page was "There is no Drew only Zuul, Happy April Fool's Day from Fark".^[76]
• On April 1, 2010, the official Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtains blog reported that writer Stephen Volk was set to contribute to an upcoming episode of The Simpsons for Hallowe'en and that he would make a cameo appearance as himself alongside fictional character, Pipes. A hidden message on the site read, "...April Fools', Ghostwatchers!"^[77]
• On April 1, 2011, AdBlock for Chrome released a new product called AdBlock Freedom that blocked ads in the real world, and solicited application essays from would-be beta testers.^[78]
• On April 1, 2011, Marvel Comics Database (the marvel wiki) said that the avengers film was canceled as an April Fools' joke.
• On April 1, 2011, Blueworldaquariums.com posted a convincing article on the discovery of a vocal language between fish. ^[79]

See also

• April Fools' Day RFC
• Google's hoaxes

References