Top 3 Famous April Fool’s Day Pranks
Contributed by Derek Champagne
As I conducted my usual early morning “wake up” ritual of sipping coffee, checking/responding to business emails, and taking a quick run through Facebook and Twitter – I was reminded that today is April Fool’s Day. I saw a few clever prank posts from Facebook friends this morning. I also noticed that Google changed their header name to “Topeka”.
After a few minutes of research on this “Holiday?” – Here are my top 3 favorite April Fool’s Day Pranks (pulled from The Museum of Hoaxes)
***Disclaimer- Researching this on an empty stomach – All 3 involve “Food”.
# 1. Burger King Introduces The Left Hand Whopper
As a lefty this made the top of my list:
1998 – Burger King announced that their customers could now order a Whopper that was designed for left-handed people. The food chain claimed that the sandwich has been re-designed to fit more comfortably in the left hand to result in fewer condiment ‘spills’ for left-handed hamburger lovers.
“The new Left-Handed Whopper will have all the condiments rotated 180 degrees, thereby redistributing the weight of the sandwich so that the bulk of them skew to the left.”
Thousands of customers ordered the new burgers, and many requested that they wanted to the “old, right-handed burger”. The following day Burger King confessed that it was all an April Fool’s hoax.
1957: A BBC news show announced that thanks to a mild winter and the virtual elimination of the “dreaded spaghetti weevil”, Swiss farmers were enjoying an excellent spaghetti crop. They accompanied the announcement with footage of peasants pulling strands of spaghetti from trees. TONS of of viewers were confirmed pranked when they called the BBC to find out how how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. BBC replied, “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.”
#3: The Taco Liberty Bell
1996: Taco Bell announced They had just purchased the Liberty Bell and were renaming it the” Taco Liberty Bell”. Hundreds of citizens were angry at this news and called the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell was on display. A few hours later Taco Bell revealed that it was a practical joke.
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References:
http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=39523
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/
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