April Fool’s Day is on the way, and that means a slew of new and innovative pranks into whose paths you may unknowingly walk.  Fortunately most of these pranks are benign.  Others may be a little more involved – like those we want to talk about here.

The website Hoaxes.org has created a list of the Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of All Time.  These are some real winners, most of them requiring a lot of preparation and coordination.  Maybe you’ll get some ideas for some cool April Fool’s pranks of your own by reading what others have done.  Use the link above to see the whole list.  In the meantime, here are some highlights.

The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest

The BBC in 1957 announced that a mild winter had caused Swiss farmers to be doing bang-up business harvesting spaghetti.  The prank included footage of farmers pulling pasta off “spaghetti trees.”  A lot of people called the BBC to find out how they, too, could grow their own spaghetti.

The 168-mile-per-hour pitcher

In 1985, Sports Illustrated released a story about a rookie pitcher who could throw a ball 168 miles per hour.  Sidd Finch, the story said, was planning to play for the New York Mets.  He had learned to throw so fast at a Tibetan monetary, under the guidance of a great poet-saint.  All kinds of people contacted the magazine for more information.  (The fastest ball ever thrown in the Big Leagues was 103 mph, and most fast-ball pitchers throw considerably slower.)

Instant Color TV

In Sweden in 1962, a time when TV was only in black and white, a technical expert from the only network that broadcast programming at that time announced that viewers could convert their TVs to color.  It was easy – just pull a stocking over your TV and you could see everything in color.  Thousands of suckers believed it and wanted more information.

The Taco Liberty Bell

Taco Bell effectively fooled hundreds of people in 1996 with full-page newspaper ads stating that the company had bought the Liberty Bell and would rename it the Taco Liberty Bell.  People weren’t happy and called the National Historic Park in Philadelphia, where the bell is housed, to vent their anger.  A few hours after the ads appeared, Taco Bell explained that it was just a hoax.

Tricky Dickey back in the game

National Public Radio fooled many people in 1992 with a news story that revealed that Richard Nixon would once again run for president.  His slogan was “I didn’t do anything wrong, and I won’t do it again.”  It’s unclear how normal people could believe that Nixon could come back from the grave to run for president.  All voicings of “Nixon” in the news story were performed by impressionist Rich Little.

If you get ideas from these April Fool’s pranks – or if you come up with a great prank idea on your own – and you pull the prank off, we’d love to hear about it.  Use the comments section to send your feedback or send it by e-mail.  If we get a few, we’ll do a blog post about them.

Nick & Ellie