Speaker 1: Welcome to ouch. Was that a Ghost? This podcast may
Speaker 1: contain graphic material which some listeners may find disturbing. Listener
Speaker 1: discretion is advised, is advice?
Speaker 2: Yum me.
Speaker 1: Now that we covered that, here's your host list.
Speaker 2: Welcome back out that ghost this week, back again, twist
Speaker 2: of her twisted tales.
Speaker 3: How's it going?
Speaker 2: But not too chabby? Not too chabby? And it's almost
Speaker 2: April Fool's Day? Do you have any good plans for
Speaker 2: April Fools working?
Speaker 3: Probably?
Speaker 2: No pranks planned.
Speaker 3: No, I'll be too old by that. I'll be forty one.
Speaker 2: That doesn't matter. That's the fun of April Fools. You
Speaker 2: could be ninety. If I'm ninety, I'm still playing pranks.
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me? That's better? You're unsuspecting.
Speaker 4: It's like, gosh, he's ninety six. Now she'll calm down,
Speaker 4: now she won't.
Speaker 2: No, I'm gonna be haunted people playing pranks. Well pass
Speaker 2: This plain of existence.
Speaker 3: Is Lizzie Bordon. It's just list.
Speaker 2: Oh, Lizzie's my idol. So today we're gonna be talking
Speaker 2: about historical April Fool's Day pranks.
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 3: So you had a theme? All right, this is good.
Speaker 3: I like your style.
Speaker 2: April Fools is the day when you can't trust anyone,
Speaker 2: especially pregnancy announcements are any big news at all. A
Speaker 2: day of trying to play harmless pranks on family or friends,
Speaker 2: well hopefully harmless.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I said I was pregnant last year. Nobody believed me.
Speaker 2: Really, maybe you didn't sell it.
Speaker 3: I mean I could have a little bit harder, I guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, although no one is one hundred percent sure
Speaker 2: when April Fools pranks started, some say it was in
Speaker 2: the Canterbury Tales back in thirteen ninety two, that it's referenced,
Speaker 2: but some dispute and say that they're talking about it
Speaker 2: but not being on April first. Okay, it's more commonly
Speaker 2: thought to have originated in the sixteenth century.
Speaker 3: We'll go with that.
Speaker 2: In fifteen oh eight, there was a French poet, I
Speaker 2: am so good at French names, so don't question how
Speaker 2: this pronunciation comes out of my mouth. Soccerate elloy de, I'm.
Speaker 4: A well perfect That's not what he was called.
Speaker 2: In his poem he talked about April fish. April fish
Speaker 2: it's a tradition of putting fish on others backs that
Speaker 2: were gullible, and this was a clear instance of April
Speaker 2: Fool's trickery. But how funny would that be, just running
Speaker 2: around taping fish to other people's backs.
Speaker 4: I was going to send you a video two days ago.
Speaker 4: There one guy was sleeping on his belly, so they
Speaker 4: taped chicken wings to his back like he had angel wings.
Speaker 4: But it was just two chicken wings, and everybody was laughing,
Speaker 4: but he was getting pissed off. He didn't know what
Speaker 4: the wings.
Speaker 2: It's not April chicken, it's April fish. They just sound ridiculous.
Speaker 3: That's awesome.
Speaker 2: They also cite a fifteen and sixty one Flemish poem
Speaker 2: that tells of a man of nobility on April First
Speaker 2: sending one of his servants on Fool's errands. So he'd
Speaker 2: send like something to your house and it would have
Speaker 2: like a note like hey, you know, we're just messing
Speaker 2: with this guy, and they'll just keep sending him around
Speaker 2: as much as possible.
Speaker 3: Oh nice.
Speaker 2: Others have theorized its connection with the changing of the
Speaker 2: calendars from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in fifteen
Speaker 2: eighty two. This was introduced, not the Gregor, the Gregorian.
Speaker 2: This was introduced by Pope Gregory the eighth, and this
Speaker 2: shift in the calendar shifted the New Year's Day from
Speaker 2: April first to January first, So people that didn't acknowledge
Speaker 2: or remember that change, Like if you were celebrating New
Speaker 2: Year's Day in April, you were ridiculed as April. Really yeah,
Speaker 2: and so you'd get a fish stuck on your back.
Speaker 2: You know, you don't want that to happen.
Speaker 3: Oh, what kind of fish?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. It couldn't be too big, probably.
Speaker 3: Just whatever they caught.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just a few theories. Other think Roman festivals,
Speaker 2: for example, Hilaria, we're in late March, you know, right
Speaker 2: before April. They had a lot of celebrations with mocking
Speaker 2: and costumes that would be used, or some say Hindu, Jewish,
Speaker 2: Persian traditions as the possibility of the origin. Some historians
Speaker 2: say that maybe it was the weather changing in the
Speaker 2: vernal equinox that fooled people.
Speaker 4: You don't want to think people see equinox.
Speaker 2: In sixteen eighty six, an English author John Aubrey referred
Speaker 2: to April first as Fool's holy day. There was also
Speaker 2: a mention of Scotland's hunting the Gawk, where you would
Speaker 2: try to send others on foolish errands. But I like
Speaker 2: that it kind of has a mystery. It adds to
Speaker 2: its charm. You know, you don't really know when it's started.
Speaker 5: No, I mean that's kind of cool, like it probably
Speaker 5: went a little bit before everybody's saying, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, because people always play pranks looking like alloeen
Speaker 5: and shit, I got I gave to be it stuff.
Speaker 2: At some point, it made its way to the US
Speaker 2: in the eighteen hundreds, and now it's a normal thing
Speaker 2: for everyone to try to pull a prank on April First.
Speaker 2: You know, you trying to convince everyone you're pregnant.
Speaker 3: That's twins, and.
Speaker 2: Just about everyone has a story, you know, something that
Speaker 2: happened to them or that they did. We're going to
Speaker 2: talk about some notable April Fool's Day pranks today.
Speaker 3: Sounds good.
Speaker 2: Sorry, my cat, it looks like she's going to jump
Speaker 2: on my head. Okay. So one of the earliest recorded
Speaker 2: pranks for April Fool's Day was back in sixteen ninety
Speaker 2: eight in London and residents were invited invited. Why did
Speaker 2: I say it like that? Residents were invited to the
Speaker 2: Tower of London.
Speaker 3: Did they push them off, they did not April.
Speaker 2: They're in the moat. The residents could come and see
Speaker 2: this ceremony of the washing of the lions, which of
Speaker 2: course didn't exist. They didn't have all the lions in
Speaker 2: the moats washing them. After this, they just kept this
Speaker 2: tradition up. Like one year they'd be like, come here
Speaker 2: and go to the White Gate, and there's no white
Speaker 2: gate at the Tower of London. You know, they just
Speaker 2: mess with people, Okay. So in nineteen sixty one, the
Speaker 2: BBC advertised a concert that was by a distinguished continental pianist.
Speaker 2: Did you ask who was this distinguished continental pianist?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: Hey, so who is this continental pianist?
Speaker 2: It was lurp aloof?
Speaker 4: Is that? So?
Speaker 2: Everyone was pumped. They could not wait to hear this
Speaker 2: lurp aloof tickle in those ivory Jesus Christ. But then
Speaker 2: it was canceled. They freaking canceled lurt aloof.
Speaker 3: People were pissed.
Speaker 2: Lurp aloof aka April fools spelled backwards. Oh really, lurp aloof.
Speaker 2: So on April first, nineteen sixty two, Sweden's I can't
Speaker 2: believe this their only television channel. They had one TV
Speaker 2: channel one, so they announced to viewers that there was
Speaker 2: a hack that they could try at home. This one channel,
Speaker 2: which was broadcast and black and white, had an expert
Speaker 2: while the station's technical expert, Kjell Stenson. He came on
Speaker 2: and told viewers how they could watch the channel in color.
Speaker 3: That's no switching to color well from black and white.
Speaker 2: Even though it was broadcast in black and white, he
Speaker 2: was going to tell them how they could watch it
Speaker 2: in color. He used a lot of jargon about light
Speaker 2: spectrum interference, and he found sure that using a mesh
Speaker 2: screen would make the black and white appear in color
Speaker 2: by bending the image. And they at home could do this.
Speaker 2: All they had to do was take a nylon stocking,
Speaker 2: stretch it over the screen, and you just had to
Speaker 2: move your head back and forth while it and then
Speaker 2: you could see it in color.
Speaker 3: I bet you a lot of people did this.
Speaker 2: Thousands tried, and they found out they had been duped,
Speaker 2: and they were out a pair of nylon stockings to boot.
Speaker 2: See how he did boot.
Speaker 3: To boot to boot, that's pretty funny.
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy four, April, first, obviously in Sitka, Alaska,
Speaker 2: residents saw Mount Edgecomb. This was a four hundred year
Speaker 2: old dormant volcano. It began to smoke, so residents just
Speaker 2: poured onto the streets. Police, military were called. Military helicopter
Speaker 2: was sent out to see what was going on, and
Speaker 2: as it approached the mountain they saw a big pile
Speaker 2: of burning tires in the volcano, and written in snow
Speaker 2: on the side of the volcano said April fool.
Speaker 3: Nothing like a good fire to bring people together.
Speaker 2: Well, they all thought the volcano was going to burst.
Speaker 2: I'd be freaking out, but.
Speaker 3: They just threw shit inside of it and made it burn.
Speaker 3: That's cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the pile of the tires, and this being the
Speaker 2: prank of a logger named Oliver. His nickname's Porky Bicker
Speaker 2: him and his crew, and the crew was called the
Speaker 2: Dirty Dozen. The thing with this prank is he did
Speaker 2: tell the FAA that he was going to do it
Speaker 2: and the police, but he forgot to tell the coastguard.
Speaker 2: But the Coastguard was a really good sport about it,
Speaker 2: and he thought it was hilarious. So I guess it
Speaker 2: all turned out okay.
Speaker 3: And it worked out in the end.
Speaker 2: No charges laid, No charges laid. In nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 2: on BBC radio, April first British astronomer, Patrick Moore, told
Speaker 2: listeners that the Jovian plutonium gravitational effect was going to
Speaker 2: happen that very day. This meant that Jupiter and Pluto
Speaker 2: were going to align temporarily that very day at nine
Speaker 2: forty seven am, and by this happening and aligning with Earth,
Speaker 2: it would create a gravitational pull that would affect the
Speaker 2: Earth's gravity.
Speaker 3: So messing was up on Earth.
Speaker 2: Most likely this meant anyone wanted to feel weightless, they
Speaker 2: could jump at exactly nine seven. So nine seven a
Speaker 2: m came and on the radio station, Patrick Moore instructed stella.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, not stella. I just jumped on my head.
Speaker 2: Hold on, I'm just gonna open the door for her.
Speaker 2: Oh she opened it herself. My cat can jump up
Speaker 2: and open the door. Now she's a psycho. Sorry, Now
Speaker 2: that she's gone, I can concentrate. So on the radio station,
Speaker 2: Patrick Moore instructed jump now, and then the phone lines
Speaker 2: at the BBC started lighting up. People wanted to share
Speaker 2: how they had all floated. One caller said, I was
Speaker 2: in a room with eleven friends and we all begin
Speaker 2: to orbit around the room. Wow, that's not funny to you.
Speaker 4: I think it's pretty crazy that people are actually jumping
Speaker 4: and thinking that they were floating.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love how like the power of influence can
Speaker 2: just make you see or what you want to feel exactly. Helloa.
Speaker 2: In April Fools Day nineteen eighty the BBC announced that
Speaker 2: to keep up with the times, they were going to
Speaker 2: replace Big Ben's clock face with a digital rido, and
Speaker 2: the hands would be given away as a prize to
Speaker 2: the first listeners who contacted the show. But okay, which
Speaker 2: obviously was a prank, but people were losing their mind.
Speaker 2: They were like angry calls. They were pissed off, like
Speaker 2: you can't do that to Big Ben, Like, dude, it's
Speaker 2: a joke and s April Fools Stop. In nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 2: Sports Illustrated publish an article about this up and come
Speaker 2: and rookie pitcher Sid Finch. Sid was an orphan, a
Speaker 2: Harvard dropout, had ahvid yad and then he went on
Speaker 2: to a Tibetan monastery. There he studied and mastered yoga,
Speaker 2: and he had this supernatural mind and body control. He
Speaker 2: was also a gifted French horn player. He was he
Speaker 2: could throw a fastball at one hundred and sixty eight
Speaker 2: miles per hour without even warming up.
Speaker 4: Insane.
Speaker 2: He would pitch with one boot on and one bare foot,
Speaker 2: and he always had his French horn with him because
Speaker 2: he didn't know if he wanted to actually play baseball.
Speaker 4: Or not just practice in between innings on the front
Speaker 4: horn might get discovered by somebody in the bleachers.
Speaker 2: People were like all crazy about him. People try to
Speaker 2: recruit them. It's just funny. That's why you don't believe
Speaker 2: anything on April first. If you have a big announcement,
Speaker 2: you got to re announce it on April second. So
Speaker 2: back in nineteen ninety six, April first, Taco Bell took
Speaker 2: out a full page ad in like five or six newspapers.
Speaker 2: They declared they were going to help reduce the country's
Speaker 2: debt by purchasing the Liberty Bell and they were going
Speaker 2: to rename it the Taco Liberty Bell. And again, people
Speaker 2: not being able to take a joke, flooded the National
Speaker 2: Park Service and newspapers with angry calls, and by noon
Speaker 2: that day, Taco Bell did a press release saying like
Speaker 2: it was just a joke, chill out. People were all
Speaker 2: upset even after they found out it was a joke, like.
Speaker 3: Come on, well, it's a joke, now, is it.
Speaker 2: You can't joke about the Liberty Bell. But Taco Bell
Speaker 2: being a really good sport. They also donated dollar towards preservation,
Speaker 2: which was really nice.
Speaker 3: Probably felt they had to come.
Speaker 2: On, take a freaking joke, like that's harmless fun.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean.
Speaker 4: People are probably going to be spiteful about this, the
Speaker 4: Toco Liberty Bell, are you anyway?
Speaker 2: I'm like afraid of it. It's just such good trash food.
Speaker 2: But oh my gosh, ri supreb it destroys everything in me.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I know.
Speaker 4: My Boddy wants to Taco Bell the other day because
Speaker 4: his kid wanted it for his birthday.
Speaker 3: I was like, how was it? And he's like, dude,
Speaker 3: that shit instantly.
Speaker 2: It's like your body repels it after a certain age.
Speaker 2: It scares me to even go there.
Speaker 3: It's going to be some drive home made.
Speaker 2: If I make it. All right. So, in nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 2: another fast food restaurant may be inspired by Taco Bell.
Speaker 2: Who knows. They announced a specially designed menu item. They
Speaker 2: designed it for the almost one point five million left
Speaker 2: handed Americans. I guess they didn't include sorry, Chris, so
Speaker 2: their design featured. Oh I didn't even say who it was.
Speaker 2: It's burg King. Their design featured the condiments being rotated
Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty degrees to finally cater to those
Speaker 2: left handed whopper lovers.
Speaker 3: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: Thousands flooded to try the new left handed whopper, and
Speaker 2: some of the right handed people came hoping to still
Speaker 2: be able to purchase a right handed whopper. You know,
Speaker 2: you don't want to get them mixed up.
Speaker 3: No, you don't.
Speaker 2: They never really thought I could just turn the burger
Speaker 2: around and that's the same thing. No, yeah, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: so hilarious. There's a bunch of other notable ones, like
Speaker 2: when Elon Muss tried to file for bankruptcy as like
Speaker 2: an April Fools thing for Tesla but at backfire and
Speaker 2: messing with stock prices. There's tons of video game ones
Speaker 2: like Neopets, Fortnite, the Grenades. I don't know what other
Speaker 2: video game ones do you know?
Speaker 4: Uh, not too really, Actually, well.
Speaker 2: They do a bunch on video games.
Speaker 4: Oh I wasn't too keen on the video game to
Speaker 4: do it April Fools.
Speaker 2: Well that they usually put it right back the next day.
Speaker 2: It's just to be funny.
Speaker 3: Yeah, quick little thing or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's fun.
Speaker 3: Is always fun.
Speaker 2: And the BBC also did one about flying penguins. Everyone
Speaker 2: knows Rick rolled you know what I mean. How YouTube
Speaker 2: used to put Rick Astley's song never Gonna what is it?
Speaker 2: Never Gonna give You Up?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And that was one in nineteen eighty nine where Rick
Speaker 2: could Richard Branson faked a UFO landing by London using
Speaker 2: a hot air balloon that was shaped like a saucer
Speaker 2: and same thing. People lost their mind.
Speaker 3: Such some good stuff.
Speaker 2: This is my favorite, this is the last one. On
Speaker 2: April first, nineteen fifty seven, the BBC ran a three
Speaker 2: minute segment featuring a family in Tinsino, Switzerland. This Swiss
Speaker 2: family was shown on video harvesting their crops, their crops
Speaker 2: being spaghetti which grew on trees, so obviously it had
Speaker 2: to be harvested.
Speaker 4: I remember this one, yeah, oh you do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they went into the Swiss spaghetti harvest and
Speaker 2: thankfully the spaghetti weavil had disappeared by then, and viewers
Speaker 2: flooded the BBC with calls and how they could get
Speaker 2: seeds to grow their own spaghetti tree, and the BBC
Speaker 2: shared how they could just place a sprig of spaghetti
Speaker 2: in a tomato sauce and hope for the best.
Speaker 3: That was it.
Speaker 2: How else are you going to grow spaghetti? You just
Speaker 2: sound crazy right now.
Speaker 3: No, you're right. I'm totally sorry.
Speaker 2: They're so fun, but I just hate when people aren't
Speaker 2: good sports about it, Like you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: it's a joke, take a joke.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean there must have been some good sports
Speaker 4: about it, you know, but like people snap or everything.
Speaker 4: Even these days, like it's way worse than it used
Speaker 4: to be.
Speaker 3: It's terrible. You can't even joke.
Speaker 2: If you fall for spaghetti's growing on trees because I
Speaker 2: get they didn't have like the Internet back then, and
Speaker 2: that was new to that area, like spaghetti was a
Speaker 2: new thing, making it it's over to London, Britain, the UK, whatever.
Speaker 2: Come on, take a fricking joke.
Speaker 3: That's too bad that they wouldn't just take a joke.
Speaker 4: Cost all that extra grief for people to even come
Speaker 4: out and have like press conferences and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Good grief. Charlie Brown, Ah.
Speaker 3: Good greed. Oh well, I enjoyed these stories.
Speaker 2: April Fool still rocks. I mean, it's a day where
Speaker 2: it's socially acceptable to be playful and childish, breaking the
Speaker 2: monotony of the nine to five or whatever work hours
Speaker 2: you do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he said April stools.
Speaker 2: April did I. I was trying to say fool still
Speaker 2: and it didn't work, So I guess it's April stools,
Speaker 2: April fish stools, April Taco Bell fish stools. I'm just
Speaker 2: going to keep adding unless you stop me. Oh no, great, Stella,
Speaker 2: I thought you left me.
Speaker 4: She's back.
Speaker 3: She's like the creature you want to the podcast swear.
Speaker 2: She's a cryptid.
Speaker 3: She's your co host.
Speaker 2: Now she tries to sit on the computer right on
Speaker 2: the keyboard.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, no, you gotta do something like that. Oh also,
Speaker 4: you're gonna get punt casts.
Speaker 2: Done bullied by my cat the same right.
Speaker 3: Well, Aple fools, everybody? Ouch? Was that a stella?
Speaker 2: That's all I got. You don't have any good ideas
Speaker 2: for April fools pranks.
Speaker 3: I never have any good ideas for anything.
Speaker 2: They have these really cute ones you can do, like
Speaker 2: but the sandwiches you can make like you can like
Speaker 2: angel food cake, and they slice it and then they
Speaker 2: take frosting and put like you know, make it look
Speaker 2: like cheese like yellow and orange, whatever you have to
Speaker 2: do to get to the right color. And then they
Speaker 2: like grill the outside of the breadge so it looks
Speaker 2: like a grilled cheese, but it's actually an angel food
Speaker 2: cake with frosting.
Speaker 4: You know that sounds pretty good.
Speaker 2: They just have like fun little things like that, so
Speaker 2: when you bite into it, it's nothing like what you expect.
Speaker 4: Just fooling everybody with the big cakes and stuff.
Speaker 2: I was so mad when my youngest son before was
Speaker 2: into pranks and all that, and I always have I
Speaker 2: know it's not good for the environment. I've gotten better
Speaker 2: at bottled water, but I used to always have my
Speaker 2: fridge stock with bottled water. And he had this idea
Speaker 2: to take vinegar and shoot it in some of the
Speaker 2: water bottle and I was so mad because I would
Speaker 2: just throw them all away because I'm like, I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna take the chance that I'm drinking vinegar like that
Speaker 2: was not funny.
Speaker 3: That's pretty fun.
Speaker 2: At the time, I was like, oh, I just want
Speaker 2: water and I don't want to have vinegar.
Speaker 3: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: And then my two boys have done the one where
Speaker 2: they put the bowl they put water in it and
Speaker 2: stick it on the ceiling and you know, stick a
Speaker 2: broom under it and have his brother hold it so
Speaker 2: then he's stuck. And if he moves, you know, the
Speaker 2: water's coming pouring down. Or he can just stand there
Speaker 2: all day holding it against the ceiling.
Speaker 4: That's even.
Speaker 3: That's pretty fun too.
Speaker 2: Oh the so yeah, I got this the saran wrap
Speaker 2: on the toilet, which is like terrible because then I'm
Speaker 2: the one that cleans up these jokes.
Speaker 3: It still pretty funny.
Speaker 2: No, as is so fun. I didn't know if you
Speaker 2: had any good stories, but if you don't, then forget you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, unforgettable.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, thank you so much, chrispher coming on, and
Speaker 2: if you do think of any good pranks, let me know.
Speaker 2: And if anyone has had a good prank done to them,
Speaker 2: or you have done a good prank yourself, let me
Speaker 2: know in the comments below. I love to hear them,
Speaker 2: you would, yes, And good luck with everybody's spaghetti rowing.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah no, I got got my spaghetti cheese planning.
Speaker 2: Now just watch out for them darn spaghetti weavils. Oh
Speaker 2: they're coming all right. Well, thank you everybody so much
Speaker 2: for listening, and I guess happy early April Fool's day,
Speaker 2: Take care of everybody.
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