The top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes Of All Time

[erynthered]

Enjoy your day fools!!

 

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/

 

 

 

My favorite:

#2: Sidd Finch

In its April 1985 edition, Sports Illustrated published a story about a new rookie pitcher who planned to play for the Mets. His name was Sidd Finch, and he could reportedly throw a baseball at 168 mph with pinpoint accuracy. This was 65 mph faster than the previous record. Surprisingly, Sidd Finch had never even played the game before. Instead, he had mastered the "art of the pitch" in a Tibetan monastery under the guidance of the "great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa." Mets fans celebrated their teams' amazing luck at having found such a gifted player, and Sports Illustrated was flooded with requests for more information. But in reality this legendary player only existed in the imagination of the author of the article, George Plimpton.

[Steely Dan]

SI Archive Article- Sidd Finch by Plimpton

[Steely Dan]

I can't get the link to work.

[VABills]

What about Olaf Pillar (sp??)

[In space no one can hear]

Article on April Fools Jokes by the Sabres Paul Wieland

 

 

Remember these?

[erynthered]

I can't get the link to work.

 

 

It was working for me when I posted it. Just tried it a few minutes ago, and its down. Its probably overloaded. Try it later.

[Steely Dan]

It was working for me when I posted it. Just tried it a few minutes ago, and its down. Its probably overloaded. Try it later.

 

Gotcha!

[Bullpen]

Sidd Finch was classic. Have to admit, as a young naive 14 year old, I bought into it hook, line and sinker.

[yall]

I just tricked my wife into calling the Buffalo Zoo and asking for "Mr. Lyon". I sold it quite well, but they are onto the gag and just have a recording answering the phone today.

[Lori]

Enjoy your day fools!!

 

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/

 

 

 

My favorite:

#2: Sidd Finch

In its April 1985 edition, Sports Illustrated published a story about a new rookie pitcher who planned to play for the Mets. His name was Sidd Finch, and he could reportedly throw a baseball at 168 mph with pinpoint accuracy. This was 65 mph faster than the previous record. Surprisingly, Sidd Finch had never even played the game before. Instead, he had mastered the "art of the pitch" in a Tibetan monastery under the guidance of the "great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa." Mets fans celebrated their teams' amazing luck at having found such a gifted player, and Sports Illustrated was flooded with requests for more information. But in reality this legendary player only existed in the imagination of the author of the article, George Plimpton.

Sure Sidd Finch was a hoax?

Where have you gone, Sidd Finch?

The vast majority of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED'S longtime readers undoubtedly remember exactly what they were doing when they opened up the April 1, 1985, issue and read about Sidd Finch, the English-born kid with the 168-mph fastball who had joined the New York Mets at their spring training camp in St. Petersburg the month before. Because of the date on the magazine's cover many readers felt they were being victimized by an April Fools' hoax. More than 2,000 of them wrote letters, some of them extremely angry at the magazine's decision to do such a thing.

 

The editors were startled, to put it mildly. At a hastily called meeting of the top brass, it was decided to go along with the public's assumption that the whole thing was a charade; the magazine would deny that Sidd Finch ever existed.

 

This was extremely upsetting to George Plimpton, the author of the article (The Curious Case of Sidd Finch), who complained bitterly that his hard work, his hound's nose for digging up the astonishing facts, his breaking through the wall of silence that the Mets had constructed around their phenomenon and his chance to win prestigious journalism awards were all now to be callously dismissed and the story written off as an elaborate practical joke. "You're knuckling under, caving in to public opinion!" Plimpton shouted at the staff meeting. "Shame! Shame! Puppets!"

[erynthered]

Sure Sidd Finch was a hoax?

Where have you gone, Sidd Finch?

 

 

Yes. I was there.

 

New York Mets at their spring training camp in St. Petersburg the month before.

[VABills]

This ones cool:

 

 

#23: Arm the Homeless

In 1999 the Phoenix New Times ran a story announcing the formation of a new charity to benefit the homeless. There was just one catch. Instead of providing the homeless with food and shelter, this charity would provide them with guns and ammunition. It was named 'The Arm the Homeless Coalition.' The story received coverage from 60 Minutes II, the Associated Press, and numerous local radio stations before everyone realized it was a joke. The Phoenix New Times's joke was actually a reprise of a 1993 prank perpetrated by students at Ohio State University.

[Steely Dan]

These are good too;

 

#8: The Left-Handed Whopper

In 1998 Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a "Left-Handed Whopper" specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers. The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich. Simultaneously, according to the press release, "many others requested their own 'right handed' version."

 

#10: Planetary Alignment Decreases Gravity

In 1976 the British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes. The planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth's own gravity. Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47 AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room.

 

 

#13: The Predictions of Isaac Bickerstaff

In February 1708 a previously unknown London astrologer named Isaac Bickerstaff published an almanac in which he predicted the death by fever of the famous rival astrologer John Partridge. According to Bickerstaff, Partridge would die on March 29 of that year. Partridge indignantly denied the prediction, but on March 30 Bickerstaff released a pamphlet announcing that he had been correct: Partridge was dead. It took a day for the news to settle in, but soon everyone had heard of the astrologer's demise. On April 1, April Fool's Day, Partridge was woken by a sexton outside his window who wanted to know if there were any orders for his funeral sermon. Then, as Partridge walked down the street, people stared at him as if they were looking at a ghost or stopped to tell him that he looked exactly like someone they knew who was dead. As hard as he tried, Partridge couldn't convince people that he wasn't dead. Bickerstaff, it turned out, was a pseudonym for the great satirist Jonathan Swift. His prognosticatory practical joke upon Partridge worked so well that the astrologer finally was forced to stop publishing his almanacs, because he couldn't shake his reputation as the man whose death had been foretold.

 

#15: The Case of the Interfering Brassieres

In 1982 the Daily Mail reported that a local manufacturer had sold 10,000 "rogue bras" that were causing a unique and unprecedented problem, not to the wearers but to the public at large. Apparently the support wire in these bras had been made out of a kind of copper originally designed for use in fire alarms. When this copper came into contact with nylon and body heat, it produced static electricity which, in turn, was interfering with local television and radio broadcasts. The chief engineer of British Telecom, upon reading the article, immediately ordered that all his female laboratory employees disclose what type of bra they were wearing.

[BuffaloBilliever]

I just had my buddy (who's a cop) go to my girlfriends house and give her a fake warning about noise violations.

 

She listens to classical music

[WWVaBeach]

Media Plays Along

[WWVaBeach]

Airlines

[EC-Bills]

Erynthered is straight.

[Steely Dan]

I just had my buddy (who's a cop) go to my girlfriends house and give her a fake warning about noise violations.

 

She listens to classical music

 

 

#28: Tass Expands Into American Market

In 1982 the Connecticut Gazette and Connecticut Compass, weekly newspapers serving the Old Lyme and Mystic areas, both announced that they were being purchased by Tass, the official news agency of the Soviet Union. On their front pages they declared that this was "the first expansion of the Soviet media giant outside of the Iron Curtain." The article also revealed that after Tass had purchased the Compass, its two publishers had both been killed by "simultaneous hunting accidents" in which they had shot each other in the back of the head with "standard-issue Soviet Army rifles." The announcement was bylined "By John Reed," and the new publisher, Vydonch U. Kissov, announced that the paper would be "thoroughly red." In response to the news, the offices of the Compass and the Gazette received calls offering condolences for the death of the publishers. One caller also informed them that he had long suspected them of harboring communist tendencies, and that it was only a matter of time before all the papers in the country were communist-controlled. When the publishers tried to explain that the article had been an April Fool's prank, the caller replied, "You expect me to believe a bunch of Commies?"

 

Evidently a Fox News Watcher. I know someone who refers to CNN as the Communist News Network.

[Steely Dan]

This is great corporate sabotage:

 

#99: Virgin Cola’s Blue Cans

In 1996 Virgin Cola announced that in the interest of consumer safety it had integrated a new technology into its cans. When the cola passed its sell-by date, the liquid would react with the metal in the can, turning the can itself bright blue. Virgin warned that consumers should therefore avoid purchasing all blue cans. The joke was that Pepsi had recently unveiled its newly designed cans. They were bright blue.

[taterhill]

My dad is a Leafs fan...so my 2 year old called and told him Go Leafs Go....................April Fools....we had a good laugh