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April Fools Day isn’t really a full-fledged holiday, but it is celebrated in many countries on April 1. It’s basically a day for hoaxes and practical jokes on both friends and enemies. The enactment of new laws or taxes by Congress on or around that date are sometimes mistaken for April Fool jokes.

The origins of this custom are debatable, but generally thought to be a relic of the festivities which began on March 25th and ended on April 2nd in Great Britain before the start of the 18th century.

The French traditionally celebrated this holiday by placing dead fish on the backs of unsuspecting friends. Today, real fish have been replaced with sticky, fish-shaped paper cut-outs that children try to sneak onto the back of their friends' shirts—much like the “kick me” signs we tried to do the same thing with when I was a kid.

In preparing to write a column on this subject, I found a web site detailing some of the spectacular April Fool hoaxes that have occurred in recent history. If you’re interested, in reading The Top 100 April Fool Hoaxes of all Time, go to www.museumofhoaxces.com. Here are a few choice examples:

The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest:
In 1957 the BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a mild winter and the elimination of the spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop and showed footage of peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers called wanting to know how they could grow spaghetti trees. BBC replied that they should place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.

The Taco Liberty Bell:
In 1996 Taco Bell announced that it had bought the Liberty Bell from the federal government and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Outraged citizens called up the National Historic Park in Philadelphia to express their anger. They calmed down only when Taco Bell revealed a few hours later that it was a practical joke.

The Left Handed Whopper:
In 1998 Burger King placed a full-page ad in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a “Left-Handed Whopper” designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. The ad said that the new Whopper included the same ingredients as the original, but everything was rotated 180 degrees to benefit left-handed customers. The following day Burger King revealed that, although it was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants and requested the left-handed whopper.

As a kid, I had neither the imagination nor resources for anything this elaborate, but there was one April Fools’ joke that I always think of on this date. It required several friends because different voices were needed to make it work.

First, I’d dial a randomly-selected telephone number. When the phone was answered, I’d say. “May I speak to Mr. Fish?” When told I’d dialed a wrong number, I apologized and hung up. After a few minutes, an accomplice would call the same number and ask again for Mr. Fish.

This was repeated, each time with a different voice, until we felt the callee had been pressed to the limit. It was then, we’d make the final call. When the exasperated victim answered the phone he heard, “Hello. This is Mr. Fish. Have I had any calls?”

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A question to ponder:

Would it be better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt?

putterhugh@suddenlink.net

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Hugh Neeld is a freelance columnist for TylerPaper.com.