Although I consider myself to be a fairly cynical pessimist, I also remain extremely vulnerable to things people tell me. I take this as a sign that I want to believe in humanity and its possibilities, even though deep down I know better! With this in mind, I present some of the most believed April Fool's Pranks of all time.

  1. The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest--In 1957, a highly respected BBC news show announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss Farmers were harvesting a bumper crop of spaghetti. They showed film footage of farmers pulling spaghetti out of trees and huge numbers of viewers called wanting to know where they could get their own spaghetti trees.
  2. Instant Color TV--Those wacky Swedes! In 1962 Sweden had only 1 TV channel and it was in black and white. The station's engineer appeared on the news and announced that they had developed technology by which viewers could convert their sets to color. They simply needed to pull a nylon stocking over the set. Thousands of people believed it, but color TV didn't show up in Sweden until 1970.
  3. The Taco Liberty Bell--The year was 1996 and the Taco Bell Corporation announced they had purchased the Liberty Bell and were renaming it The Taco Liberty Bell. Outraged Americans by the hundreds called National Historic Park in Philly to complain.
  4. The Left-Handed Whopper--In 1998 Burger King took out a full page ad in USA Today to announce their new Left-Handed Whopper, specifically designed for the 3.2 million lefties in the U.S. Thousands of people went to Burger King to try the new sandwich or would ask to make sure they got the right-handed version.
  5. Planetary Alignment Decreases Gravity--Another British doozy of a prank! In 1976 a British astronomer announced that at 9:47 a.m. on April 1st a once-in-a-lifetime alignment of the planets would lessen Earth's gravity. Listeners were told that if they jumped in the air at that exact moment they would experience an eerie floating sensation. The BBC got hundreds of phone calls from people who claimed to have felt it, including one woman who reported that she and her 11 friends had actually floated around the room.

Thank goodness I'm not the only gullible human on this planet!

 

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