April 1st jokes that have gone down in history – Respublika.lt

The police protect and defend themselves

Kokomo, Indiana Police Press Office 1959 announced on April 1 that, in order to save the funds of the municipal treasury, the policemen will not work from six o’clock in the evening to six o’clock in the morning. Instead, the station will have an answering machine that records calls from citizens.

“Most of the calls will no longer be relevant by the morning, so the police will be able to avoid them and this will help save a lot of money,” the statement said. Acknowledging that some inconvenience will be experienced by those who call because of a threat to their lives, the press service assured that those on duty from will definitely call hospitals and morgues in the morning.

“If there are no victims of crimes, it will be clear that nothing terrible happened overnight.”

In the week after this joke, the police registered almost 10 percent more violations than usual.

Color TV

And this is another one of the leaders of global jokes! in Sweden in 1962 only one TV channel was working and the picture on the TV was black and white. The TV station announced that their “technical expert” was going to tell people how to change the black and white picture on their TVs to color. Scientists recently found that covering the TV screen with a pair of nylon pantyhose will refract the light rays in such a way that it appears to the viewer that the picture is in color. Expert advice to viewers is to cut socks or pantyhose and pull them on the TV screen.

Thousands of viewers were hooked. Many people say that even today they remember their parents running around the house looking for socks for the TV. It is interesting that in reality the program was broadcast in color in Sweden on April 1, 1970. And it was no longer a joke.

Keep up with the times

On April 1, 1980, the BBC announced: in order to keep up with technical progress, the mechanical Big Ben clock will be replaced by an electronic one.

While the channel’s London office answered calls from outraged viewers, the BBC’s Japan division repeated the news about the fate of Big Ben, adding that the obsolete hands would be sold to the first four listeners who called into the studio. The first to break through to the studio was a Japanese sailor who sent an application in Morse code to the company’s teletype.

Tire vulcanization

in 1974 Residents of the town of Sitka (Alaska) began panicking around their homes, stuffing documents and money into their pockets. Thick smoke began to rise from a long-extinguished volcano near the town. The townspeople covered their heads and stood outside for several hours, praying that it would not erupt. Finally, rescuers called from the Great Land calmed down the residents, as it turned out that hundreds of car tires were burning in the crater of the volcano. The fire was caused by a local prankster who had been specially collecting old tires for several months.

Pee-pee

in 1998 In the April issue of New Mexicans for Science and Reason, readers were informed that the University of Alabama had voted to change the value of Pi from 3.14159… to a more convenient 3.0. The news soon hit the Internet and spread around the world. .

That the joke had gotten out of control became apparent when the number of calls to the university (demanding the cancellation of such an ordinance) reached three hundred a day. The announcement on the website that the material about the number Pi was a parody of the passing of laws banning the teaching of the theory of evolution in schools did not spread as widely as the article itself.

Pasta harvest

Perhaps the most famous April Fool’s joke of all time is a BBC report on pasta farming. In April 1957, the British television channel BBC broadcast a report from Switzerland, which showed how a farming family harvests spaghetti from special bushes. A very famous reviewer of the time seriously explained that spaghetti strands should first be carefully removed from the bush and then laid out to dry in the sun. At the end of the report, he added that the most difficult time to grow spaghetti is the end of March, because frost can spoil its taste. The plot ended with the words: “For those who love this dish, there is nothing better than real, home-grown spaghetti.”

Many people, for whom television was practically the only source of information, did not turn on critical thinking and took the report at face value. For a long time, the BBC editorial office received tons of letters from viewers asking where to get spaghetti bushes. To such questions, the BBC answered: “Put a sprig of spaghetti in a jar of tomato sauce and hope it catches.”

Traffic order

in 1991 The London Times reported that in order to reduce congestion, the Department for Transport Policy decided to double the width of the London Ring Road, turning it into a one-way street. Traffic should flow clockwise on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and anti-clockwise on Tuesdays and Thursdays. At the weekend the traffic is to be left unchanged.The following morning, the mailbox of the parliamentary press office was clogged with letters of protest.

About running

in 1981 On April 1, the London Daily Mail asked readers to help find missing runner Kim Nakaimi. The Japanese athlete, who participated in the traditional London Marathon, realized due to a translation error that he needed to run not 26 miles, but 26 days.

The newspaper wrote that the Japanese was lost somewhere in England and was still on the run, not wanting to surrender. Several people who called the newsroom that day reported seeing a Japanese runner, but were unable to catch up with him.

Ears are the mirror of the soul

in 1994 On April Fool’s Day, National Public Radio (USA) reported that several major companies (Pepsi was specifically mentioned) are announcing a campaign aimed at attracting young consumers. It was promised that anyone who had the corporation’s symbols tattooed on their ears would receive 10% of their lifetime profits. discount for the products of the selected company.

Here’s a grenade for you, tramp

in 1999 The Phoenix New Times featured a new charity in an article titled “Give the World a Chance.” Instead of banally feeding the homeless and giving them a roof over their heads, she was going to hand out guns to the vagrants. The organization was called “Arm the Homeless”. To make it more credible, a website and a hotline were created.

A week later, the editorial team summed up the results: several television and radio channels, which repeated the news, the police, who tried to find the founders of the organization, and one homeless man, who came to the editorial office with a free pistol, were among the deceived.

Penalty for surfing the Internet while intoxicated

In the polemic section of the April 1994 issue of “PC Computing” magazine, the editors raised the question of whether the new draft law “On the prohibition of using the Internet while intoxicated” is legal. The article highlighted the FBI’s nefarious plans to use the law to wiretap citizens who have violated the law. The bill, titled “Lirpa Sloof” (reversed for “April Fools”), was registered under the number 010494. That is, on April 1, 1994. After its publication, Congress received so many angry calls from Internet users that Senator Edward Kennedy was forced to officially deny the existence of such a bill. .

A dirty hint

A long time ago, when the Internet was still a novelty, its few users received a message by e-mail, which the authors asked to forward to everyone they knew. The letter stated that since 1997 from March 31 to April 2, the Internet will be closed for cleaning. Unnecessary web pages, empty local networks and electronic spam that slow down the Internet will be removed. All this had to be done by “the five most powerful polyglot robots Toshiba ML – 2274”, created by Japanese engineers. Users were recommended to disconnect all devices from the Internet.

Historians of the World Wide Web suspect that the warning letter was born in the depths of the computer networks of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.