Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Remember these?

I hope that you avoid being tricked on this April Fool's
Day! It's amazing some of the hoaxes that have been pulled
off on this day. Here's just a few examples from Wikipedia...

* In 1998, Burger King ran an ad in USA Today, saying that
people could get a Whopper for left-handed people whose
condiments were designed to drip out of the right side. Not
only did customers order the new burgers, but some
specifically requested the "old", right-handed burger.

* In 1996, Taco Bell took out a full-page advertisement in
The New York Times announcing that they had purchased the
Liberty Bell to "reduce the country's debt" and renamed it
the "Taco Liberty Bell." When asked about the sale, White
House press secretary Mike McCurry replied tongue-in-cheek
that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold and would
henceforth be known as the Lincoln Mercury Memorial.

* The BBC television program Panorama ran a famous hoax in
1957, showing the Swiss harvesting spaghetti from trees.
They had claimed that the despised pest, the spaghetti
weevil, had been eradicated. A large number of people
contacted the BBC wanting to know how to cultivate their
own spaghetti trees.

* In 2008, the BBC reported on a newly discovered colony
of flying penguins. An elaborate video segment was even
produced, featuring Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame)
walking with the penguins in Antarctica, and following
their flight to the Amazon rainforest.

* George Plimpton wrote a 1985 article in Sports
Illustrated about a New York Mets prospect named Sidd
Finch, who could throw a 168 mph (270 km/h) fastball with
pinpoint accuracy. This kid, known as "Barefoot"
Sidd[hartha] Finch, reportedly learned to pitch in a
Buddhist monastery. The first letter of each word in the
article subhead spelled out the fact of its being an April
Fool joke.

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