April Fool’s that fooled me
Apr 1st 2008
Karen RoseWhen Goddesses Fall To Earth
About 10 years ago, I was driving down I-75 to my job in Cincinnati, listening to Jim and Bubba Bo on B105 (my dial never left that station). Anyway, they announced they were changing their format from my beloved country to my more beloved “All Garth, All Day and All Night.” Well! Garth Brooks was all The Rage at the time, and my favorite. The radio stations played him nearly non-stop. That they’d have an All Garth station wasn’t too far out of the realm of possibility.
There were howls of protest from listeners. “Hey, Bubba, this time y’all have gone too far!” Of course it was an April Fool’s joke. I guess I was fooled for five minutes or so, mostly because I wanted to be, LOL. Of course, this was in the privacy of my car and I never let on until this moment that I’d been so gullible. Now, y’all keep that quiet, okay?
I love the idea of April Fool’s. Here are a few famous April Fool pranks that made me chuckle:
* In 1996 the Taco Bell Corporation announced that it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. 
Hundreds of outraged citizens called to express their anger. Their nerves were only calmed when Taco Bell revealed that it was all a practical joke. The best line of the day came when White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale. Thinking on his feet, he responded that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold. It would now be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.
* In 1976 a British astronomer announced on BBC Radio 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. Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth’s own gravity. He 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.
Have you ever been fooled by an April Fool’s Day prank? Have you ever done the foolin’? How did you feel - amused, annoyed? Did you admit to being taken in?
45 Comments »
Karen Rose on 01 Apr 2008 at 3:40 am #
Oh, and to give credit where due, I got those pranks from the following link: http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/P0/.
Karen Hawkins on 01 Apr 2008 at 4:11 am #
My google-sponsored gmail runs an April Fool’s Day joke every year. When you log in, there it is. Last year they offered a new service — Hard Copy Backup or something like that — where they promised to print up and snail mail you any email you specified. FOR FREE! Last year, I spent ten whole minutes thinking, “But I could PRINT my email if I wanted to.” and “What a waste of paper!” before it dawned on me that OH, IT’S APRIL FOOLS DAY!
This year, I was not so gullible.
Btw, my guy’s mother has her birthday today. Any more April Fools’ Babies out there?
Malady on 01 Apr 2008 at 6:20 am #
lol, no fools day babies in my Family…
And i dont come from a jokers family are social gruop, its odd but the worst one we pulled was on a girl back in highschool. (not that long ago lol)
I am assuming you all know what Uluru is… it used to be called Ayers Rock, but when it was given back to the Aboriginals it was renamed Uluru which is the native name.
the girl is well known for her gullibilty.. and so tended to rely on me for confirmation, becuase i was her best friend and i usually knew the answer.
One day, she asks the teacher “what is the Aboriginal Name for Uluru” to which the teacher replied… “steve”… she looks at me thinking that doesnt sound right, but soon the whole class joins in saying yeah.. its Steve. At this piont ii normally piont out the farce so that we can get it over with… but i joined in. poor girl. at the end of the lesson I told her the truth… she couldnt believe i actually fooled her. I never try to fool people. well … obviously fool them .
Susan K on 01 Apr 2008 at 7:11 am #
My grandma was an April Fool’s baby.
I have to admit I completely forgot it was April Fool’s Day. I’ve had so much going on for the last 2 days.
Gannon on 01 Apr 2008 at 7:28 am #
I can’t think of any pranks that I fell for–although I’m sure there were several.
But my 8-year-old daughter didn’t want to go to school this morning, because she was sure all of the boys in her class were going to pull all kinds of obnoxious pranks!
Malady on 01 Apr 2008 at 7:56 am #
Awww. boys are horrible.
Malady on 01 Apr 2008 at 7:57 am #
but then… i know a few women who could do with some growing up too.
LOL..
KariE on 01 Apr 2008 at 8:23 am #
My BIL’s birthday is today. Someone needs to get him good.
I don’t know that I have ever played a prank on anyone or had one pulled on me. I don’t like them at all. IMHO, it is just another form of lying and I detest lying. Maybe I am just a spoil sport.
Nicole Jordan on 01 Apr 2008 at 8:38 am #
I’m so gullible, I fall for most any April Fool’s joke, at least for a short while. It’s really sad.
And that is too funny about the Lincoln Memorial, Karen!
BTW, I LOVE our new Goddess spring duds! Finally I’m not carrying a purse/handbag so my statue looks less plump. And I’m still jealous of Rachel’s statue. She gets all the glamorous looks.
Sandy "Snik" White on 01 Apr 2008 at 8:43 am #
I was thinking of one to pull this morning, however, after speaking with Kari, and being reminded of karma and the fact that it would just be mean, I have decided against it. The worst one I ever actually got away with was when I put salt in my dad’s sugar container and he made his coffee. He was SOOOO upset, I got grounded for a week, but the giggles are still present everytime I think of the look on his face, so it was at least worth a shot.
I have never been got on April Fool’s day, but I’ve been had before. I tend to be a little untrusting, so it makes being fooled a little easier. I just go by the mantra on April Fool’s day to not believe anything anyone says…if they tell me the same tomorrow, we’ll deal with it then.
Santa on 01 Apr 2008 at 8:50 am #
I’ve never been one for April Fools Day. My husband’s family revels in it and my youngest seems to have inherited that particular gene. She’s been giggling all morning and April Fooling everyone. Needless to say we are in stitches….really.
I was to deliver my son via c-section and my ob asked if I wanted to have my child on April Fools Day or not. There was no way I was going to set him up for pranks every birthday. The DH’s family was heartbroken. They’ll have to entertain themselves by trying to remember what their cousin’s, who got married on February 29th this year, exact wedding anniversary is. Those kinds of mental gymnastics will keep the rest of the world safe…for a while anyway!
Sabrina Jeffries on 01 Apr 2008 at 9:20 am #
SO glad you reminded me it was April Fool’s Day. I tend to forget, which is why I also get pranked. I just don’t remember the day.
I do sometimes send out my April 1st reader monthly newsletter with the message at the beginning that I’ve decided to quit writing … then I immediately follow that with “April Fools!” One of these days that is going to come back to bite me in the butt. I just know it.
Meg on 01 Apr 2008 at 9:20 am #
I really can’t remember ever being April Fooled by anyone, unless it was just something small. And I’m just not smart enough to come up with a good April Fool’s joke to pull on anyone else. Maybe I can get some ideas from the blog today. >:-)
Nicole - I just LOVE the daffodils!! They are my #1 favorite flower!
Claudia Dain on 01 Apr 2008 at 10:01 am #
Every April 1 my mom would get a scared look on her face while looking at my shoulder or my head, scream “SPIDER!” and run for the hills, me swatting and screaming behind her, “Where?! Did I get it?? GET IT OFF!!”
Then she’d laugh until she cried, barely able to get out, “April Fool’s!”
Every year. Every year I fell for it. Because you just can’t take a chance that you might really have a spider in your hair.
KariE on 01 Apr 2008 at 10:14 am #
A quite a few years ago a friend of dh’s and mine hurt his knee really bad. I guess he was running around the corner of the house and his 100+ lb rotty was coming from the opposite way and they didn’t see each other, then BAMM! They smacked right into each other. The friend went down, hard, and couldn’t get up. His wife ended up calling my in-laws to help get him to the doctor/hospital, because she couldn’t lift him (she was all of 110lb soaking wet). No one would believe her because it was April 1st. After calling the in-laws about 7 times and talking to “man down” they finally caught on that it wasn’t a joke and that he really needed help.
This is just another fine example of why I don’t and won’t do April Fools day jokes. I could be “man down” and no one would help me.
Vickie on 01 Apr 2008 at 10:20 am #
Well, my friend tricked me last year and I was furious with her.
I’ve known her since elementary. I knew from the start that she wanted to wait till marriage to lose her virginity.
So, she’d gotten a new boyfriend. They’ve been going out 5 months. She’d been stressed cause he wanted her to sleep with him. She refused, arguments rise.
Well, she calls me, all scared. Of course I panic along until I hear her say “I’m pregnant.” Of course, I didn’t believe her. But she sounded so genuine that I did. So I go to her apartment where I see her sitting with the boyfriend. I march right in and hit him in the head, lecturing him about father responsibilities. He gives me a what-are-you-talking-about look until my friend bursts out laughing saying “April Fools!”
I glared at her and storm out. I can take a joke, ok? I have 3 older brothers who did pranks in their youth, but I was not happy with her.
Well, one year later, those two are now happily married with a little girl.
Karen Rose on 01 Apr 2008 at 10:29 am #
Claudia, your mom is a big meanie! Scaring you with spiders, indeed.
I’m also not one to come up with evil April Fool’s jokes, but as long as it’s not too mean, I can laugh if I get taken. I think the best jokes are the ones that suck people into thinking what they want to believe anyway.
I think on any other day, that’s called advertising…
limecello on 01 Apr 2008 at 10:33 am #
My favorite April Fools joke is “Arm the Homeless” - not just because my alma mater came up with it :D. It gets recycled every few years. I got taken in by some google/gmail jokes last year :X
Kay on 01 Apr 2008 at 11:45 am #
No April Fools BDays in our family, but what a hoot that would be.
I have two April Fools jokes, neither done by or to me. One funny & one sad.
The first happened 10 years ago when my niece was 12. She really desperate to get her ears pierced like her friends. My B-I-L, who has a short fuse & poor sense of humor was the victim of my M-I-L (his mom), who was helping him w/ his kids while his wife was out of town.
She gave my niece a pair of magnetic, star shaped earrings. When my B-I-L got home from work, niece was wearing the earrings. My B-I-L saw them & went nuts. My M-I-L told him that she had taken my niece to get her ears pierced because she thought the girl was old enough (M-I-L was known for doing whatever she wanted, no matter what other people’s rules were for their kids, so this was believable) & my niece played along, as did her older brother & sister.
After about 5 min of B-I-L streaming steam from his ears, everyone collapsed in laughter & shouted April Fools.
doglady on 01 Apr 2008 at 11:51 am #
I am SO glad that I am off today! My crew in the bakery pull enough jokes on each other on a normal day! We are constantly closing each other up in the freezer or putting a hand on someone’s shoulder and leaving an icing hand print!
I cannot tell you how many times I have had someone ask “Why is there orange icing on your butt?” One of the girls is deadly when it comes to flicking a spatula of icing.
Then there is the old “Here, taste this.” joke. The home office does occasionally send us something to cook that is absolutely disgusting. Chocolate bread comes to mind. The task for the day is to see how many people you can get to actually taste the nasty stuff by telling them “This is so good. You have to taste it.”
We are not even going to talk about April Fool’s Day when I worked at the funeral home. One of the embalmers and I still look over our shoulders for the poor hearse driver we scared half to death.
Karen Rose on 01 Apr 2008 at 11:59 am #
oh, doglady - I want to hear about April 1 in the funeral home! Pleeeezzzze?
Kay, I did something like that to DH once, just not on 4/1. I got a henna tattoo while at RWA in New Orleans years ago. Didn’t mention it, and waited till DH noticed it (on my ankle). He hit the roof! I’d been telling him for years I wanted a tattoo, and he always said I didn’t have the guts (true).
Ha! I hadn’t intended to cause the fireworks, but I enjoyed them, riding out his displeasure with a bland look. Then I said, “It’s henna. Relax.” He was steamed.
Karen Rose on 01 Apr 2008 at 11:59 am #
Vickie - your friend is also a big meanie. Next time she calls with a crisis you’ll check your calendar twice…
Kay on 01 Apr 2008 at 12:03 pm #
My second example is the sad one.
We lived in Jacksonville, Fl, about 18 years ago, for a few years. I don’t remember the exact year of the prank, but a couple of EARLY morning DJ’s on a popular station told everyone (& faked an interview w/ a “spokesman form NASA”) that the Space Shuttle was going to have to land at JAX airport, because there was a problem with the runway at the cape & they had an emergency & couldn’t land at their alternate site.
OMG, it would be funny if it wasn’t so sad how many people believed them. NASA was swamped w/ calls & the local press were hooked by the story & some people tried to get buses to take people to the airport to see the Shuttle land.
The airport was a zoo. And the zoo, which is not too far from the airport, was in an uproar about how the shuttle landing would bother the animals.
FINALLY, someone with a cup of coffee in their system called a press conference to sort this all out & then the DJs said, “April Fools” had to apologize.
SuzyQ on 01 Apr 2008 at 12:04 pm #
I got fooled this year. There is a website that will show which of your Flickr pictures made it into Explore. Getting into Flickr Explore is not easy, they only take the best 500 pictures added each day. Well, I checked this morning and all my pictures were noted as actively in Explore. I asked a coworker to check his account when he reminded me what today is.
Google usually has some good pranks. A friend sent this one to me today:
http://www.google.com/tisp/
SuzyQ on 01 Apr 2008 at 12:07 pm #
BTW, love the new spring fashion!!!
KatHarris on 01 Apr 2008 at 12:15 pm #
Google has a great prank today at gmail.com! My husband’s brother celebrates an anniversary today. Why on earth would anyone pick April 1st as their wedding date?!
Karen Rose on 01 Apr 2008 at 12:17 pm #
Don’t we look fab? Suzie has lost the snow shovel and I especially like Julia and Claudia’s teapots. And KarenH’s hat!
Karen Rose on 01 Apr 2008 at 12:19 pm #
Kat - I can only guess that was the only day they could get the church. Or they do pranks for fun. I suppose somebody must.
My wedding anniversary is June 7. My husband always insisted it was June 6. “You know,” he’d say, “D-Day.”
He’s a US history teacher, so I was never sure whether this was a good association or bad. Early in our marriage I had to pull out the printed cocktail napkins to prove to him it was NOT D-Day.
Karen Rose on 01 Apr 2008 at 12:22 pm #
Kay - one of the famous AFools day pranks I found was an article in a New Mexico science magazine that said a certain Southern State legislature had voted to change the value of PI (3.14….) to the more Biblical value of 3.0 (as in the Trinity, I suppose).
Calls came flooding in as this prank took on an internet life of its own. Now who would be foolish enough to believe that? Apparently hundreds were - just like those who believed the Liberty Bell had been bought by Taco Bell (or that her fave radio station had gone All Garth, All Day).
Sabrina Jeffries on 01 Apr 2008 at 12:41 pm #
Okay, y’all have been giving me quite the good laughs today. Thanks! That Google thing was hysterical!
Suzanne Enoch on 01 Apr 2008 at 1:27 pm #
My problem is that I’m overly suspicious (aka paranoid) on 4/1. I don’t believe anything. I would be the one killed in a massive rattlesnake migration because I would refuse to believe the news stories.
colinfirthfan on 01 Apr 2008 at 1:37 pm #
My Mom used to love to get us! My DH was trying to get my son today but he didn’t bite.
My son was thinking up all sorts of things to tell DH - namely that there was a hole in the grass etc.. etc..
Don’t think my DH fell for it (even though I tell him to fake it sometimes)
Love all the pranks! Sorry, Vickie but your friends prank was pretty funny!!!
Nicole, I just read the first book in The Courtship Wars. Bk 2 just arrived from Amazon.
KatHarris on 01 Apr 2008 at 1:41 pm #
The people over at google have been really, really busy today! Here is a list of some of the pranks that they have floating around in cyber space:
http://www.searchnewz.com/topstory/news/sn-2-20080401GoogleAprilFoolsJokesGalore.html
doglady on 01 Apr 2008 at 1:58 pm #
Okay, Karen R, just for you. You are all sworn to secrecy. Alabama doesn’t execute prisoners as often as Texas or Florida, but it does happen. Many families don’t claim the bodies of executed murderers, but some do. A man who had been on death row for a long time for rape and murder was executed and his family had him brought to the funeral home where I worked. Executions were done at midnight then. The embalmer knew who was coming in and HE planned this. I was just a not so innocent participant (I mean bystander.) New hearse driver drives into the main garage with dead murderer in body bag in transport casket in back. We tell him he has a phone call. He goes into office. No phone call. Comes back out. Nobody in garage. Hearse wide open, casket wide open. Opened body bag laying in garage floor. All hell breaks loose. He hears blood curdling screams and running feet upstairs. “He’s alive! Help! Help!” Then quiet and heavy dragging footsteps coming down the stairs. Picture this poor man’
doglady on 01 Apr 2008 at 2:00 pm #
s face when one of the embalmers comes staggering down the stairs covered in blood (one of the many uses of ketchup!) The guy almost fainted! Then when the rest of us came down the stairs laughing there was almost ANOTHER murderer in the funeral home that night!!
Meg on 01 Apr 2008 at 2:20 pm #
Oh My God, doglady!! That is way too funny!!!
Karen Rose on 01 Apr 2008 at 2:22 pm #
Doglady - I’ll never breathe a word!
Poor hearse driver!
amy1242 on 01 Apr 2008 at 2:23 pm #
Oh doglady, that is SO bad! I would have pee’d my pants!
doglady on 01 Apr 2008 at 2:59 pm #
I know it was a terrible thing to do, but the look on this guy’s face was PRICELESS!!
Most of the people in the funeral business stay in it for a very long time. It takes a very special kind of person to do the various jobs involved in the process. You get to see people after the great equalizer has done his work. You are confronted with man’s finiteness, his brief mortality on a daily basis. As a result you have to have a wicked sense of humor and sense of the ridiculous to survive.
In spite of the fact they know everything there is to know about death they are a very superstitious bunch! Which makes them prime targets for this kind of prank. Fortunately the guy never breathed a word about it to the bosses. We ragged him about forever. Offered to put locks on the transport casket. Asked him if he wanted us to check in the back of the hearse before he got in it. Offered him ketchup with every meal.
And I wouldn’t swear that he DIDN’T pee his pants!! He left pretty quickly!
Karen Rose on 01 Apr 2008 at 4:08 pm #
Ketchup with every meal…
Bad, bad, Doglady
I love it! Now, I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the receiving end. Note to goddesses - never piss off Doglady.
Suzanne Enoch on 01 Apr 2008 at 4:27 pm #
My dad called me earlier today & asked if I could pick him up at the store — my mom was supposed to do it, but she’d been delayed. I almost didn’t go, because I figured he was trying to fool me. He wasn’t. *g*
Judy F on 01 Apr 2008 at 5:04 pm #
I am very leary on this day, I am easy pranked. I don’t do many pranks all goes back to the can’t lie very well. I did prank a friend over the phone about meeting someone and moving in with them after just a few weeks of dating. She got all worried till I told her that I meant them at April Fools Bar and Grill. LOL
I had my review today at work was worried that it was a prank but I got a raise so life is good.
Kay on 01 Apr 2008 at 6:48 pm #
I heard on the news that they played an April Fools joke on the people of Ely, MN. They were told that their part of MN was really a part of Canada, and that the maps were wrong!
People wanted to know it that made them Canadian and if they needed new passports. LOL
Karen Rose on 01 Apr 2008 at 8:04 pm #
Kay, snicker
Judy, congrats on the raise!
Poor Suzie’s dad - or perhaps he’d done enough pranks in the past to make you healthily suspicious?
JackieToo on 02 Apr 2008 at 10:00 pm #
April 1st is my oldest sister’s birthday. ‘Nuff said! LOL
I love her…really I do.