The Great Swiss Spaghetti Harvest (a classic April Fools prank)

[WDWHound]

I was reading a page on the 100 greatest April fools jokes of all time. #1 was The Great Swiss Spaghetti Harvest joke pulled off by the BBC. Here's the story:

In 1957 the respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in, and many called up wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. To this question, the BBC diplomatically replied that they should "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."

Here you can see a worker happily harvesting the spaghetti crop:

You can view the actual broadcast here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/70000/video/_70980_aprilfool_vi.ram

The entire list of 100 pranks can be found here:
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/aprilfool2.html

 

[Bob Slydell]

I remember #2 well!

 

[BedKnobbery2]

Oh, what fun that list is. Thanks so much for posting it!