April Fools

0:00Hi, I'm Mark Ellison, and today's theme is April Fool's Day, pranks, hoaxes, and the greatest practical jokes in history. Question 1. On April 1, 1957, the BBC Current Affairs program Panorama aired a Deadpan report narrated by Richard Dimbleby showing women in Switzerland harvesting a certain crop from trees. But unlikely food were they picking in this classic April Fool's hoax. Question 2. Which fast food chain ran full-page newspaper ads on April 1, 1996, claiming it had purchased the Liberty Bell and would rename it the Taco Liberty Bell? Question 3. An legendary April 1, 1985, sports-illustrated feature by George Plimpton. What publication invented the New York Met's mystic pitching prospect, Sid Finch, said

1:02to hurl 168 miles per hour thanks to training in a Tibetan monastery? Question 4. Announced on April 1, 2004, and initially suspected to be a prank, which Google service promised a then astonishing one-gigabyte of free email storage and turned out to be very real? Question 5. In 1977, which British newspaper published an elaborate April Fool's Day travel supplement about the fictional island nation of San Serif, complete with maps, ads, and place names full of typographic puns? We'll be right back with these answers after this break. Welcome back. Question 1. What crop did the BBC's 1957 panorama hoax show growing on trees? Answer? Spaghetti.

2:03The spoof segment depicted a spaghetti harvest in the Swiss canton of Tichino, and many viewers reportedly called the BBC to ask how to grow their own. It's one of the most famous broadcast pranks in history. Question 2. It was claimed to buy the Liberty Bell on April 1, 1996. Answer? Taco Bell. Taco Bell's ad campaign fooled many and even prompted a tongue-in-cheek response from the National Park Service. The company later revealed the prank and donated money to help preserve the bell. Question 3. Which magazine created the 1985 SID Finch baseball hoax? Answer? Sports Illustrated. Lymphton's article introduced SID short for Siddhartha Finch, complete with staged photos and quotes. The tale duped many fans before the magazine confessed it was an April Fools gag. Question 4. What April 1, 2004? Google product with one GB storage wasn't a joke? Answer? Gmail. At a time when webmail inboxes were measured in megabytes, Gmail's one GB offer sounded

3:03too good to be true, especially on April Fools Day. The launch reset expectations for email and helped popularize web apps. Question 5. Which paper launched the 1977 San Serif Island hoax? Answer? The Guardian. The Guardian's 7-page supplement described twin islands called Upper Case and Lower Case with a capital at Baudoni. Readers flooded the paper with inquiries about holidays and the non-existent paradise. That concludes today's 5 Daily trivia questions. I'm Mark Ellison. And today's questions were crafted with the help of AI technology. See you tomorrow. Can I introduce you to some meatballs made out of mammoth meat? No? Hi, I'm Johnny Mac, host of 5 Good News Stories. It's a twice a week podcast where I share some upbeat stories like the dog who only will respond to commands if he uses an Irish broog. Or what about the guy who's filling potholes with noodles? Or the woman who, congratulations, she passed her driver's license. Oh, by the way, it was her 960th try.

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