April Fool's Day, 1987
First Photograph Discovered
The camera manufacturer Olympus announced that it had discovered "the first picture ever taken." The picture was supposedly discovered in the Japanese "Outer Fokus mountains." The Guardian, collaborating in the joke, ran an article about the discovery on its front page.
LA Highways Close For Repairs
Steve Morris, a disc jockey for KRTH-FM, a Los Angeles radio station, announced that all Los Angeles freeways would be closed for repairs for an entire month beginning April 8. The radio station received hundreds of calls in response to this announcement, and Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol reported that they were flooded with calls all day from worried commuters. KRTH later admitted that it was stunned by the reaction to the hoax and said that it had received a call from Caltrans "telling us that they didn't think it was very funny."
The Clegg GTi Turbo
A Yorkshire ad agency, Male Winram Tweddle and Associates, placed an ad in the Yorkshire Post describing a new super-car, the Clegg GTi Turbo. The ad claimed that compared to this car "Owt else is nobbut middlin". A phone number was also provided for those wanting more information. When people called this number they were informed that they had "bin 'ad by some poncey ad agency."
Campus Parody Turns Ugly
Thomas Auclair, editor of the Beacon, the campus newspaper of North Adams State College, got into trouble when he ran a story declaring that the school's president, Catherine A. Tissinger, was running a telephone-sex service. The school's president responded by accusing the paper of sex discrimination and asked the Student Government Association to investigate the matter. The Student Government voted to remove Auclair from his position as editor.
Text copyright © 2002 Alex Boese