Table of Contents

• Sidd Finch
• Lowering the Congressional Minimum Age
• Thermal Ties
• School For Sale
• The New York City Packers
• Families limited to .75 children
• Soybean Computer Disks
• The Tell-All Judge
• Jeane Kirkpatrick Appointed President of World Bank
• Gourmet Bingo

Sidd Finch

Sports Illustrated published an article about the Mets’s new rookie pitcher. His name was Sidd Finch (short for Siddhartha Finch), and he could reportedly throw a ball with startling, pinpoint accuracy at 168 mph. Sidd Finch had never played baseball before. He had mastered the “art of the pitch” in a Tibetan monastery under the guidance of the “great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa.” Mets fans celebrated their teams good luck and flooded Sports Illustrated with requests for more information. In reality, this legendary player sprang from the imagination of George Plimpton. See full article: Sidd Finch.

Lowering the Congressional Minimum Age

Representative Thomas J. Downey, a Democrat from New York, issued a news release proposing that the minimum age for Congressmen be lowered from 25 to 15. He cited the need for “new blood in Congress.” He argued that teenagers could usefully lead a Select Committee on Acne and noted that “junkets could become field trips; the carry-outs could sell Twinkies; missed votes could be excused with a note from Mom.” He did concede, however, that there would be an increased risk of “food fights in the cafeteria.”

Thermal Ties

The British Department of Energy issued a five-page statement urging men who had been dieting and feeling cold without the extra body weight to insulate them, to stay warm by wearing special, extra-wide ties, called “thermal ties.” The joke received a stern reprimand from Conservative MP Anthony Beaumont-Dark who complained that such pranks were “OK for the music hall, but we do not expect this type of thing from government departments.”

School For Sale

The students of Newtonbrook Secondary School in Canada placed an ad in a local newspaper putting their school up for sale. The ad read: “For Sale—106-room mansion, 5 1/2 acres of well-kept grounds in the heart of Willowdale. $1 million.” According to the principal, Richard Frise, the school’s secretaries answered a number of calls from interested buyers before they realized what had happened.

The New York City Packers

New York City Controller Harrison Golden called a news conference at which he announced that the city was purchasing the professional football team, the Green Bay Packers. City retirement funds would be used to make the purchase, and the Packers would replace the Giants and the Jets. Reporters had already phoned the story into the New York Post and Daily News when a press representative in Golden’s office announced that the news was an April Fool’s day joke. The Post complained that they had almost put the story on their front page, a mistake which would have cost them $100,000 to correct.

Families limited to .75 children

The Rivereast News Bulletin, a paper based in Glastonbury, Connecticut, announced that the city’s Board of Education had devised a plan to eliminate overcrowding in classrooms. The plan was to forbid families from having more than .75 children per household for the next 15 years. The Board of Education admitted that it had not yet figured out how families could limit themselves to .75 children, but that a computer had determined that this was the ideal number. It was suggested that families unhappy with this ruling move to California. The Board added that the new ruling would not become law for another ten months. Therefore, parents who wanted more than .75 children were urged to “get started this afternoon.”

Soybean Computer Disks

Byte Magazine featured a section called “What’s Not,” instead of its usual “What’s Hot” section. Included were technological gadgets such as computer disks made of soybeans that were supposedly readable and writable by computers, but also edible. They were billed as being perfect for people who really were concerned about protecting sensitive data. There was also the MacKnifer, a device that fit into the disk drive of a Macintosh and allowed users to sharpen knives, scissors, and lawn-mower blades while waiting for files to open. Finally, there was the Transporter, a portable computer that transformed into a car. Byte Magazine received a call from a woman trying to find the soybean disks, as well as a call from a USA Today reporter inquiring about the Transporter.

The Tell-All Judge

Former Municipal Court Judge Lewis Wenzell submitted an anonymous letter to San Diego Union-Tribune writer, Neil Morgan, describing a book that Wenzell was supposedly about to publish detailing the seamy, behind-the-scenes lifestyle of San Diego’s judiciary. According to the anonymous letter, the book described bitter feuds between judges, sexual relationships between a married judge and a clerk, and after-court pot parties in a judge’s chambers. Morgan fell for the bait and printed an article, which he titled ‘The Trash Pile,’ detailing the sordid revelations. In the article he frequently referred to the book as if he had seen it himself. San Diego judges were outraged by the accusations, and were not much happier when they learned that they were victims of an elaborate prank. Morgan later claimed that he had attempted to phone Wenzell to verify the story, but Wenzell denied that he had ever received a call.

Jeane Kirkpatrick Appointed President of World Bank

The President of the World Bank. A.W. Clausen, circulated a letter to World Bank officials declaring that a search committee had decided that he would soon be replaced by Jeane J. Kirkpatrick. The text of the letter read: “The appointment represents the culmination of a lengthy worldwide selection process, involving a search for candidates who were neither encumbered by any previous ideas on international development in general nor likely to be embarrassed by any prior commitment to the concept of multilateral assistance in particular. Ms. Kirkpatrick, a U.S. nationalist, has had a distinguished career in all the main political parties in this country, but at the moment is a Republican. Although she taught at Georgetown University long before basketball was ever invented, as U.S. Ambassador at the United Nations she gained a well-deserved reputation for putting the Third World countries through the hoop. The Search Committee feels that this experience abundantly qualifies her for the exacting duties of a position that I myself am looking forward to vacating, now that the World Bank and the I.M.F. have made the world safe again for private banking.” The letter was an April Fool’s Day joke.

Gourmet Bingo

The London Guardian announced that under a new incentive plan, each of its readers would be eligible to receive a “Guardian Gourmet Card,” allowing them to gain a 15% discount at participating restaurants. The card would also allow holders to be eligible for 850,000 pounds in prize money. Each card would display a ten digit number broken into a sequence of three-four-three. Each week top chefs would be asked to select their favorite three course dinner. A menu would be randomly selected from among these choices, and then the total calories in each course would be determined. These calorie amounts would become the prize-winning number, to be matched against the numbers on a card. In a separate article, the Guardian noted that there was some similarity between their Gourmet bingo game and a bingo-style scheme launched by their competitor, the Standard, to earn reductions on restaurant meals (a scheme which the Guardian had loudly derided as tawdry and commercial). The Guardian’s editor noted: “I cannot of course deny that there is pounds 850,000 at stake here… Nevertheless the whole tone and refined taste of the competition, redolent of wild strawberries rather than the sweaty armpits of the Stock Exchange, invites a totally different response from readers.” The next day the Guardian announced that it was unfortunately forced to cancel its Gourmet Bingo game because of “an outbreak of salmonella poisoning at its plastic credit card subsidiary.”

Categories

• April Fools Day
• Era
  • 1977-1989