Table of Contents

• Five-Wheel Drive
• Chunnel Blunder
• Mona Lisa Frowns
• Augusta National Turns Public
• Scotland on Sunday Becomes A Daily
• The Guardian for Sunday
• Moore’s Law Rewritten
• Family Wins $5.5 Million
• The HA! Network
• Trained Attack Slugs

Five-Wheel Drive

Hoffman York & Compton, a Milwaukee advertising firm, released promotional material introducing the Caballo XL, described as a revolutionary new South American car built around ‘five-wheel drive’ technology. The advertisement described five-wheel drive in this way: “Conventional auto technology has the steering wheel rigidly anchored to a gear reducer. And that gear reducer has always been firmly riveted to the main frame… We’ve introduced a unique shock absorbing system to the entire steering command, including wheel, shaft and driver’s seat. By integrating the steering wheel to the seat we’ve isolated it, and you, from the frame. That, in turn, virtually eliminates all of the bone shattering vibration that can rob you of control.” As a result, drivers would be able to drive at speeds in excess of 160 mph over rough, bumpy roads. The small firm later said that it issued the release in order to drum up business from the car industry by showing that it could play in the big leagues.

Chunnel Blunder

The News of the World reported that the two halves of the Channel Tunnel, being built simultaneously from the coasts of France and England, would miss each other by 14 feet. The reason—French engineers had insisted on using metric specifications in their blueprints. The error would cost $14 billion to fix.

Mona Lisa Frowns

The Independent reported that an art restoration team doing extensive cleaning of the Mona Lisa had made a startling discovery. Although the woman in the painting is famous for her smile, once the layers of dirt had been removed, it was found that she was actually scowling.

Augusta National Turns Public

Golf magazine reported in its May issue that Augusta National, the private golf course where the Masters tournament is held, would begin to allow the public to use the course at certain times. As a result of this report, both Augusta National and Golf magazine received hundreds of calls from eager golfers inquiring about playing privileges. However, the report was an april fool’s joke, despite its placement in the May issue. Golf magazine was forced to publish a retraction, reaffirming that Augusta National was still a private club open only to members and guests.

Scotland on Sunday Becomes A Daily

Scotland on Sunday, a low-circulation weekly Scottish paper, announced that it was soon going to be launching a daily paper. The announcement reportedly struck terror into the editorial staff of the Daily Record, a far larger Scottish paper, who convened an emergency crisis conference to plan their response. The editor of the Daily Record later said that he had not been taken in by the spoof, although he admitted that “the way in which the story was constructed made it believable.”

The Guardian for Sunday

The Guardian announced during the week before April 1 that it was launching a new tabloid publication called The Guardian for Sunday. News of the launch was disseminated by Media Week on its front page. The UK Press Gazette also reported that Guardian executives were “considering the option of giving every Guardian reader a copy.” When the new publication appeared it turned out to be a spoof.

Moore’s Law Rewritten

Intel employees circulated a spoof newsletter revealing historical discoveries related to chip-making, such as the fact that archaeologists had uncovered evidence of the existence of chip-making factories in Ancient Egypt. The newsletter quoted eminent archaeologist Lord Dhrystone as saying, “We never imagined we’d find an active semiconductor industry in a major goat-herding area. Too much dust.” The newsletter also revealed the unknown origins of the famous “Moore’s law.” Apparently Gordon Moore, Intel Chairman, had once scribbled the phrase ‘Buy Intel chips. They’ll get twice as big every year or so,’ on the back of a phone bill, as he brainstormed about ways to get people to buy more Intel chips. It was his secretary, Jean Jones, who rewrote the phrase to the more famous, “The number of transistors on a chip will double every 18 months.”

Family Wins $5.5 Million

Linda Hasik, a resident of Fairfax County, Virginia, told her son to play an April Fool’s joke on his father. She told him to go upstairs and tell his father that they had just won the lottery. He did so, and after his father expressed surprise he said, “April Fool’s.” Two hours later the family learned that they had won $5.5 million in Virginia’s Lotto jackpot.

The HA! Network

MTV, VH-1, and Nick at Nite turned over their airwaves (and their 50 million viewers) to the HA! network, a comedy channel which broadcast in their place for the day. No one in the broadcast industry had been informed that the switch would take place. The broadcast was the debut of the MTV-backed HA! network. MTV had hoped that the prank would give the fledgling network some much-needed publicity.

Trained Attack Slugs

The Seattle Times printed a special April Fool’s edition. It included one story about an anthropologist who shot and killed Bigfoot to prove that the mythical creature existed, and another one about slugs who were being specially trained to attack out-of-staters to dissuade them from moving to Washington.

Categories

• April Fools Day
• Era
  • 1990-1999