On March 31, 1940 the Franklin Institute issued a press release stating that the world would end the next day. The release was picked up by radio station KYW which broadcast the following message: "Your worst fears that the world will end are confirmed by astronomers of Franklin Institute, Philadelphia. Scientists predict that the world will end at 3 P.M. Eastern Standard Time tomorrow. This is no April Fool joke. Confirmation can be obtained from Wagner Schlesinger, director of the Fels Planetarium of this city." The public reaction was immediate. Local authorities were flooded with frantic phone calls. The panic only subsided after the Franklin Institute assured people that it had made no such prediction. The prankster responsible for the press release turned out to be William Castellini, the Institute's press agent. He had intended to use the fake release to publicize an April 1st lecture at the institute titled "How Will the World End?" Soon afterwards, the Institute dismissed Castellini.
Fred Orsinger, chairman of the Association for the Prevention of April Fool Jokes (A.F.P.O.A.F.J.), issued some guidelines to help people avoid becoming the victims of April Fool jokes. "There's no fool like an April fool. Beware," he said. "The telephone joker is the most common. I figure out he'll consume more than 8,000,000 man hours of work throughout the Nation today. There is one standard gag, though, that the association believes in looking into—the pocket book lying on the sidewalk. It's worth the look, and even if there is no money inside, you may get a good pocket book." Orsinger's regular job was Director of the National Aquarium in Washington DC. [
Oakland Tribune, Apr 1, 1940.]
Radio comedian Don McNeill staged experiments in the lobby of Chicago's Merchandise Mart to test whether people would still fall for some of the oldest April fool gags. He discovered that 20 of the first 25 people who saw a bill fold lying on the floor stooped to pick it up, only to have it yanked away. In addition, McNeill set up an aquarium with a sign "Invisible Peruvian fish." He asked spectators to estimate the length of the fish. Fifty-six of the spectators turned in written estimates. (For more about the "invisible fish" prank, see
Brazilian Invisible Fish.) [
The Galveston Daily News, Apr 2, 1940.]
Fifty-three-year-old Ed Draper walked completely naked out of a downtown hotel in Los Angeles and strolled for four blocks before he was picked up by cops in their radio patrol car. He was taken to the General Hospital psychopathic ward for observation. [
Oakland Tribune, Apr 2, 1940.]
Ivan Pavic, a student a Frank Wiggins Trade School, lay a tire in the middle of the intersection of 17th and Hill Sts. in Los Angeles. He had anchored the tire to a manhole cover. The
Los Angeles Times reported that, "It drew its usual number of motorists who stopped to try to pick up the tire." [
Los Angeles Times, Apr 2, 1940.]
The
Los Angeles Times reported that police officers were kept busy responding to fictitious reports of "big fires" throughout the city. They also responded to a report of a "woman murdering her husband" on N. Gower St. "The woman, mystified when a squad of detectives rushed to her home demanding the body and the suspect, soon joined the officers with a hollow laugh which somehow lacked the humor which the prankster probably expected."
In order to avoid the avalanche of calls on April 1st for Mr. Lyon, Mr. Wolf, and Mr. Fox, the St. Louis Zoo changed its phone number for one day. Sterling 0900, the zoo's regular phone number, was changed to Sterling 0901.
The University of Chicago's student newspaper, the
Daily Maroon, reported that UC President Robert Maynard Hutchins had resigned due to the unfavorable reaction from his comments on football. A successor was not named, but the article mentioned Postmaster Gen. James A. Farley (said to be an expert in "political science") as a possibility. The article also stated that the French government had presented the university with the luxury liner, the Normandie, as a gesture of goodwill. [
The Freeport Journal Standard, Apr 1, 1940.]
