April Fool's Day Archive, Contents:

The Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported that an alcoholic beverage company had invented a new kind of candy sure to be a favorite with the Russian people: chewy Vodka Bars. These bars, designed to compete with Mars and Snickers bars, would come in three flavors — lemon, coconut, and salted cucumber. The same company was also perfecting another new product: instant vodka in tea bags.

The Hoffman York & Compton ad firm released a mock ad for "Cape Town Scotch whiskey" — the alcoholic whiskey that would never make you drunk:

Cape Town is a smooth blend of 25 of the finest single malt Scotch whiskies. Most of which are made from the waters of Great Karroo highlands here in central South Africa. These pure malts are then aged for 15 years in oak and sherry casks for a distinctively sweet, peaty flavour.

But what gives Cape Town its sobering quality is that it's also blended with Retrohol®, a tasteless, odourless, ethanol-oxidiing enzyme which accelerates your body's ability to clear out alcohol. What used to take the body several hours to sober you up, now takes a few minutes! In fact, the more Cape Town you drink, the more effective Retrohol is.

Virgin Atlantic ran an advertisement explaining that "a recent tracking study by the Institute of Aeronautical and Atmospheric Studies reveals that the waste gases from champage (CO₂ + NO₁) can have a detrimental effect on the upper atmosphere and contribute towards the depletion of the ozone layer."

For which reason it had commissioned a special "still champagne" to serve on its flights. It promised that the taste was "distinctively dry with a hint of flint."

National Public Radio's All Things Considered ran a segment about the threat of extinction facing the Vince Lombardi Fondue Springs, the "last surviving spring of natural fondue cheese in the United States," located in the fondue country of northern Wisconsin. For years the fondue springs had been a "point of pilgrimage for cheese communicants." But now, the Cheese Watch Society warned, the Fondue Pocket was reducing. The society recommended "a highly trained force of cheese rangers to control visitors to the fondue pocket using sniffer dogs." If steps weren't taken, the society warned, the cheese would soon be gone. After all, "the only way to make cheese is to take it out of the earth with your hands."

The South China Morning Post announced that a solution to Hong Kong’s water shortage was at hand. Scientists, it said, had found a way to drain the clouds surrounding the island’s peak of their water by electrifying them via antennae erected on the peak. The paper warned that this might have a negative impact on surrounding property values, but the government had approved the project nevetheless. Furthermore, more clouds could be attracted to the region by means of a weather satellite positioned over India. And finally, as a back-up, packets of powdered water imported from China would be distributed to all the residents of Hong Kong. A single pint of water added to this powdered water would magically transform into ten pints of drinkable water. Hong Kong’s radio shows were flooded with calls all day from people eager to discuss these solutions to the water shortage. Many of the calls were very supportive of the plans, but one woman pointed out that the pumps needed to supply powdered water would be too complicated and expensive.

On Cable magazine reporter Peter Funt announced the creation of the first 24-hour a day cable food network called KNOSH. (Apparently the idea of a 24-hour a day food network seemed silly in the days before Emeril Lagasse.)

A barge appeared in Sydney Harbor towing a giant iceberg. Sydneysiders were expecting it. Dick Smith, a local adventurer and millionaire businessman (owner of Dick Smith’s Foods), had been loudly promoting his scheme to tow an iceberg from Antarctica for quite some time. Now he had apparently succeeded. He said that he was going to carve the berg into small ice cubes, which he would sell to the public for ten cents each. These well-traveled cubes, fresh from the pure waters of Antarctica, were promised to improve the flavor of any drink they cooled. Slowly the iceberg made its way into the harbor. Local radio stations provided excited blow-by-blow coverage of the scene. Only when the berg was well into the harbor was its secret revealed. It started to rain, and the firefighting foam and shaving cream that the berg was really made of washed away, uncovering the white plastic sheets beneath.

BBC TV interviewed a professor from London University who had perfected a technology he called "smellovision." It allowed viewers to smell aromas produced in the television studio in their homes. The professor explained that his machine broke scents down into their component molecules which could then be transmitted through the screen.

The professor offered a demonstration by placing first some coffee beans and then onions into the smellovision machine. He asked viewers to report by noon whether they were able to smell anything, instructing them that "for best results stand six feet away from your set and sniff." Viewers called in from across the country to confirm that they distinctly experienced these scents as if they were there in the studio with him. Some claimed the onions made their eyes water.

The Smellovision experiment was repeated on June 12, 1977 by Bristol University psychology lecturer Michael O'Mahony, who was interested in exploring the effect of the power of suggestion on smell. O'Mahony told viewers of Reports Extra, a late-night news show that aired in the Manchester region, that a new technology called Ramen spectroscopy would allow the station to transmit smells over the airwaves. He told them he was going to transmit "a pleasant country smell, not manure" over their TV sets, and he asked people to report what they smelled. Within the next 24 hours the station received 172 responses. The highest number came from people who reported smelling hay or grass. Others reported their living rooms filling with the scent of flowers, lavender, apple blossom, fruits, potatoes, and even homemade bread. Two people complained that the transmission brought on a severe bout of hay fever.

The respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in. Many called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC diplomatically replied that they should "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best." For more information, see the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest article in the Hoaxipedia. (The footage of the hoax itself can be seen on YouTube.)

San Jose hat dealer Jay McCabe posted a sign in his window announcing that a truckload of booze had fallen into the Coyote creek at the Julian Street bridge, and that the driver had fled. Scores of people drove to the location, found no truck, and then remembered what day it was.

(This was during the Prohibition Era, so a truckload of booze would have been a particularly tempting attraction.)

The Chicago Daily Tribune reported that Chow Lamb, a Chinese-born laundryman, bought some candy at the confectionery store of James Constantino. Unfortunately, Mr. Lamb did not read English. Therefore he did not understand the sign beside the candy that said, "April Fool Candy—Fool a Friend." Presumably, the candies were cotton balls dipped in chocolate. After consuming two of them, he became very sick. He later filed charges against Mr. Constantino, under section 7, chapter 38 of the criminal code, which prohibits the sale of confections adulterated with a substance injurious to health. The outcome of his lawsuit was not reported. [Chicago Daily Tribune, Apr 1, 1915.]

Edith Walrach, a nineteen-year-old woman of a "very nervous temperament" was in serious condition as a result of an April Fool's Day joke that went bad. While visiting friends in Binghampton, New York, a practical joker "procured a small live mouse, which he put in an egg-shell, covering the opening with plaster of Paris. This was brought in with the breakfast and when Miss Walrach broke the shell and the liberated mouse jumped out she screamed and fainted away. During the day she had three nervous fits, and her physician pronounced her condition critical." The young man was wild with grief. He was her fiancee. [Fort Wayne Evening Sentinel, Apr 3, 1900]

After Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, Americans were quite willing to believe there was no limit to his genius. They were sure he could solve any problem he focused his powerful mind on. Therefore, when the New York Graphic announced in 1878 that Edison had invented a machine capable of transforming soil directly into cereal and water directly into wine, thereby ending the problem of world hunger, it found a willing audience of believers.

Newspapers throughout America copied the article unquestioningly and heaped lavish praise on Edison. The conservative Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, in particular, waxed eloquent about Edison's genius in an editorial that dwelled upon the good fortune of a man like Edison having been born in the progressive nineteenth century when his genius could be appreciated. "Let steady-going people whose breath has been taken away by the pace we seem to be driving at just now, take heart therefore," it declared. "And be thankful that the genius of true benefactors of the race, like Edison, cannot now be crippled and blighted by superstition and bigotry, as it was when Galileo was forced to recant the awful heresy that two and two make four."

The New York Graphic took the liberty of reprinting the Advertiser's credulous editorial in full. Above the article it placed a single, gloating headline: "They Bite!"