April Fool's Day Archive, Contents:

Anticipating the annual flood of prank calls on April 1st, the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines set up four hotlines that pranksters were invited to use. The hotlines were for "Mr. Albert Ross," "Mr. C. Lyon," "Ms. Anna Conda," and "Mr. Don Key." Each hotline played a prerecorded message to let callers know they'd been fooled.

The Cincinnati Zoo reported receiving over 1000 calls from pranksters (or victims of pranksters) on April 1st. There were 224 calls specifically asking for "Mr. Lion." In anticipation of the calls, the zoo had given the job of answering the telephone to six girl members of the Junior Zoologist Club:


[Ohio Chronicle-Telegram, Apr 2, 1972.]

In the week before April 1st, the New York Telephone company announced that it planned to use a new transistorized device called a "Glossoresonator" to intercept prank calls to the Bronx zoo. It noted that on the last April 1, 929 prank calls had been made to the zoo. However, it declined to explain exactly how the glossoresonator worked.

But when April 1st arrived, the company admitted that no such device existed. Nor had its announcement done anything to deter pranksters from calling the zoo. 755 hoax calls were intercepted by operators.

The New York Telephone Company announced it had prepared for April Fools Day, as it had done so for the past thirty years, by assigning special operators to intercept all calls to the Bronx Zoo. Only legitimate calls would be allowed through. When the day came, it intercepted 2561 calls to the zoo from people seeking to speak with Mr. Lion, Mr. Fox, Mr. Wolf, Mr. Beaver, etc. This was only half the number of calls made the previous year. [Chicago Daily Tribune, Apr 2, 1960.]

The New York Times reported that "The Bronx Botanical and the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens are awaiting, wearily, their usual calls for Messrs Astor, Bush and Flower, and the Planetarium the usual requests for Mr. McCloud or Mr. Starr." However, the employees of the Bronx Zoo and the Coney Island Aquarium were given secret numbers to use, so that all calls to the regular numbers could be intercepted by the telephone company, "and the joke victims told the hard truth." The telephone company estimated that it intercepted well over 5000 prank calls. [New York Times, Apr 1, 1959.]

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.

In an effort to sidestep the flood of calls asking for Mr. Fish, the New York aquarium asked the telephone company to disconnect their service for the day. [Oakland Tribune, Apr 1, 1925.]

The Los Angeles Times reported that the Selig Zoo, in east LA, was swamped by calls on April 1. "Messages were left on various temporarily vacated desks in town and requests were made over phones to the unwary to ring up Dr. Lyon, Mr. Bear, Mrs. Fox, Miss Wolf and the Widow Campbell. Several people even were trying to locate certains Miss Cats. The only animals which escaped attention during the day were Mr. Hippopotamus, Mrs. Rhinoceros and Miss Elephant, who are too big to answer calls, over the wire anyhow." [Los Angeles Times, Apr 4, 1920.]

On April 1, 1866 several hundred people showed up at the gates of the London Zoological Society demanding entrance. Unfortunately, the Society was closed that day, it being Easter Sunday, and the guard refused to admit them. However, the members of the crowd insistently showed the guard their tickets and again demanded entrance. The tickets, had cost them one penny each (considerably cheaper than the usual sixpence admission), and read:

“Subscribers Tickets—Admit bearer to the Zoological gardens on Easter Sunday. The procession of the animals will take place at 3 o’clock, and this ticket will not be available after that hour.—J.O. Wildboar, Secretary.“

The guard explained to the crowd that the tickets were not valid, and that they were all victims of an april fool’s day prank. Upon hearing this, the crowd grew more restless and began to insist loudly that they had paid their admission and were determined to see the animals of the zoo (the lions, tigers, bears, leopards, etc.) all walk in procession at 3 o’clock. Soon it became apparent that a riot was going to ensue unless these people were admitted, but before the situation became out of hand an extra force of constables arrived and dispersed the crowd.

The Zoological Society investigated the situation and discovered that the tickets had been sold by Mrs. Sarah Marks, a bookseller. The Society pressed charges against Mrs. Marks, but withdrew them when she wrote a letter apologizing for her behavior. Mrs. Marks’ prank recalled an old London custom of giving tickets to out-of-towners on the first of April granting them admission to see the feeding of the lions at the Tower of London. The out-of-towners would expectantly journey down to the Tower to see the feeding, only to learn that no lions had been kept in the Tower for many years. (See article: Washing the Lions)

Late in March 1860 numerous people throughout London received the following invitation:

By twelve o’clock on April 1st a large crowd had gathered outside the tower. However, no lions had been kept in the tower for decades, so the people went home disappointed. This prank had a very long pedigree. An instance of it was recorded as far back as 1698. For decades, it had been regularly perpetrated (on a smaller scale) upon unsuspecting out-of-towners. (See article: Washing the Lions)

The April 2, 1698 edition of Dawks’s News-Letter reported that “Yesterday being the first of April, several persons were sent to the Tower Ditch to see the Lions washed.” This is the first recorded instance of a popular April Fool's Day prank that involved sending people to the Tower of London to see the "washing of the lions." The joke was that there was no lion-washing ceremony. It was a fool's errand. (For more info, see the Hoaxipedia article: Washing The Lions)