I received this message from a reader in Norway:
Thank you for your list of good April Fool jokes.
I think the best jokes are where you get people to do something stupid, but still rather harmless. My personal favourite is from my home country, where there is a state "Wine Monopoly" — the only place you can buy wine and liquor. You find a wine monopoly in most cities, several in the larger ones.
One year in the late 1940ies, one of the major newspapers announced that the wine monopoly had surplus stock of red wine, but lack of empty bottles. Customers were asked to bring buckets and would then get red wine for free or very cheap. Lack of bottles sounded absolutely reasonable just after the second world war, so when the wine monopoly opened at 10 am, there were long queues outside some places. People who read about the splendid offer in the paper on the bus or tram on their way to work, quickly went to hardware stores to buy themselves a bucket and line up.
Amusingly, many people realised that it was a hoax either when in the queues or on their way to the wine monopoly, and then — embarrased — just left the bucket somewhere along the streets or in a corner. So in the afternoon, you could find buckets everywhere around many towns.
That's a good one, and I'd never heard of it before. Unfortunately the language barrier makes it difficult for me to find out any more details about this, such as the exact date when it happened. But perhaps someone out there knows more details!
Comments
It can be read here http://ndla.no/nb/node/84935
And in Aftenposten's official archives: http://www.aftenposten.no/arkivet/
It is printed on the front page of the morning edition of Aftenposten, April 1, 1950.
It's hard to verify the reaction to the hoax (people leaving buckets in the streets), though there are lots of testimonials from people who are still alive today.