Pranks for the memories: Four of history's best media japes for April Fools' Day

From Jonathan Swift landing a punch on astrology, to a BBC feature on a bumper spaghetti crop in Switzerland

April Fool's Day - a day for tomfoolery of various kinds, especially in the media

This almanac writer didn't see his own death coming

Jonathan Swift: painting by Charles Jervas

While Irish-born satirist Jonathan Swift is better known around the world for stories like Gulliver's Travels, the razor-sharp wit on display in pieces like A Modest Proposal also manifested itself in his contemporary tussles.

The practice of the almanac, a book of astrologically-based predictions for the period of time ahead, is largely lost in today's world, but in 1708, their prevalence and influence was everywhere, albeit in as much question as horoscopes, etc. would be today. 

Enter Jonathan Swift, who took potshots at renowned almanac-maker and astrologer John Partridge with a parody publication of his own in January of that year, under the name Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. 

Among the bold predictions was Partridge's death, of a raging fever no less, on March 29. On or about April Fools' Day that year, Swift published a letter from 'a Revenue employee' confirming Partridge's passing.

This was news to Partridge himself, of course, who was suddenly kept awake at night by mourners outside his house, subject to inquiries from funeral directors, and asked on the street how his widow has coping with the sudden loss.

Space invaders on the radio

Orson Welles (George Orson Wells) (1915 - 1985) on the set of RKO's 'Citizen Kane', which he directed, wrote and starred in.

Less a prank, and more an encounter with developing technology, but we can't talk about historical-level japes without referring to the notorious 1938 broadcast of H.G. Wells' radioplay of War of the Worlds, directed and narrated by famous actor and future film-maker Orson Welles.

Broadcast live in the 8pm timeslot across CBS radio in the States as a Halloween special that year, the first half of the tale of intergalactic invasion was presented in the form of dramatised news bulletins, interrupting a normal evening's proceedings.

For elements of a public still getting used to the nuances of the medium, panic apparently ensued, with people flipping stations and missing the initial content warning that the broadcast was a work of science fiction.

Opinion differs among media historians as to the level of panic generated among the general public, in the absence of historical evidence, but the broadcast serves as a year-zero event for breaking the fourth wall in mass media, with news organisations crying foul about the use of bulletins as a dramatic device.

The first strand of fake news

The BBC spaghetti harvest report: the spaghetti weevil is today thought to be extinct

April Fool's Day has long been a favourite of mischievous news editors and programming directors, as we'll see here, but fake stories, intrepid Photoshop jobs and deadpan copywriting all trace their way back to a segment of BBC's Panorama programme in 1957.

Spaghetti was a relatively exotic dish for UK audiences at the time, and very few viewers of the long-running news show that evening would have been aware that the pasta favourite is comprised of flour and water, and not, as the April 1 1957 edition alleged, grown on trees.

The report went to the village of Ticino, on the Swiss/Italian border, where a mild winter, and the disappearance of the nefarious spaghetti weevil, was said to have resulted in a bountiful crop, ready for export and ceremonial consumption. The harvest was documented, and discussion had on the ideal breeding conditions for longer spaghetti strands.

Calls to the BBC ensued, enquiring as to the report's veracity, and the ideal planting conditions for spaghetti trees of one's own.

A burger for citógs

The left-handed Whopper: engineered specifically for southpaws

On April 1, 1998, American newspaper USA Today carried an ad from Burger King that sang the praises of its most innovative fast-food product yet - a left-handed variant on its trademark Whopper burger, to sate the needs of their estimated million-plus lefty customers in the States.

“Finally, after years of neglect,” read the ad, “left-handed eaters will no longer need to conform to traditional right-handed eating methods.” Though the ingredients were precisely the same, the burger had apparently been rotated 180 degrees, for improved ergonomics.

A spokesperson from the Left-Handed Club in the States, clearly in on the joke, is quoted as saying: “We are delighted that Burger King has recognized the difficulties of holding a hamburger in your left hand that has a natural right bias to it.”

Alas, customers in search of the perfect patty were disappointed, with thousands of branches of the franchise reporting inquiries into its existence.

Volkswagen, take note.