Music Minute - April Fool's Day edition!

In honor of April Fool's Day, here are some of my favorite April Fools' jokes of all time (and check out page 16 of the April ec for some tips on making up your own pranks!):

- In 1965, Copenhagen newspaper Politiken reported on a new law passed by Danish parliament saying all dogs should be painted white (for better night-time visibility, of course!). We don't know if anyone actually did this, but we imagine there were a few upset dog-owners that day!

- In 1997, forty-six comic strip artists conspired to play an April Fools' trick on their loyal readers. Newspaper readers soon discovered they'd switched characters, story lines, and placement — and made the funny pages even funnier! (Note that context matters with April Fools' jokes, as this wouldn't have been funny to someone who wasn't a regular comics reader.)

- On April 1, 1915, April Fools' Day was probably the farthest thing from anyone's mind who was serving in World War I. When a French pilot flew over a German camp and dropped a large object out of his plane, the Germans naturally thought it was a bomb and ran for cover. When no explosion followed they checked things out, only to find it was a football with a note saying "April Fool!" tied on it. (We are still wondering if anyone actually thought that was funny.)

- Messing with the calendar is a time-honored way of playing April Fools' jokes. In 1975, broadcasters on the BBC announced an imminent switchover to "metric" time, which would include 100 seconds to the minute, 100 minutes to the hour, and 20-hour days. In 1979, London's Capital Radio broadcast a report on Operation Parallax. According to the report, British clocks had wound down about 48 hours since 1945 (due to annual switches to British Summer Time), and in order to correct the error, the government would be removing April 5 and 12 from the month. The radio station's switchboard was awash with questions, including one woman who wanted to know what to do about her birthday. (We don't blame her!)

- Maybe you've heard TV chef Emeril wish during one of his shows that we had "smellovision" so we could smell what he's cooking. In 1965, BBC TV conspired to convince its audiences that smellovision had arrived. A demonstration featured chopped onions and brewing coffee, and it wasn't long before audience members called in to insist they'd smelled the aromas!

We heard rumors today of a fellow employee shopping around free candy — chocolate-dipped kosher pickles — and ec's production editor Emily received a pizza delivery at work this morning from a friend in Mississippi. Have you got any April Fool's jokes to share with us? If so, leave a comment!

(To read more April Fools' jokes, please check out the online Museum of Hoaxes, who inspired this article.)