Jeff—Saturday
Yesterday was April Fools’ Day, a non-public holiday
celebrated in many parts of the world as dedicated to playing practical jokes
and spreading hoaxes. I expect some in the United States may have missed it, for
during the media extravaganza known as US Presidential campaign season every day
seems filled with fools—albeit replacing practical jokes with dirty tricks and
hoaxes with outright lies.
Rather than giving examples of what I mean—and thus
contributing to the mind-numbing madness—I thought I’d just make a brief
mention of the origins of AFD, and a few cartoons tied to that day which may
shed some light on where the country stands.
But first a bit of background. Playing pranks on a set day
goes back to ancient Roman, Indian, and Medieval times. According to Wikipedia (yes, I actually cite
Wiki) it’s the “Nun’s Priest’s Tale” in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1392) that
gets credit for singling out April 1st, though some cultures adhere to a
different prank-playing date, e.g., December 28 in Spain and Hispanic America.
As for what is considered the greatest April Fools’ Day hoax
of all time, I’m sure we all have our favorites—mine being a several decades
ago completely made up version of The New
York Times—but according to a site listing the “Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of All Time,”
here’s the one it considers the greatest of all time (and here’s a link to the video
broadcast):
#1 The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest
April 1, 1957: 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, “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato
sauce and hope for the best.” Even the director-general of the BBC later
admitted that after seeing the show he checked in an encyclopedia to find out
if that was how spaghetti actually grew (but the encyclopedia had no
information on the topic). The broadcast remains, by far, the most popular and
widely acclaimed April Fool's Day hoax ever, making it an easy pick for number
one.
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| Hard working Swiss spaghetti harvesters |
By the way, for those of you who might be wondering why
there is a photo of singing star Bruno Mars at the top of this post—and wearing
a Pittsburgh Pirates cap no less— the simple answer is I’m pandering to my
almost three-year-old granddaughter who said all she wants for her birthday is for
me to bring Bruno Mars to her party today. So, what’s a grandpa to do in the
face of such cuteness but hustle up a bit of razzamatazz in the hope it gets
her to see I tried. I know, don’t bet on
it.
Something else I can tell you not to bet on: A truly funny cartoon tied to our
distinguished crew of presidential candidates.
There’s a lot of harsh, biting, rabidly partisan stuff out there, but
honestly none that made me smile in any proud way, and destined only to get
worse, much worse, as we wend on toward November.
Frankly, I think there’s a better chance of my getting Bruno
Mars to come to the birthday party than a true laugh out of anything having to
do with this campaign. Nevertheless,
here’s the best of what I could find portraying our nation’s Republican and
Democratic candidates in an April Fools’ sort of non-nasty way.
Enjoy…or not.
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| Cruz showing off his faux Churchill tattoo |
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RACHEL.
—Zayde
