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How did April Fools’ Day start and what are some famous pranks?
Historians aren’t pulling your leg when they say no one is quite sure about the origins of April Fools’ Day.
April 1, the annual day of shenanigans, pranks, tricks and hoaxes, falls on Monday this year. While historians are unsure of the exact source of the tradition, they do know the custom goes back centuries, at least back to Renaissance Europe and possibly back to Roman times. Here’s a look at what the experts say.
Theories, both real and false, tie April Fools’ Day to Roman times
Some believe April Fools’ Day dates back to Hilaria festivals celebrated during classical Roman times. The festival was held on March 25 which, in Roman terms, was called the “eighth of the Calends of April,” according to the Library of Congress.
One theory tying the source of April Fools’ Day to Roman times is a hoax. In 1983, an Associated Press reporter reached out to Joseph Boskin, a historian at Boston University, to discuss the origins of April Fools’ Day. Boskin spun a tall tale to the reporter, assuming it would be fact-checked and revealed as fake.
It wasn’t.
According to the story Boskin made up, a group of jesters convinced Emperor Constantine to make one of them king for a day. The appointed jester, named Kugel, declared it would be a day of levity.
“I got an immediate phone call from an editor there, who was furious, saying that I had ruined the career of a young reporter,” Boskin said in a Boston University post. “He said I told a lie. ‘A lie?’ I asked, ‘I was telling an April Fools’ Day story.'”
Middle Ages
Some historians believe France is responsible for the humorous tradition, tying it to a calendar change in 1582, according to the History Channel. That year, France implemented the Gregorian calendar, shifting the start of the New Year from the spring equinox, which usually falls around April 1, to January 1.
After the change, people who wrongly celebrated the new year in late March and early April were called “April fools.”
The first clear reference to April Fools’ Day is a 1561 Flemish poem by Eduard De Dene, which tells the story of a servant being sent on “fool’s errands” because it’s April 1, according to the Library of Congress.
What are some famous April Fools’ Day pranks?
In 1957, the BBC ran a broadcast on the Italian spaghetti harvest that pretended the pasta was being harvested from trees.
The BBC also ran an April Fools’ report on flying penguins in 2008.
In Los Angeles, airline passengers were greeted with a banner saying “Welcome to Chicago” after landing on April 1, 1992, CBS Sunday Morning previously reported.
Taco Bell in 1996 advertised that it had bought the Liberty Bell and renamed it the “Taco Liberty Bell,” according to the company.
As part of a 1997 April Fools’ Day joke, Alex Trebek, host of “Jeopardy,” swapped places with “Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak, according to jeopardy.com.
On April 1, 2015, streaming giant Netflix shared faux public service announcements to remind viewers to “Binge Responsibly.”
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A visit with “Mr. Baseball” Bob Uecker
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A visit with “Mr. Baseball” Bob Uecker
Ever since Babe Ruth was waddling around the bases, there have been grim predictions about baseball’s future: Time has passed on the national pastime, too leisurely, too bucolic. Last year’s World Series TV ratings, and this season’s batting averages, both hit 50-year lows. Baseball, they say, is dying.
But never mind the current World Series between two of the game’s stalwarts, the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Want to feel better about baseball’s health? Just go to a Milwaukee Brewers game.
There, in Major League Baseball’s smallest market, cheese curds sweat under floodlights, frozen custard unspools into batting helmets, hometown Miller flows liberally, and on the stadium’s second level is the most authentic Milwaukee touch of all: the broadcaster they call “Mr. Baseball.”
In six undistinguished seasons as a catcher in the majors, Bob Uecker never played an inning for the Brewers. But during half a century as the team’s play-by-play announcer, he’s become equal parts mayor and mascot in the city of his birth, all the while declining offers from bigger markets – laying off pitches, as it were.
In the 1980s Yankees owner George Steinbrenner tried to recruit Uecker. “Steinbrenner sent a couple of people out to talk to me about joining the Yankees,” he said, “but I loved Milwaukee. Born and raised here!”
Uecker began his major league career in 1962 with the Milwaukee Braves before the franchise moved to Atlanta. “I was the first player from Milwaukee to ever be signed by the Braves,” he said. “I was also the first Milwaukee native to be sent to the minor leagues by the Braves!”
If Uecker’s on-field inadequacies hampered his playing career, they’ve provided some of his best material in a lengthy and lucrative second career as an actor and comedian. Employing a bone-dry wit, he made more than 40 appearances on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show.”
He said, “I did ‘Tonight Shows,’ you know, whenever they wanted. I would leave here on a Sunday afternoon, fly to L.A., do the Monday night show, take a red-eye back here, and be here for Tuesday’s game.”
Johnny Carson: “Give me, fast as you can, all the teams you’ve ever played with.”
Uecker: “Braves, Cardinals, Phillies, and the Braves again. Then, in June, I was with …”
The Carson guest spots led to a series of notable TV commercials, as well as a starring sitcom role, and perhaps most memorably as Harry Doyle, the perpetually blitzed announcer in the “Major League” movies. This past summer, at Milwaukee’s American Family Field, “Harry Doyle Bobblehead Night” brought the Uecker faithful out in force.
Asked his favorite “Bob Uecker line,” he replied, “‘Juuuuust a bit outside.’ That’s where my wife put me a lotta times!”
Before serving 16 years as baseball’s commissioner, Bud Selig owned the Brewers, and, in 1971, hired Uecker, misguidedly, as a scout. Selig said it is “legitimately true” that Uecker wasn’t cut out to be a scout. “There were mashed potatoes on the damned scouting report. I couldn’t read it. He couldn’t read it,” he said.
So, Selig moved Uecker to the Brewers’ broadcast booth later that year.
Today there’s even a statue honoring Uecker, where else? In the very last row of the upper deck, behind a pole.
But for all the stardom, all the gigs and gags, the late-night-laughs at his own expense, Uecker still fancies himself a player, says Brewers pitcher Brandon Woodruff: “He lets us know about his catching days. He’s one of us. He’s part of the team. And I think that’s why we embrace him so much, is that he’s on this ride with us. And that’s what makes it cool.”
According to Uecker, he has a bond with the players on the field: “I played the game. So, I know how hard it is. I know how tough it is to play this game. The game celebrations, when we win, that’s a big part of it, man, to be able to walk into that clubhouse and be with ’em.”
But baseball is cruel, and in Milwaukee, celebrations are short-lived. Earlier this month, with the Brewers just two outs from winning the National League Wild Card Series, the New York Mets came from behind on a dramatic home run.
On the radio, Uecker didn’t hide the hurt: “I’m tellin’ ya, that one … had some sting on it.”
The Brewers’ first World Series title will have to wait.
There’s speculation that the heartbreaking loss may have marked Uecker’s last game as an announcer. But as his 91st birthday nears, the man they call “Mr. Baseball” told us he doesn’t want to imagine his life without it.
“I don’t know what I would do, you know, with no more. If I think of no more baseball for me, I don’t know what that would be like, you know?” Uecker said. “I got out of high school and I joined the Army. And I signed a baseball contact. That’s been it, really!”
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Story produced by Robert Marston. Editor: Lauren Barnello.
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Ralph Fiennes on the provocation of acting
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