By David Edge

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April is usually the greeting for spring weather, but April is also known for “April Fool’s Day.” There are some who wonder, “How did this day of pranks, jokes, and gags begin?” Well, there are many stories of the origin of this goofy day, which in itself makes for a funny story.

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If we look historically, a prank was first written in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales from 1392. A fox tricks the proud rooster, Chauntecleer, on “syn March bigan thritty dayes and two.” Now we know there are not 32 days in March, so was he thinking April 1^st? This is the first hint of a foolish day.

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April 1^st soon became an international day for gags. Whether gags were simple or elaborate, they always end with “April
Fools” being shouted at the victim.

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Some of the earliest April Fool’s jokes were started in where else, but England! The trick would start with a sealed envelope being given to a trusted friend on an important errand. “Please go to (another trusted friend) and deliver this important message!” Upon arrival to the friend, they opened the envelope only to find the message told them to tell the errand person that this grave matter involves another friend, thus placing the same message in another sealed envelope so that the messenger was still clueless about the message. The errand person might see several friends with the message until someone would finally save him from the important” errand.

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Other countries celebrate by placing a paper fish on someone else without them knowing. But, some pranks are truly inspirational. The BBC ran a story about the Swiss having a bumper crop from the spaghetti plants with film showing farmers harvesting spaghetti. The BBC was flooded with calls from people wanting to know how they could get a spaghetti tree!

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Burger King ran a commercial touting the left-handed hamburger. Hundreds of customers asked for this burger! Taco Bell announced that it had bought the Liberty Bell and renamed it the Taco Liberty Bell. Outraged Americans called the White House and wanted to know if it was true! The White House press director (who also had a sense of humor) added that they had also sold the Lincoln bedroom to the Ford Motor Company and it would now be called the Ford Lincoln Mercury bedroom.

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Of course all of these were later revealed as the hoaxes that they were, and the nation had a good laugh!