April Fool Classics

A Tuesday post from me.  April Fool!

(No, this is a real post.)

After some eight years of doing the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, I've had to skip doing it this year, due to circumstances beyond my control.  But I can bring back a previous tradition on my blog today.

Before I joined A to Z, I used to post an annual April Fool post. 

So today, on April Fools Day, I want to talk about The Good Old Days.

April Fools Internet pranks are fun to find each year but if you think about it, enough of the top hoaxes of the last hundred years (including the famous BBC Spaghetti Tree Harvest Documentary) predate the Internet. 

But, thanks to the Internet, I can also bring you this classic hoax from 1957. 

And I can bring you another classic - the flying penguins of 2008.

 It isn't just the fine folks at the BBC that can create hoaxes.  We Americans got hoaxed but good on April 1 1996 when Taco Bell bought one of our great patriotic symbols - or did they? 

Here are some other hoax ads.

 But we used to have a lot of fun "in the old days" with April Fool's jokes in magazines - including special TV supplements published in TV Guide magazine.  I wonder if anyone else remembers this, because I can't find anything online about these April Fools issues except, perhaps some people selling said magazines on eBay. 

Back then, before cable TV systems had online TV programming information, and before cable TV further homogenized the weekly TV listings, a weekly magazine called TV Guide published the listings.  They had tens of of regional editions and I loved to collect them when I went traveling.   Just think of how much work this all took. I still have some of them, too.

At least twice in the early 1960's I remember the issue that would have contained listings for April 1 having a special section, with hoax TV shows and other non-information. 

This, of course, was part of a distinguished April Fools tradition of hoax magazine articles. I just think it would be so cool if anyone else remembered what TV Guide did - and if I could even see some of those issues.

But now, in our modern world, I'll have to rely on an online site tracking the 2025 April Fools jokes.

Let me wrap up by wishing all my readers participating in A to Z a wonderful month to come. 

Amazing April #atozchallenge

Please join me as I Travel Through Time and Space on the first day of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge to a playground in the Bronx, New York City, on a mild April day in 1959.

A group of girls are gathered in a circle.  One bounces a clean, pink Spauldeen ball and starts to chant, standing on her left leg as she swings her right leg back and forth over the bouncing ball:

"A my name is AM,  I come from Arizona, and I sell apples!".  AM passes the ball to the next girl, who bounces it against the sidewalk, chanting "B my name is...."

Many of us have childhood memories.  Some are happy, some are not.  But when we grow up sometimes travel to places we never would have dreamed of ending up in.  

The little girl from the Bronx never would have dreamed that every day now, we travel all over the world, carried by electrons and the interwebs, to even more amazing places.  Hence, my theme, Travel Through Time and Space.

Today, on the first day of the month, thanks to the Internet,  I blog about a giraffe called April.

Who ever thought a pregnant giraffe named April, living in an upstate New York animal park about 30 minutes from where I live near Binghamton, would become an Internet sensation?

After the owners of the park decided to train a webcam on her during the third week of February, hoping she would give birth any time, April the giraffe, as they like to say, went viral.

At any one given moment, upwards of 210,000 people from all over the world watched April and her caregivers.  Thousands participated in chats on their site on You Tube.

And now, all the signs of labor ready to begin are there.  What could be more fitting on the first day of April?  Here's a link to the live, official April channel on You Tube.

I couldn't believe I was spending an hour each night watching a giraffe's butt, along with those  thousands of other people.  I was learning about wax caps, udder filling, how giraffes give birth, and how endangered these majestic creatures are.

I learned to tell the chief zoologist, Allysa, and the other giraffe caregiver, Corey, apart, just by viewing their hands (as they fed April lettuce near the web cam).  I watched interviews with them, and with the owner of the Animal Adventure Park, Jordan Patch.  I learned about young Ava Patch.

What an incredible journey this has been for Jordan and his family, and for all of us who have bonded over a webcam.

Life takes us to many unexpected places, and that's no April Fools.  And that's how the Spauldeen bounces....

Are you part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge?  If not, here's a quick rundown.  The title of this post starts with A.  On Monday (we have Sundays off, except for April 30) my blog post title with start with B, and so forth.  On April 30, a rare Sunday for A to Z, my post will begin with Z.

"A" on the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme: Traveling Through Time and Space.

When TV Guide Went April Fools

Welcome to members of the Ultimate Blog Challenge, new and old.

I live in upstate New York in the United States, and I like to write about anything that strikes my interest.  I do not do this as a business, but because I enjoy writing.  I also enjoy photography, as you'll see from time to time.

On Sundays, I write a United States Civil War post. (I'm not a historian or a "buff"- just a person who likes to investigate the human side of the war.)  On Wednesdays, I have a Spring Things feature.  On Saturdays I try to concentrate on farmers' markets, local foods, or sustainable growing.  The 15th of each month is Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, so you will see pictures of flowers.

Every other day I write about-well, you'll have to visit daily to see.  You can't say I didn't tell you what you were getting into.

So today, on April Fools Day, I want to talk about-The Good Old Days.

April Fools Internet pranks are fun to find each year but if you think about it, enough of the top hoaxes of the last hundred years (including the famous BBC Spaghetti Tree Harvest Documentary) pre date the Internet.  (Sorry, I can't bring that documentary to you, because You Tube is offline until 2023.)

But we used to have a lot of fun "in the old days" with April Fool's jokes in magazines - including special TV supplements published in TV Guide magazine.  I wonder if anyone else remembers this, because I can't find anything online about these April Fools issues. 

Back "then", before cable TV systems had online TV programming information, and before cable TV further homogenized the weekly TV listings, a weekly magazine called TV Guide published the listings.  They had tens of of regional editions and I loved to collect them when I went traveling.   Just think of how much work this all took.

At least twice in the early 1960's I remember the issue that would have contained listings for April 1 having a special section, with hoax TV shows and other non-information. 

This, of course, was part of a distinguished April Fools tradition of hoax magazine articles. I just think it would be so cool if anyone else remembered what TV Guide did - and if I could even see some of those issues.

Does anyone else remember?

Civil War Sunday - All Fools Day

Welcome, new readers, to my blog.  I have a simple format:

Sundays I post on something related to the United States Civil War (also known as the War Between the States, and some other names) which took place between April of 1861 and April of 1865.  I am a native of New York City, and currently live in upstate NY, but my posts can range wherever this war was fought - and you might be surprised where some of those places were.  I am not a historian or a Civil War reenactor but just someone who is interested in history and the sometimes untold "rest of the story".

Wednesdays I blog about "spring things" which will change with the seasons.  Last year I did this as a Wildflower Wednesday, but I wanted to give myself a little more leeway if something interesting came up.

The rest of the week, I blog about anything I feel like blogging about. 

And now, onto today's post.


Play any Aprils Fools jokes today?  Seems like you find these online (i.e the 2012 gags including the BBC North Norfolk "Holtism" Cult , Google Maps 80's style (here, of the Gettysburg Civil War battlefield) and. Google Racing )  but as for us playing these jokes on each other in the non-virtual world, it doesn't seem to be as common as it was when I was growing up.  I remember a lot of good jokes, including the April Fools issues of TV Guide in the back of the real TV Guide magazine (anyone else remember those?) or the all time best April Fools prank ever, IMHO - the BBC Spaghetti Trees documentary - and yes, I was alive in 1957.  How times have changed!

During the Civil War, though, April Fools jokes were a lot more common.  Some of these can be found online, including:

A New York Times editorial dated April 2, 1861, about what was then called All Fools Day....

The cover and text of a Harpers Weekly article from March 30, 1861 (OK, the fighting part of the Civil War was just getting starting and the war hadn't officially been declared yet, but still....) talking about "All Fools Day"...

A New York Times modern article detailing the various pranks played during the Civil War era - some would seem a bit harsh nowadays.  If I got a prank call from a friend early on April 1 asking me to bail them out of jail, I would roll over and go back to sleep....

And here is a Thomas Nast illustration of April Fools jokes from 1864.

But not everything that happened on April 1 in the Civil War era was a prank.  This correspondence between President Abraham Lincoln and others starting April 1, 1861, ended with the shelling of Ft. Sumter and the start of the Civil War hostilities less than two weeks later.    And, another article dealing with other events of April 1, 1861 is quite serious, too.  Finally, there was the battle of Five Forks, in Virginia, April 1, 1865.

But, just to show that Civil War buffs can have fun on April 1, this from the modern "Civil War Talk"site - an "early" joke- note how all the avatars are upside down.

Do you have a favorite Aprils Fool prank, virtual or otherwise?