In 1957, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) conducted what still ranks as one of the most famous April Fool’s Day gags of all time. Eight million people tuned in and watched Panorama’s three-minute feature on the “Swiss spaghetti harvest.”
The prank included a backstory claiming that an
unseasonably warm winter brought an end to a devastating “spaghetti weevil”
pest control issue. Following the weevil population decline, the region of
Ticino near the Italian border was said to have yielded an “exceptionally heavy
spaghetti crop.” The footage featured people picking strands of spaghetti off
trees and bushes.
The prank worked so effectively, viewers soon phoned
in to find out how they could purchase their own spaghetti trees, the BBC told
them to “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the
best.”
—Mitchell Hegman
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