Photo: April 1 is an excellent day to pluck spaghetti from the Swiss trees where it ripens.

As you probably know, April 1 is April Fool’s Day. It’s not an official holiday,  but it is celebrated the world over. So who better to ask about its history than Alex Boese, curator of the (online only) Museum of Hoaxes and author of The Museum of Hoaxes, Hippo Eats Dwarf, and Elephants on Acid.

I read a story online that said April Fool’s Day began in ancient Rome. Then it turned out that story was a prank perpetrated by a college professor! Will you promise that you won’t try to fool me with your answers?

Everything I say will be, as far as I know, the truth. 



So how did this celebration begin?

Most of the theories about the origin of April Fool’s Day are a bit farfetched. The most famous theory, the one that gets rolled out year after year in the media, is that [the holiday] dates back to the Gregorian calendar reform of the 16th century, the idea being [that] the French supposedly celebrated the New Year on April 1. Around 1564, the French decided to move the beginning of the year back to January 1. A lot of people didn’t quite get the communication, [and those] who continued to celebrate on April 1 were mocked as April Fools.

You’re not buying that theory?

There are some true parts. The French really did have calendar reform in 1564. [But] the French never celebrated the beginning of the year on April 1; it was Easter that they celebrated. Right there the theory starts to fall apart. We can find references to April Fool’s Day before the 1560s, so again, that just blows the theory out of the water.

What do you believe?

Among the handful of scholars who have investigated April Fool’s Day and its history, there seems to be consensus that it’s basically a relic of a pagan fertility festival associated with the return of springtime. Almost every culture has some kind of festival or day in the springtime that involves pranks or dressing in disguise.
The only slight mystery is why April 1 specifically.

And there’s not one specific country in Europe that started it off?

April Fool’s Day really does seem to be pan-European: Every European country seems to have it in their cultural history.

Do any countries resist the holiday?

Saudi clerics every now and then issue a fatwa against April Fool’s Day. They regard it as some kind of insidious Western influence promoting lying. At some point, the Chinese government denounced April Fool’s Day as Liar’s Day. The more repressive totalitarian governments don’t really like it, because April Fool’s Day [is] a day when people who are critical of the establishment can do whatever they like and poke fun at authority figures.

Has technology changed the holiday?

April Fool’s Day has been completely embraced by the Internet. It seems to be a match made in heaven.

Because really, isn’t every day April Fool’s Day on the Internet?

Exactly. Issues of truth and falsehood arise so often on the Internet. To have a day which is all about playing with the boundaries of fact and fiction is just perfect for the Internet.

So are traditions different today than they were a generation ago?

The day used to be celebrated much more out on the streets, in public places. Street urchins would play pranks on gentleman walking past, like gluing a penny to the pavement, [putting a] penny on a piece of string, put[ting] a brick in a hat [so that when] people [came] along [and] kick[ed] the hat they hurt their foot. This was considered one of the classic April Fool’s Day pranks for decades. In New York Times reports from 1900 about events of April Fool’s Day, invariably they’ll say the old brick-in-the-hat trick was popular.

I haven’t noticed the brick-in-the-hat trick lately.

Street pranks—nobody does them. Pranks are much more [common] online or [in] the media.

That’s good, because you could break your toe kicking a brick in a hat.

Some of the old pranks are really mean. Year after year there are reports of people getting poisoned, shot, just because somebody’s cruel April Fool’s Day prank went wrong in a very bad way.

So are people harmed by current April Fool’s Day pranks?

You get some odd tales of people doing things they really shouldn’t be doing—like warning people there’s some kind of natural disaster’s coming, and [the people] flee their homes in terror. I have a list of the top ten worst April Fool's Day pranks.

Do you have a favorite “good” prank?

One has elements of almost being bad, but I just liked the idea of it. Back in World War I, French air force pilots flew over German camps and threw out fake bombs with April Fool’s Day notes pinned to them. The Germans saw these things falling, scattered everywhere, crept back, and saw the notes. It’s kind of mean, but the fact that people would stop fighting for a day to play pranks on each other—that appealed to me. 


And you swear you’re not making that up?

It’s true. If you can believe newspaper reports. It was reported back in 1915.

Any non-war pranks you like?

The Swiss spaghetti harvest is a classic. I also love the Swedish one about how to convert your TV to a color TV set. Back in the ’60s, the only TV station in Sweden broadcast in black and white. It told all viewers about a new method to receive color transmission. It involved pulling a nylon stocking over [your] TV set. You [had] thousands of Swedish men getting their wives’ nylon stockings. I just love that image.

Do you try to fool people on April Fool’s Day?

I’m totally not a hoaxer or prankster myself. I just find the social history of the thing fascinating.

And do people try to fool you?

Oddly, they don’t.

After they read this interview, they will.

Maybe. I’m always on the lookout. I do know an enormous amount of these things. It’d be a challenge to actually get me.

—Marc Silver

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