Famous April Fools Day Hoaxes

The Spaghetti Tree

The BBC Spaghetti Tree hoax was one of the original mass media hoaxes and still retains its place of honour in the Hall of Fame.

This classic gag took place way back in 1957. In those simpler days people still believed what they saw on television - especially when it was on the BBC's flagship current affairs programme Panorama. Credit for the idea is usually given to camerman Charles de Jaeger.

This particular April 1st edition of Panorama included a section on the bumper spaghetti harvest in Switzerland. A deadpan BBC voice (Richard Dimbleby) talked over footage of workers taking strands of spaghetti from trees and placing them into baskets. An audience of around 8 million viewers sat engrossed as they heard about the perils of the spaghetti weevil.

The hoax was so successful that the BBC apparently received many calls asking for advice on how to grow spaghetti! The standard response was reportedly "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best".

It sounds incredible that people fell for this, but back then "exotic" food like pasta was almost unknown in Britain - a tin of soggy spaghetti hoops in orange "tomato" sauce was the closest to it most people ever came.