Forget clingfilm on the toilet seat and salt in the sugar pot, the big businesses show us how April Fools hoaxes should be done.
Ellie Suttle
In 1998 Burger King released an advert publicizing their new ‘left handed Whopper burger’, all the ingredients were the same but the condiments were rotated 180 degrees. The following day Burger King had to release a disclaimer revealing the hoax after thousands requested the burger in store, as well as right handed customers asking for a “right handed version”.
- In 1976 a BBC Radio 2 presenter told listeners that at 9.47am a rare planetary alignment would occur, temporarily reducing gravity. The BBC was soon inundated with calls from listeners claiming to be floating.
- In 2010 walkit.com announced that the Waterloo & City underground line would be pedestrianised to help Londoners burn calories.
- In 2008 Youtube rerouted all its homepage clips to Rick Astley’s music video of Never Gunna Give You Up.
- In 1991 The Times published an article stating that in order to ease congestion on the M25 Transport for London would arrange for both carriageways to travel in the same direction. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays the traffic would travel clockwise; while on Tuesdays and Thursdays it would travel anti-clockwise. The plan would not operate on weekends. Thousands protested and one resident of Swanley, Kent was quoted as saying, “Villagers use the motorway to make shopping trips to Orpington. On some days this will be a journey of two miles, and on others a journey of 117 miles. The scheme is lunatic.”