“The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.”
—Mark Twain
IN Scotland it is called a gowk or cuckoo. In France, people refer it to as April fish. Whereas in England, the victim of practical jokes is called April fool.
A lot of history is attached to the day that we all call April Fools’ Day, but more than that, a lot of fun, entertainment and enjoyment is associated with first day of April as well. Playing tricks on your near and dear ones, April Fools’s Day has over the years earned reverence as well as notoriety over its origins. This, we’ll talk about later. But for the moment, lets have some fun. However, one “rule” that needs to be kept under consideration during all the fun time is that no one should be harmed. The best jokes are when everybody including the victim, laughs.
So, we start our laughing day with a visit to the Museum of Hoaxes. One of the most original of sites, the address houses the Top 100 April Fool’s Day Hoaxes of All Time at http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/aprilfool. This very interesting collection offers hoaxes that were almost all of them perpetrated on a grand scale. Like the time when BBC reported that Switzerland was enjoying a grand harvest of spaghetti! Or when in 1962, people of Sweden were led to believe that they will start receiving colour pictures on their black and white television screens, just by putting a nylon stocking on their TV screen. Hundreds of thousands tried to get colour this way. Colour TV arrived in the country in 1970. A collection of hoaxes from April Fools’ day history with description and reasons for selection, the stories are in detail with most of them carrying links to their original sources. Great reading for hours on end.
For more personal and not-so-official accounts of April Fools festivities, then you should click to April Fools Practical Jokes http://www.april-fools.us/. The site includes past famous and funny April Fools’ pranks and hoaxes, and gag ideas. The one that I am looking forward to putting into play here is the Jello Toilet bit. There are pictures and gag gift store, and you can also join their mail list and go about with the latest pranks, hoax info and practical jokes.
But seriously, apart from all the fun and jokes, the April Fools holiday has more serious origins to it, details of which can be found at April Fools Origin http://www.infoplease.com/spot/aprilfools1. html. And unlike what most of us think, April Fools has got very little, if anything at all, to do with the military defeats of the Muslim forces in Spain in the 1490s. The whole fuss is about the Gregorian calendar, which when it came to be implemented wasn’t acceptable to a lot of people. All this, according to the site, happed in 1582. And if it isn’t the serious stuff that you want to know about, then you can go to The Hoax Files where, as you’ll come to know, the truth isn’t out there.
Some more of the history is available at April Fools’ at Web Holidays http://www.web-holidays.com/fools/. Of course other than the history there are a bundle of other things as well, including a Fools’ Dictionary where terms like Fools Paradise and Tomfoolery can be explored. Games (those that can be played online), recipes and crafts are here as well. However, one pretty irritating thing about this web site is the constant movement of a cursor arrow across the screen. So much so that at times it became confusing for me to note which was the real cursor and which was the one that moved across the screen.
Urban Legends’ April Fools contribution http://www.snopes2.com/holidays/april/aprlfool. htm too takes a look at the holiday and how it might have come about to be. But this site doesn’t’ stick with just one theory about the holidays. There are a few others and there a number of pranks that are sure to give you more than a laugh or two.
However, the people who really take the whole laughing business seriously are those moderating The Prank Institute http://www.prank.org/. Dedicated to promoting the pranking sciences (now there’s something I would like to learn) The Prank Institute is a user-submitted collection of pranks to allow users to display their prank-fu as well as gain new prank knowledge. A more dedicated web site that takes the fun part and the April Fools thing really seriously is, the April Fools on the Net web site http://www.2meta.com/april-fools/. So much so, that they even had a lawyer pen the warnings and the conditions of use. “This web site is either a satire or a parody. This web page contains humour. This web page is a joke. This web page is NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY. THIS WEB PAGE CONTAINS NOT ONE SINGLE, SOLITARY FACT. It is PURE FICTION. This web page is not to be taken internally. This web page is made from 100% recycled electrons. No animals were harmed in the making of this web page.”
Now that’s what I call an environmentally conscience web site!
So go ahead, have fun. But just be careful that you don’t cause any pain to anyone you are playing the tricks on.
“The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.” 
