There aren’t enough holidays in the year. Two of The Bowl’s Fave Days are Halloween and April Fools. We need more days like those, right? Halloween was only a little more than a month ago, but it feels like ages since 4/1’s come around. We need some good pranks around here.
The Museum of Hoaxes has a ten page list of the Top 100 April Fools Pranks of all time. It is almost as good as December Seven Fools Day.
Mid-July, 1842. An English gentleman named “Dr. J. Griffin”, a member of the British Lyceum of Natural History, arrived in New York City bearing a remarkable curiosity — a real mermaid supposedly caught near the Feejee Islands in the South Pacific. The press were expecting him, since throughout the Summer they had been receiving letters from Southern correspondents describing the doctor and his mermaid. So when he checked in to his hotel, reporters were waiting for him, demanding to see the mermaid. Grudgingly he obliged. What they saw totally convinced them of the creature’s authenticity.
How old are you when you start to realize that some folks out there just looovve to pull a fast one? What is that makes pranks, cons, rip-offs, and good ‘ol hoaxes so darn fascinating? We can read up on them for hours in our household. And if the grown-ups try to pull the book away from you, just let them know that hoaxes help you learn to think better: it teaches scientific method and the search for a proof.
Is this for real? A hoax? Whatever, I love it.
And this just in: now there is the first ever entire elephant family who paints together. Check out the video here.
