Jokes & Jests At The Corner Café
1st April, April Fools’ Day, also called All Fools’ Day, has been celebrated for several centuries by many different cultures. However, its exact origins remain a mystery.
It’s possible that April Fools’ Day dates back to 1582, when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. People who didn’t realise that the start of the new year had moved to January 1 and continued to celebrate it from March 25 through April 1 became the butt of jokes. These pranks included having paper fish placed on their backs and being referred to as “poisson d’avril” (April fish), said to symbolise a young, easily caught fish and therefore, a gullible person.
It could also be linked to the ancient Roman festival of Hilaria, which was celebrated at the end of March, where people dressed up in disguises.
In Scotland during the 1700s, it became a two-day event including pranks such as “hunting the gowk” where people were sent on daft errands (a gowk is old Scots for a cuckoo which is a symbol for a fool) and Tailie Day, which was when pranks such as sticking false tails or “kick me” signs on people’s backsides first began.
Famous modern day April Fool pranks include the BBC in 1957 which reported in their normally very serious program, Panorama, that Swiss farmers were having a record crop of spaghetti and showing people pulling the pasta from trees and laying it on the ground to dry.
Richard Dimbleby explained how each year the end of March is a very anxious time for spaghetti harvesters all over Europe as severe frost can impair the flavour of the spaghetti and how each strand of spaghetti always grows to the same length thanks to years of hard work by generations of growers.
Numerous people fell for the stunt with the BBC receiving hundreds of calls from people wanting to buy spaghetti bushes!!
Do have know any famous pranks? Have you ever played any or had any good ones played on you?
Or maybe you just want to share some jokes, funny stories, funny images, or funny videos. It doesn’t matter. It’s all fun here at The Corner Café!!
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