I Am Fascinated By Human Behavior
I Pity The Fool...
With April Fool’s Day upon us, I thought it appropriate to post about one of the more famous (or infamous) hoaxes.
[youtube=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU]
The spaghetti-tree hoax was a three-minute segment broadcast on April Fool’s Day 1957 by the BBC current-affairs program Panorama. It purportedly showed a family in southern Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from the family "spaghetti tree".
At the time, spaghetti was relatively little known in the UK; so many Brits were unaware of how it was made. The report was made more believable through its voice-over by respected broadcaster Richard Dimbleby.
A number of viewers contacted the BBC for advice on growing their own spaghetti trees. The BBC reportedly told them to "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best".
Decades later, CNN called this broadcast "the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled.”
With April Fool’s Day upon us, I thought it appropriate to post about one of the more famous (or infamous) hoaxes.
[youtube=https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tVo_wkxH9dU]
The spaghetti-tree hoax was a three-minute segment broadcast on April Fool’s Day 1957 by the BBC current-affairs program Panorama. It purportedly showed a family in southern Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from the family "spaghetti tree".
At the time, spaghetti was relatively little known in the UK; so many Brits were unaware of how it was made. The report was made more believable through its voice-over by respected broadcaster Richard Dimbleby.
A number of viewers contacted the BBC for advice on growing their own spaghetti trees. The BBC reportedly told them to "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best".
Decades later, CNN called this broadcast "the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled.”
