Ladies and gentlemen! Gather around for great amusement as we take a look at japes, jests, larks and other April Fool's Day pranks from one hundred years ago!
Unfortunately, most of the pranks perpetrated back then (when it was known as "All Fool's Day") seem today both tame and lame, such as:
1. Put seltzer powder in your sister's bath;
2. Sew Father's trouser legs together;
3. And the ever-popular Put-a-brick-under-a-hat-trick-so-some-sucker-will-kick-it-and-break-his-toe gag.
But here are some good ones from around a hundred years ago that have stood the test of time.
1) Mark Twain In a Rage: The Autograph Prank
Read the article here
In April of 1884, George W. Cable, who was an author and frenemy of Mark Twain, knew from writer-buddy road trips that Twain hated signing autographs more than anything on earth!
So he got 150 literary friends to write Twain and ask for his autograph.
The prankster
The pranked. Mark Twain looks pissed about having to sign autographs, but on the other hand, he always looked pissed.
One hundred letters came in the first day, three hundred the next, until there was a bushel of letters from autograph hounds. Some highlights of the prank:
- John Hay of the New York Tribune asked Twain to copy a few hundred lines from one of his books as a handwriting sample.
- Thomas W. Knox of the New York Herald wrote in pretending to be the King of Siam, asking for autographs for each of his 258 children.
- There were reports that Twain was going to ask these men to a duel, but his ultimate revenge was his place in history. ("Cable, Hay, Knox? Who are they? Outfielders for the Houston Astros?" Exactly.)
Edison Turns Soil Into Cereal and Water Into Wine
Read the article here
In 1878, the now-defunct New York Graphic newspaper announced that Edison had invented a machine that could transform soil into cereal, and water into wine. (Who would buy that? The first one sounds disgusting and the second, blasphemous.)
Edison looks Coleridgey, as if to say, "I'm goddamn smart, and I've got every woman's phone number."
But the rival Buffalo Commercial Advertiser took the bait and wrote an editorial praising the inventor for achieving the greatest scientific advance ever.
Two days later, The Graphic reprinted the Advertiser's editorial in full, placing above it a simple, two-word headline: "THEY BITE!"
Now, of course, we would say "They Bite the Big One."
Edison Talks to the Dead
Edison perpetrated his own hoax in 1920 when he claimed in a Scientific American article that he had created a phone that could talk to the dead!
Necrophilia: now easier than ever!
The media fell for it hook, line, and sinker, leaving a technologically clueless public clamoring for the phones.
If only we had that phone right now. We could tell the dead about a magical place that now exists where anyone can pull a prank on anyone else, on any day, not just All Fool's Day. Where it's possible to discuss those pranks with anyone, in any country at any time, instantaneously. In order to rip each other apart and win imaginary trophies.
We're sure those dead pranksters of the past would listen to us pranksters of the future and ask, "Yes, but will there be porn?"
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