The 1957 “Spaghetti-Grows-on-Trees” Hoax: One of TV’s First April Fools’ Day Pranks

In 1957, on a BBC program. panorama We aired one of the first April Fool’s hoaxes to air on TV. Above, you can watch a fake news report from Switzerland narrated by a respected BBC journalist. Richard Dimbleby. The basic premise is: After a mild winter and “the virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil,” residents of Ticoni (a Swiss canton on the Italian border) have harvested a record spaghetti crop. Swiss farmers pull bundles of spaghetti from trees and spread them out to dry in the sun. We then cut to the Swiss enjoying fresh pasta for dinner. This is how it travels from farm to table, so to speak.

This parody documentary was the brainchild of BBC cameraman Charles de Jager. He recalled one of his childhood school teachers in Austria telling a joke. “Guys, you are so stupid. If I told you that spaghetti grows on trees, you would believe me.” Apparently he was right. Years later, BBC Corner producer David Wheeler recalled: [the broad­cast] There were a lot of people who went to work and said to their colleagues, “Did you see that amazing thing?” There was quite a bit of work to be done. panorama?I didn’t know anything about spaghetti. ” The original program was watched by an estimated 8 million people, and decades later CNN called the broadcast “the biggest hoax ever perpetrated by a reputable news organization.”

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