April Fools
Topic: Memories
Were you caught out this morning? Have you played a joke on anyone? Too late now as it is after midday! I wonder how many newspapers or television stations have run April Fool's stories today? I haven't spotted any, as yet.
I still remember my mother and myself having absolute hysterics over the spoof documentary on "The Spaghetti Harvest", broadcast by the BBC's Panorama team in 1957. I could never understand how people were taken in by that one. However, another 'spoof' in 1984 about soviet scientists using DNA material from a frozen mammoth to impregnate an elephant did take me in at the time. I actually still think this could happen and I think I saw a programme two or three years ago about a Japanese scientist who was hoping to recover frozen sperm from a mammoth. Perhaps that was a fantasy also?
I also remember a week-long spoof by Esther Rantzin's, "That's Life!" programme, about a new animal called a Lirpa Loof at London Zoo. I am sure it was presented by Dr. David Bellamy who reported on its habit of mimicry and the fact that it produced purple droppings! Apparently, many people turned up at the zoo to watch this creature (a man in a costume) performing its antics!
Do you remember a spoof television documentary about Adolf Hitler? It was shown as 'postponed from 1st April' (I don't remember how long ago) and described Hitler visiting England during World War Two. He was shown looking out of a window watching a march by the British Blackshirts, whose leader was Oswald Mosley. Sir Oswald Mosley was married to one of the Mitford sisters and in this documentary, Hitler stayed at the Mitford family home. It all started off as very believable but got increasingly bizarre. It ended with a 'home movie' showing the only film available of Adolf Hitler picking his nose!
