Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Or should I say cheerioh
Speaker 1: We hope this message finds you well. Uh, we hope
Speaker 1: that you are a a fan of Franks and Italian food.
Speaker 1: I guess that's our segue anyway, I'm Ben, I'm nolah
Speaker 1: and should we say perhaps been spaghettio m as opposed
Speaker 1: to cheer cheerio it suppos to spaghetti? Yeah, yeah, we
Speaker 1: were talking off Mike. I have a bit of a
Speaker 1: philosophical issue with canned spaghetti, uh and uh? And you
Speaker 1: you chimed in, Ben and said that you quite enjoy
Speaker 1: some of it, and I I mentioned, how does your
Speaker 1: metal uh phobia conflict with that? And You're like, well,
Speaker 1: know you you beat it out of a bowl. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's why you've been doing it wrong. I think you're right, Ben,
Speaker 1: I think I need to re revisit canned spaghetti, perhaps,
Speaker 1: but certainly not my or I would think most people's
Speaker 1: preferred method of consuming uh, this Italian delicacy. Would you
Speaker 1: at least meet me halfway in that statement? I think
Speaker 1: it's easy to make spaghetti from scratch. It's all about
Speaker 1: the sauce. For me. Uh, I think we're specifically talking
Speaker 1: about the Chef Boy r D products. For me, it's
Speaker 1: just installed Jeff for the ravioli in the can. But
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us when we're making spaghetti,
Speaker 1: we prefer to make our own sauce. That's the secret there.
Speaker 1: But our super producer Casey Pegram off air when we
Speaker 1: were talking about the earlier before we recorded, uh, we
Speaker 1: went down a little bit of a rabbit hole with
Speaker 1: the famous Tim and Eric sketch, which is entirely just
Speaker 1: the guy is very bad at scaring people, jumping out
Speaker 1: and yelling spaghette. Spaghett doesn't at some point you start
Speaker 1: kind of mangling the pronunciation and it becomes spook. What's that?
Speaker 1: That's really the whole deal. He's just like he's just terrible. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then Steven Spielberg makes a feature film about it,
Speaker 1: and he has to have like hair surgery. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he's like bleeding from his scalp at some point, right,
Speaker 1: and he's doing all this like green screen work. It's
Speaker 1: it's great. I would love to hear the origin story.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear Tim Heidecker tell us how how
Speaker 1: they managed to get that sketch from the idea staged rolling.
Speaker 1: But today we're talking about something that's also a little
Speaker 1: bit Tim and Eric. I think, uh, maybe the best
Speaker 1: way to approve this is to first ask you guys
Speaker 1: what you think of April Fool's Day. I'm I'm for it. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think a good natured prank is absolutely a thing
Speaker 1: of beauty, you know, as long as you're not doing
Speaker 1: like your mother died, you know, like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: my mother she died April Fools Like, that's not cool,
Speaker 1: that's not nice. But you know, something like a well
Speaker 1: produced BBC panorama, uh news report about spaghetti growing on
Speaker 1: trees in the Swiss Alps. Heck, yeah, all for that, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: if it's absurd, I'm personally, I personally think April Fool's Day,
Speaker 1: at least in the modern age of rampant misinformation, can
Speaker 1: be a pretty mean spirited thing. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: of pranks, like there's a difference between a funny joke
Speaker 1: prank and then something like hurt ful or mocking, you know.
Speaker 1: And I I was famously part of a prank that
Speaker 1: turned me against April Fool's Day on stuff you should
Speaker 1: know several years ago. Uh they for the record, Josh
Speaker 1: asked me to do that, folks, So please stop sending
Speaker 1: me emails about it. It's been so long. But you're right,
Speaker 1: you're right. Well this is this is interesting. There's a
Speaker 1: little bit of a war the world's vibe. It turns
Speaker 1: out that on April one, seven, the British Broadcasting Corporation No,
Speaker 1: most commonly as the BBC rocked the world, rocked their
Speaker 1: viewership because they broadcasted a relatively short report on a
Speaker 1: current affairs like news program called Panorama about exactly what
Speaker 1: you described a spaghetti tree somewhere in the south of Switzerland.
Speaker 1: And I think we actually have we should we just
Speaker 1: play a little bit of that clip to give people
Speaker 1: a sense of it. I think that's the smart move.
Speaker 1: It isn't really in Britain that spring this year has
Speaker 1: taken everyone by surprise. Here in the Ticino, on the
Speaker 1: borders of Switzerland and Italy, the slopes overlooking Lake Lugano
Speaker 1: have already burst into flower, at least a fortnight earlier
Speaker 1: than usual. But what you may ask, has the earlier
Speaker 1: and welcome arrival of bees and blossom. To do with food, well,
Speaker 1: it's simply that the past winter, one of the mildest
Speaker 1: in living memory, has had its effect in other ways
Speaker 1: as well. Most important of all, it's resulted in an
Speaker 1: exceptionally heavy spaghetti crop. The last two weeks of March
Speaker 1: are an anxious time for the spaghetti farmer. There's always
Speaker 1: the chance of a late frost, which, while not entirely
Speaker 1: ruining the crop, generally impairs the flavor and makes it
Speaker 1: difficult for him to obtain top prices in world markets.
Speaker 1: But now these dangers are over and the spaghetti harvest
Speaker 1: goes forward. Okay, so let's let's pause there for a second.
Speaker 1: That's a that's like Carneck BBC v O. Right. That
Speaker 1: narrator is someone who would have been really familiar to
Speaker 1: the audience at the top. And how does the BBC
Speaker 1: and still confidence and its listeners and viewers if not
Speaker 1: through authoritative voiceover. You know, you gotta believe the words
Speaker 1: that are coming out of those speakers. And and this
Speaker 1: was no exception, and this would absolutely have been one
Speaker 1: of the most well regarded voices or presenters. I guess
Speaker 1: you could say in British broadcasting history. A man with
Speaker 1: a powerfully British name, Richard Dimbleby. Yeah. Yeah. He narrates,
Speaker 1: as you can hear in the clip we we just
Speaker 1: played a piece of He narrates this story of this
Speaker 1: family from Tocino in Switzerland, and you can see video
Speaker 1: of this as well. It isn't audio visual broadcast, so
Speaker 1: you will see members of this family taking spaghetti off
Speaker 1: of a tree and laying it out to dry in
Speaker 1: the sun. Uh. Some people were angry about this because
Speaker 1: they were like, look, this is supposed to be presentation
Speaker 1: of facts, not farce and fancy. And then other people,
Speaker 1: you know, rode in to see where they could find
Speaker 1: their own spaghetti foliage, their own spaghetti bush or tree. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is, according to the BBC itself, believed to be
Speaker 1: one of the first times in history that television was
Speaker 1: used to uh make an April Fool's Day prank. That's right.
Speaker 1: And just you know, since this is obviously a not
Speaker 1: a televisual podcast, if you were watching this clip that
Speaker 1: we're playing, you'll see buzzing bees pollinating the flowers and
Speaker 1: trees and and these Sylvan kind of meadows and very
Speaker 1: quaint villagery type, you know, harvesters pulling their spaghetti crop
Speaker 1: from from the trees. Like you said, ben very idyllic
Speaker 1: kind of stuff and also obviously accompanied by a very
Speaker 1: idyllic score. So part of today's episode is about sort
Speaker 1: of like the nature of of hoaxes of April Fool's
Speaker 1: Day pranks and the reaction that they can elicit. I've
Speaker 1: certainly been on both sides of that, and it's easy
Speaker 1: for people to feel like they've been had or someone
Speaker 1: was making fun of them or trying to pull the
Speaker 1: wool over their eyes in a way that wasn't laughing
Speaker 1: with them, but laughing at them. And that's that's all,
Speaker 1: you know, par for the course of this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But well, we'll discuss a little bit of that along
Speaker 1: the way, but first and foremost we should talk about
Speaker 1: who the mastermind behind what I believe to be a
Speaker 1: pretty ingenious April Fool's Day prank was. It was a
Speaker 1: guy by the name of Charles de Yeager who was Viennese.
Speaker 1: He was born in Vienna in nineteen eleven UM. He
Speaker 1: was a freelance photographer before he moved to Britain in
Speaker 1: the thirties UM, and that's where he got a job
Speaker 1: working in a film unit of General Charles de Gaull's
Speaker 1: Free French Forces, so yeah, very on the ground running
Speaker 1: and gunning type work. And then he joined the Babe
Speaker 1: and throughout his long career Diyager had this uh. He
Speaker 1: was very well known for being an a veterate jokester, prankster,
Speaker 1: and early in his career with the BBC he even
Speaker 1: tried to mess with the Pope a little bit. He
Speaker 1: was supposed to interview His Holiness the Pope in the Vatican,
Speaker 1: which is a great gig if you can get it.
Speaker 1: Scheduling was difficult. Turns out the Pope is is uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of a busy dude. Often when
Speaker 1: he was told that His Holiness will see you on
Speaker 1: Tuesday afternoon, the diyaker replied, yes, but is he a
Speaker 1: man of his word, which, as you can imagine, the
Speaker 1: priest in the in the room did not find as
Speaker 1: as hilarious and witty as he did. He had a
Speaker 1: couple of other pranks that he was kind of well
Speaker 1: known for, but the these were smaller things. These are
Speaker 1: kind of like internal funny jokes with his colleagues. But
Speaker 1: his idea for a spaghetti harvest hoax it turns out
Speaker 1: it was a It was a lifelong dream. He had
Speaker 1: had this on his mind since he was a kid,
Speaker 1: because once upon a time, when he's very young, one
Speaker 1: of his teachers would often say to their class boys,
Speaker 1: you're so stupid, you'd believe me if I told you
Speaker 1: that spaghetti grows on trees. Okay, first of all, abusive, Uh,
Speaker 1: this is not how you engender intellectual growth and positivity
Speaker 1: and and self love and and budding young students. But
Speaker 1: I guess as we know that you think of like
Speaker 1: you know, like Pink Floyd's the Wall for example. Uh,
Speaker 1: British schools were not necessarily about positive vibes, if you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Casey Off, Mike, you were talking
Speaker 1: about the idea of spaghetti growing on trees as a
Speaker 1: concert app Yeah, it's like the kind of thing your
Speaker 1: parents say to you. Uh, when you're a kid and
Speaker 1: you just take spiety for granted. You say, what do
Speaker 1: you think, kid, speary grows on trees? Get a job,
Speaker 1: joined the real world? You know, get a job, join
Speaker 1: the real world, Casey on the case that's the That's
Speaker 1: that's the interesting part too, because we'll get into this
Speaker 1: a little bit later. But I want to be very careful.
Speaker 1: I always make a big point of this. I want
Speaker 1: to be very careful to note that the audience of
Speaker 1: the BBC there by no means unintelligent, right, it's we
Speaker 1: just have to remember, Uh, spaghetti wasn't pasta in general,
Speaker 1: wasn't super common until fairly recently in in the majority
Speaker 1: of the UK culture. Right, that's right. Well, and you know,
Speaker 1: we we know the idea of if you've watched any
Speaker 1: amount of British comedy or or you know British read
Speaker 1: British fiction. Um, you know that tinned foods were very
Speaker 1: popular before fresh foods kind of, so they would have
Speaker 1: seen things like canned spaghettios. In fact, I was gonna
Speaker 1: say earlier, but I'm glad to say until now. Um.
Speaker 1: And if you watch I think the Mighty Boush. But
Speaker 1: you hear a lot in different British shows, they don't
Speaker 1: call them spaghetti oh's over there. They call them spaghetti hoops,
Speaker 1: spaghetti hoops, and you know, the H has kind of
Speaker 1: become silent, so it becomes spaghetti hoops. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's the thing that they would have seen more of.
Speaker 1: And I want to just you know, backtrack ever so
Speaker 1: slightly and kind of make my case for why I
Speaker 1: find those to be disgusting. It's because of the sheer
Speaker 1: amount of sauce. Like I like a space, like you know,
Speaker 1: if we could share our spaghetti recipes, but I like,
Speaker 1: you know, to make my sauce where it coats the
Speaker 1: spaghetti and it's sort of got a thickness to it
Speaker 1: and like a new mommy and like has like chunky
Speaker 1: vegetables and meat and good stuff in there, but it's
Speaker 1: not swimming in this watery, blood red kind of ooze.
Speaker 1: That's that's that's okay. I'm sorry if I've ruined can
Speaker 1: spaghetti for anyone, but that's my two cents on that issue.
Speaker 1: I don't think you've ruined it. I think you've got
Speaker 1: a person little preference is one that people might agree with,
Speaker 1: and that you know, of course, if you look at
Speaker 1: the sales of Chef Warrior D, millions of people disagree
Speaker 1: with they probably they clearly love it. Uh. But I
Speaker 1: I unfortunately cannot disclose my top secret uh spaghetti and
Speaker 1: pasta sauce recipes on air. But if you really want
Speaker 1: to know, folks, uh, just hit me up on the
Speaker 1: internet and I can. I can share some tips. I
Speaker 1: do have a secret ingredient that might surprise you. Ben
Speaker 1: Thai fish sauce. Just to dash, Yeah, I use it.
Speaker 1: I have. I've got a fish sauce house. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: just to dash. It gives it like a certain new
Speaker 1: mommy and you know, it doesn't taste fishy, just gives
Speaker 1: it kind of a savory, little extra something that people
Speaker 1: can't always put their finger on. It gives it some
Speaker 1: depth as absolutely as a salt replacement. So uh. Some
Speaker 1: people can become obsessed with the perfect pasta sauce. And
Speaker 1: this would have been somewhat familiar to de Jager, at
Speaker 1: least the idea of obsession, because he was obsessed. He
Speaker 1: was like, let's tell people spaghetti grows on trees. Let's
Speaker 1: make it a thing. And just like I have always
Speaker 1: been pitching crazy ideas to various bosses. Here how stuff
Speaker 1: works for I heart. He was always pitching this idea.
Speaker 1: So picture him in the writer's room, in the brain
Speaker 1: storming room at the news desk, and someone say, okay, um,
Speaker 1: let's see we've got some pieces we should do on
Speaker 1: the Cold War, on East and West Germany. What else?
Speaker 1: What else is in the news, we want some like
Speaker 1: human interest stuff and then uh, Dieger raises his hand
Speaker 1: and they go something that's real and not spaghetti on
Speaker 1: trees and he just like, damn it, next time it.
Speaker 1: So he did this for years. It wasn't until nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty seven he was currently working as a cameraman for
Speaker 1: Panorama that he was able to find some like minded
Speaker 1: folks who thought this would be funny. Why is this
Speaker 1: a big deal? Because Panorama was a big deal at
Speaker 1: the time. Ten million people watched this show. Well and
Speaker 1: it's still around to this day, if not to this day,
Speaker 1: since very recently there is a fabulous Panorama documentary on
Speaker 1: Church of Scientology. Uh they've covered everything from you know,
Speaker 1: sending reporters into North Korea. Um, it's really been like
Speaker 1: a heralded show with a really cool, rich and deep history. UM.
Speaker 1: I believe it only had begun maybe less than ten
Speaker 1: years before this. I think it was in like forty
Speaker 1: five or maybe even closer to fifty when Panorama actually debuted.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the Yeager got a job as a cameraman
Speaker 1: on Panorama, and um, he had been pitching this spaghetti
Speaker 1: you know, tree story to anyone that would hear him
Speaker 1: and in jobs that he had occupied, he seemed like
Speaker 1: a real character. I want to find out more about
Speaker 1: this guy. But finally he he pitched it to a
Speaker 1: supervisor that was all about it. And this would have
Speaker 1: been the very first time that again being a relatively
Speaker 1: new show, um and already well respected that uh, that
Speaker 1: Panorama would have ventured into the sort of satirical waters here. Um.
Speaker 1: And we know that the Brits are are famous for
Speaker 1: their satire beautiful, beautiful sense of humor comedy Monty Python.
Speaker 1: If you've ever seen the show look Around You, that's
Speaker 1: sort of exactly what this kind of reminds me. A
Speaker 1: look Around You is sort of meant to look like
Speaker 1: a kind of stodgy British news show about sort of
Speaker 1: dull things. Like they have a whole episode called Maths
Speaker 1: and it's about like math and mathematics, but it's all
Speaker 1: fake information and completely uh ludicrous, but presented as though
Speaker 1: it were real. Highly recommend that show. It's done in
Speaker 1: like a sixties kind of BBC style with mog synthesizer
Speaker 1: sounds and you know, expert scientists tapping their pencils on things.
Speaker 1: It's just a wonderful show, but this would have been
Speaker 1: kind of a prototype for that um and they really
Speaker 1: pulled it off. As we've heard in the clip. They
Speaker 1: really were trying to sell it like one of these
Speaker 1: classic news packages from the air. Keep in mind that
Speaker 1: if you are a British television viewer in the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: you have two choices of television program You have two channels,
Speaker 1: the BBC and I t V. So Panorama is the
Speaker 1: biggest news program on the BBC. As I said earlier,
Speaker 1: it has viewership of ten million. It was on weekly
Speaker 1: every Monday night at eight pm, and since about two
Speaker 1: years before this brank occurs, it had been hosted by
Speaker 1: that iconic Richard dem Bleby. He was one of the
Speaker 1: most well known, revered public figures in the country. If
Speaker 1: he said it, people figured it must be true. So
Speaker 1: someone once said. One of his co workers once said
Speaker 1: of Dimbleby, as quoted in Hoaxes dot Org, that he
Speaker 1: had enough gravitas to float an aircraft carrier. And this
Speaker 1: is important because if it had been some other narrator,
Speaker 1: a lot of people probably wouldn't have taken this as gospel.
Speaker 1: But because he was the guy saying it, people thought, uh,
Speaker 1: it had to be true, even if it sounded really,
Speaker 1: really strange. Now, as I said earlier, he had been
Speaker 1: pitching this idea for a long long time. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until nine seven that he was able to convince other
Speaker 1: people to go along with it. He couldn't do this
Speaker 1: himself as just the cameraman. So the writer, David Wheeler,
Speaker 1: loved the idea because you know, as you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of these narrators and news programs don't do their
Speaker 1: own researcher writing. So Wheeler was the writer of program.
Speaker 1: He loved it. And then they went to the editor,
Speaker 1: guy named Michael Peacock, and they said, let's make this
Speaker 1: weird thing happen. Peacock, of course, is is uh. He
Speaker 1: likes his co workers obviously, uh. And who doesn't like
Speaker 1: a good joke. But they really have to sell it
Speaker 1: to him, and Dieger stresses. Dieger talks Turkey, he talks
Speaker 1: the financial lens, which is always uh, I can assure
Speaker 1: you always a great way to start selling stuff in
Speaker 1: a corporate gig. Uh. He said, you know it's gonna
Speaker 1: be cheap to create this. It's not gonna be It's
Speaker 1: not gonna cost us a bunch I'm already gonna be
Speaker 1: in Switzerland, so we'll I'll just do that while I'm there.
Speaker 1: You don't have to pay me extra. We don't have
Speaker 1: to pay anybody extra to do this. We can just
Speaker 1: also do it along with the real news. We were
Speaker 1: already planning on reporting, and Peacock went for it. Um
Speaker 1: he you know, obviously it was a good, good humored dude,
Speaker 1: and he gave them one hundred pounds with which to
Speaker 1: uh to film this extra little side quest with which
Speaker 1: isn't a ton of money, but it was enough to
Speaker 1: you know, cover the cost of production of buying some
Speaker 1: some materials, you know, for our set dressing. We'll get
Speaker 1: into it a little bit, but yeah. The writer for
Speaker 1: Panorama was also clearly on board with this prank because
Speaker 1: he wrote the script in that voice of the show
Speaker 1: to add at that extra level of credibility. That was
Speaker 1: just really hit home when Richard Dimbleby himself wrote the
Speaker 1: three and fifty word uh script um in in those uh,
Speaker 1: those dulcet tones that the British people knew so well
Speaker 1: of Dimbleby that really um kind of imparted that level
Speaker 1: of authority to the whole proceeding and made it much
Speaker 1: more easy to believe that this is what you were
Speaker 1: what you were hearing was a real thing. Um. So
Speaker 1: they set out for Switzerland in March of that year.
Speaker 1: They have a few like a like a handler I
Speaker 1: guess from the Swiss Tourist office who had helped them
Speaker 1: scout some locations. Uh. It was kind of nasty weather.
Speaker 1: It was cold and and drizzly, and unfortunately a lot
Speaker 1: of the trees were bare. But they did eventually find
Speaker 1: a spot that was suitable for the shoot. It was
Speaker 1: near a hotel in Caste Leon, off of the shores
Speaker 1: of Lake Lugano, and was surrounded by some evergreen trees
Speaker 1: laurel trees. So that was exactly what they needed to
Speaker 1: sell the effect, which was which was achieved with some
Speaker 1: pretty great practicals. If you if you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we get into uh we get into some proper work. Uh,
Speaker 1: the kind of problems that Casey, I know, you know
Speaker 1: this they could be very familiar to independent filmmakers. Uh,
Speaker 1: if you've ever worked in something where you are trying
Speaker 1: to make the perfect fake blood where you are you know,
Speaker 1: I once had we had to this factor that we
Speaker 1: had to paint entirely blue in a way that looked
Speaker 1: like he was blue or not just bade blue anyway.
Speaker 1: So Dieger runs into some stuff like this, where does
Speaker 1: his budget go. Well, at least part of it goes
Speaker 1: to twenty pounds of uncooked homemade spaghetti. He tries to
Speaker 1: hang it from those laurel tree branches you mentioned earlier, Nold,
Speaker 1: and then he encounters some problems. First, spaghetti would dry
Speaker 1: out quickly, it wouldn't hang from the branches right they
Speaker 1: have been kind of taping it up there. Then he said, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll cook it and then we'll hang it. But then
Speaker 1: if we cook it, it becomes too slippery and it
Speaker 1: slides off the branches onto the ground, so you can't
Speaker 1: get the shot. And then the tourist rep from the
Speaker 1: Swiss tourist office who was hanging out with the acre there, said, okay,
Speaker 1: let's put the uncooked spaghetti between these damp cloths. We'll
Speaker 1: keep it kind of uh moist. I feel the way
Speaker 1: about the word moist that you feel about canned spaghettios,
Speaker 1: by the way, but that's another correct word. They keep
Speaker 1: it damp, they keep it moist. Uh. And then he
Speaker 1: hires some local young women to wear the traditional national
Speaker 1: costume of Switzerland, and he films them hanging spaghetti in
Speaker 1: the trees, climbing ladders, will wicker baskets, and then playing
Speaker 1: the spaghetti in the sun. He gets the shots he
Speaker 1: needs pretty quickly once they figure out how to get
Speaker 1: spaghetti hanging from the trees. Spaghetti cultivation here in Switzerland is, not,
Speaker 1: of course, cut it out on anything like the tremendous
Speaker 1: scale of the Italian industry. Many of you, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: will have seen pictures of the vast spaghetti plantations in
Speaker 1: the Po Valley. For the Swiss, however, it tends to
Speaker 1: be more of a family affair. Another reason why this
Speaker 1: may be a bumper year lies in the virtual disappearance
Speaker 1: of the spaghetti weevil, the tiny creature whose depredations have
Speaker 1: caused much concerned in the past. And then, because he's
Speaker 1: a he seems like ultimately really nice dude. He says, hey,
Speaker 1: you guys are doing such a wonderful job acting. Let
Speaker 1: me at least make you dinner, and he serves them spaghetti.
Speaker 1: M I think this is really funny, you guys. It's
Speaker 1: it's so it's it really does remind me of like
Speaker 1: a Monty Python sketch, like there's something there the absurdity
Speaker 1: of this. I don't know, what do you think, Casey, don't, don't,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I find this delightful. Yeah, it has
Speaker 1: that kind of high absurdity and I love the mix
Speaker 1: of that with the authority of the BBC behind it.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like the ultimate betrayal in a way
Speaker 1: because they're sort of branding themselves as like objective truth
Speaker 1: and so to mess with people. There's probably people that
Speaker 1: were skeptical of it to begin with, but they thought, well,
Speaker 1: it's the BBC, like what, They're not gonna mess with
Speaker 1: this exactly. So Yeah, it reminds me of a War
Speaker 1: of the worlds, you know, Casey on the case. So
Speaker 1: here we go this, there's there's something else that's happening here.
Speaker 1: So while the footage is rushed back to London, while
Speaker 1: it's being edited, they're adding music. Uh, They're they're choosing
Speaker 1: the right kind of high minded tone for this. Uh.
Speaker 1: While that's happening. Concurrently, the editor of the show, Michael Peacock,
Speaker 1: has been sitting on his decision. He has not told
Speaker 1: his bosses that they're gonna put this April Fool stage
Speaker 1: joke in the nation's number one current affairs show because
Speaker 1: he thought there's a very reasonable fear He thought that
Speaker 1: his bosses might say, what the hell are you doing
Speaker 1: where the number one news show in the entire country.
Speaker 1: We can't tell people this. Uh So at the last
Speaker 1: minute he tells his boss, Leonard Mile and nobody else
Speaker 1: at the BBC knew it, which means that a lot
Speaker 1: of BBC employees were watching this when it came on,
Speaker 1: Which means that at least some of those BBC employees
Speaker 1: may have thought, dang, that's crazy, and you knew about
Speaker 1: spaghetti and trees. I must have missed that in the meeting.
Speaker 1: I mean, it really is perfectly primed for that response,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like you have you think
Speaker 1: of something like the BBC, especially a show like Panorama
Speaker 1: is like unimpeachable, and then you have that voice that
Speaker 1: just gives it this gravitas. And to see that, I
Speaker 1: think even modern audiences might do a double take as
Speaker 1: to like, maybe I didn't learn that part in school,
Speaker 1: you know. I honestly believe that that's the beauty of this.
Speaker 1: And I was listening to it another podcast about this
Speaker 1: when we were when we were doing research. I just
Speaker 1: it's just called Weird History Podcast by Joe Streckert. I
Speaker 1: believe it's a Patreon supported podcast, so check it out.
Speaker 1: It's a short They're like twelve thirteen minute episodes on
Speaker 1: a little short nugget of goodness from history. And um.
Speaker 1: He made a really interesting point that this represents like
Speaker 1: something a lesson that we could learn, like and take
Speaker 1: with us like today, the idea of fact checking and
Speaker 1: like not just believing something that's shoved in front of
Speaker 1: you just because it has an air of authority to it. Um.
Speaker 1: And and obviously this wasn't meant to keep people in
Speaker 1: the dark for long. I mean, it was obviously going
Speaker 1: to be revealed that it was a prank. That's how
Speaker 1: April Fools jokes work. And maybe you feel a little
Speaker 1: hurt momentarily of oh they got me, But then if
Speaker 1: you really take a little step back and have a
Speaker 1: little self awareness, maybe it taught you a lesson on
Speaker 1: how you should always think about things beyond what's presented
Speaker 1: to you. So I think that's part of what makes
Speaker 1: April Fools interesting, at least in an intel legant prank
Speaker 1: like this. Yeah, I mean it's it's totally. It's played
Speaker 1: completely straight. After picking, the spaghetti is laid out to
Speaker 1: dry in the warm alpine sun. Many people are often
Speaker 1: puzzled by the fact that spaghetti has produced at such
Speaker 1: uniform length, but this is the result of many years
Speaker 1: of patient endeavor by plant breeders who succeeded in producing
Speaker 1: the perfect spaghetti. Just to give a context, here the
Speaker 1: lineup for the show that day, which again I love this,
Speaker 1: uh this article from Hoax's dot org. But there's a
Speaker 1: great article about the from the Guardian about this as well. Uh,
Speaker 1: the lineup was pretty average. There was a segment about
Speaker 1: an archbishop who was leader of the Greek Cypriots at
Speaker 1: the time, a clip of the Duke in Edinburgh attending
Speaker 1: the premiere of a war film, and then uh, the
Speaker 1: little piece about a wine tasting contest, and then the
Speaker 1: spaghetti harvest was the last segment. And after that it
Speaker 1: cuts back to to Dimbleby who and he says, just
Speaker 1: you know, now, we say goodnight on this first day
Speaker 1: of April. So they put a clue in there that
Speaker 1: this was April fools, right, Like British people may not
Speaker 1: have known the origin of spaghetti, but they knew what
Speaker 1: April Fools was. And that's kind of a hint. You
Speaker 1: can see in modern news pieces today where you'll read
Speaker 1: something and then you'll check the byline, especially around April,
Speaker 1: and you see it says April first, you know, or whatever.
Speaker 1: That's typically an indication that there's a that there's some
Speaker 1: Shenanigan read going on. How self works used to do
Speaker 1: it every year too, That's right, that's right. And and
Speaker 1: Chuck actually on on Movie Crash, did one one year
Speaker 1: where he had, um, Kevin Pollock and uh pretending to
Speaker 1: be Christopher walking. Kevin Pollock is famous for his Christopher
Speaker 1: walkin impression, and he did a whole episode with Chuck
Speaker 1: where he pretended to be Christopher walking. And uh, much
Speaker 1: like the reaction to the spaghetti hoax that the BBC received.
Speaker 1: Some people were all about it and thought it was
Speaker 1: hilarious and felt in on the joke. Uh, some people
Speaker 1: felt taken for a ride and um, we're very upset,
Speaker 1: and they they communicated as such, because if there's one
Speaker 1: thing people love to do is to tell you when
Speaker 1: they're upset. Um. So yeah, as soon as the broadcast ended,
Speaker 1: immediately on that night, the BBC's switchboards started lighting up
Speaker 1: like crazy. One of the producers from the show walked
Speaker 1: over to the what school was called the BBC's telephone
Speaker 1: exchange to see what was going on, and he wrote
Speaker 1: this about it. The calls came in increasingly somewhere from
Speaker 1: viewers who had enjoyed the joke, including one from Bristol
Speaker 1: who complained that spaghetti didn't grow vertically, it grew horizontally.
Speaker 1: But mainly the calls request for the BBC to settle
Speaker 1: family arguments. The husband knew it must be true that
Speaker 1: spaghetti grew on a bush because Richard Dimbleby had said
Speaker 1: it must be true, and the wife knew it was
Speaker 1: made with flour and water, but neither could convince the
Speaker 1: I love that because the women had made it or
Speaker 1: there they knew at least enough about the you know,
Speaker 1: the process of making spaghetti that whereas a husband would
Speaker 1: have been the total numb skull about stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And now the harvest is marked by a traditional meal.
Speaker 1: Toasts to the new crop are drunk in these boccolindos,
Speaker 1: and then the waiters enter bearing the ceremonial dish. And
Speaker 1: it is of course spaghetti picked earlier in the day,
Speaker 1: dried in the sun and so brought fresh from garden
Speaker 1: to table at the very peak of condition. For those
Speaker 1: who love this dish, there's nothing like real home grown spaghetti.
Speaker 1: So at the time it is important for the story.
Speaker 1: At the time, the BBC channel was not its winning
Speaker 1: four hour channel. It would cease transmission at a certain
Speaker 1: hour and before transmiss sans closed for that evening, BBC
Speaker 1: already had turned around and due to the public outcry, uh,
Speaker 1: they had broadcasted an additional statement that came clean about
Speaker 1: the hoax, and it's uh, it's long, so I'm no,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna make you sit here while I read
Speaker 1: the whole thing out loud. But essentially they said, we've
Speaker 1: received a mixed reaction to a spoof documentary about spaghetti
Speaker 1: crops in Switzerland. And then they describe it, and then
Speaker 1: they say some viewers failed to see the funny side
Speaker 1: of the broadcasting criticized the BBC for airing the item
Speaker 1: on what's supposed to be a serious factual program. Others, however,
Speaker 1: were so intrigued they wanted to find out where they
Speaker 1: could purchase their very own spaghetti bush. And then uh,
Speaker 1: they they go on and talk about how spaghetti is
Speaker 1: not widely eaten in the UK at this time. Uh,
Speaker 1: they talk a little bit more about the program, and uh,
Speaker 1: they say, you know, there's a first time television has
Speaker 1: been used to stage in April Fool's Day hoax. But again,
Speaker 1: I think I've said this before on one episode or another.
Speaker 1: But again, people read headlines and retractions are printed on
Speaker 1: like page thirty seven, and oftentimes when you correct something,
Speaker 1: it's it's far too late. The lid of Pandora's jar
Speaker 1: has been unscrewed. So they had this confession on air.
Speaker 1: They had this statement, but people kept calling. They kept
Speaker 1: calling and kept calling, and eventually the switchboard operators just said,
Speaker 1: we're gonna come up with our own form like boilerplate reply.
Speaker 1: So people would call them over the course of the
Speaker 1: days and then the following weeks, and these operators would
Speaker 1: eventually just say places sprig of spaghetti, an attentive tomato sauce,
Speaker 1: and hope for the best. When people are calling to
Speaker 1: ask how to grow their own spaghetti tree, and then
Speaker 1: the spaghetti ferry will come visit you in the night
Speaker 1: and leave you a shining you pent sixpence or whatever. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is great. It reminds me too of there there's
Speaker 1: a really great show. It's someone that that Casey actually
Speaker 1: hit me too. I was aware of his work on
Speaker 1: a show called Um the I T. Crowd. He plays
Speaker 1: the boss on the first season of The I T. Crowds.
Speaker 1: Guy named Chris Morris. Uh he replaced he's his son, Yeah, Chris.
Speaker 1: Chris Morris plays the boss Um on the first season
Speaker 1: of The I T. Crowd. But he actually comes from
Speaker 1: a really interesting tradition of radio satire and had a
Speaker 1: show called Jam that's like pre Tim and Eric, like
Speaker 1: psychedelic just terror comedy basically, and then they may get
Speaker 1: into a TV series. But the first season, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you know this case I think we talked about.
Speaker 1: It is literally just them lip syncing to the audio
Speaker 1: from the radio version and it's just lue Blue Jam
Speaker 1: I think it's called Blue Jam was the radio show
Speaker 1: that the show was called Jam. Highly recommended. But this guy,
Speaker 1: Chris Morris went on to do sort of a hard
Speaker 1: copy esque kind of satire show called brass I and
Speaker 1: it is very much from this tradition of that we're
Speaker 1: talking about here, but much more offensive and and uh
Speaker 1: sardonic and just way over the top and they do episodes.
Speaker 1: There's one about drugs, about the drug epidemics sweeping the
Speaker 1: UK and uh, this is this made up drug called
Speaker 1: cake that's like a rave drug, but it makes your
Speaker 1: next swell up. It gives you a syndrome called check neck. Um.
Speaker 1: I guess like from the Czech Republic is where the
Speaker 1: drug from comes from. But there's one episode called Peto
Speaker 1: Mgeddon that's all about the pedophilia epidemic sweeping London, the UK,
Speaker 1: and it was so over the top offensive and again
Speaker 1: some people thought it was real. People wrote in and
Speaker 1: called in because apparently the BBC switchboard still a thing
Speaker 1: you can call into complain and they pulled it so
Speaker 1: you can only watch it on on YouTube and I
Speaker 1: if you're into some sicko comedy, highly recommend checking out
Speaker 1: the brass eye episode called Peto Mgeddon. So earlier I
Speaker 1: had said that there were members of the BBC themselves
Speaker 1: and BBC employees who were fooled by the Spaghetti hoax.
Speaker 1: One of the people who was fooled was a guy
Speaker 1: named sir Ian Jacob. It's interesting that Surrey and Jacob
Speaker 1: was fooled because he was the Director General of the BBC.
Speaker 1: He's the boss, the Emperor of the BBC. He's like
Speaker 1: the Ted Turner of the BBC. And he had he
Speaker 1: had been sent a note telling him that the this
Speaker 1: hoax was happening, as prank was occurring, but he had
Speaker 1: never received the note, and so when he saw the broadcast, uh,
Speaker 1: he wasn't he wasn't sure what to expect. And then
Speaker 1: someone on the team talked to Sir Jacob later and
Speaker 1: he had this to say, which I thought was pretty
Speaker 1: reasonable and actually reassuring for guys. The boss of the
Speaker 1: BBC said, I always used to think monkey nuts grew
Speaker 1: on bushes till I went to serve in the Canal
Speaker 1: Zone Panama Canal and saw them growing on the ground.
Speaker 1: The moment I saw the spaghetti, I had him on Panorama.
Speaker 1: I said to my wife, I'm sure spaghetti doesn't grow
Speaker 1: on a bush. So he looked it up in Encyclopedia Britannica.
Speaker 1: Do you know Encyclopedia Britannica doesn't mention spaghetti. We had
Speaker 1: to look up three books before he confirmed it. It's
Speaker 1: kind of reassuring that at least he's doing his due
Speaker 1: diligence and research you know. That is so fascinating, though, Ben,
Speaker 1: because when you when you first said, oh, the director
Speaker 1: of the b got caught wind of this, I thought
Speaker 1: and that people were heads were gonna roll, you know,
Speaker 1: as they say. But no, I think he appreciated the
Speaker 1: joke and even had enough humility that he didn't let
Speaker 1: the fact that he was taken in by the gag,
Speaker 1: probably because he didn't read his memos um he didn't
Speaker 1: let that like Bruce's ego too much. I appreciate that
Speaker 1: in a boss, someone that has a little bit of
Speaker 1: self awareness and can can take a joke and be
Speaker 1: the butt of the joke and not get all bent
Speaker 1: out of shape. I love that. In fact, Sir Jacob
Speaker 1: himself became a big fan of the hoax. He even
Speaker 1: sent the Yacre a note saying that he thought it
Speaker 1: was a splendid idea and that it caused a great
Speaker 1: deal of delight. Uh. There was some criticism. There were
Speaker 1: a couple of people who complained that the BBC had
Speaker 1: taken advantage of the trust of their audience. The Daily
Speaker 1: Telegraph published a piece a BBC fools About with Spaghetti,
Speaker 1: which is a weirdly British headline, and I did not
Speaker 1: know this, but apparently there was a rule for April
Speaker 1: Fool's Day, at least in the UK, which was that
Speaker 1: no jokes are supposed to be carried out later than noon,
Speaker 1: which I didn't know. Uh, casey, were you familiar with
Speaker 1: that one? I was not. That's hilarious to me that
Speaker 1: it's a very specific law. Yes, it was very pedantically British.
Speaker 1: I love that it sounds like somebody was it was
Speaker 1: a little bit sore about getting fooled by a prank
Speaker 1: and then decided it quote unquote didn't count because it
Speaker 1: wasn't like one thirty or something. Well, and it's like
Speaker 1: it's like the perfect invitation to publish your joke at
Speaker 1: like one in the afternoon or something, just to like
Speaker 1: add a little extra own that well, it's afternoon, can't
Speaker 1: possibly be true. Even though it was April Fools adjacent,
Speaker 1: no one would dare break the rules of the BBC,
Speaker 1: the April Fools rules. Uh yeah. So so now we're
Speaker 1: in and uh we can look back at this and
Speaker 1: it seems kind of uh silly, a bit whimsical, but
Speaker 1: it is relevant today, especially when we think about just
Speaker 1: how many points of information are out there for the
Speaker 1: modern person online every single day. You know, there's there's
Speaker 1: a huge controversy about whether social media platforms should fact
Speaker 1: check the articles that their users are disseminating and the
Speaker 1: claims that they're making. We see a lot of conspiracy theories, pranks, hoaxes, misinformation,
Speaker 1: and disinformation. Misinformation is when you're sincerely, unknowingly incorrect about something.
Speaker 1: Disinformation is where you're purposely misleading people. And uh, you
Speaker 1: have to wonder what Dieger would think of all this. He,
Speaker 1: by the way, passed away May nine, two thousand's, so
Speaker 1: he would have been well aware of of uh, the
Speaker 1: of online communication for sure. And I just want to
Speaker 1: double down again just because I'm just such a fan.
Speaker 1: I really do feel like this had to have laid
Speaker 1: the groundwork for a lot of these British satires that
Speaker 1: we're talking about. This is pre Monty Python, This was
Speaker 1: pre brass I pre Chris Morris, pre all that stuff.
Speaker 1: And uh, look around you. I love that it really
Speaker 1: uh And and American audiences agreed. Um. Actually, Jack Parr
Speaker 1: h in the sixties, UM and Johnny Carson later aired
Speaker 1: the Spaghetti Hoax segment on The Tonight Show. UM and
Speaker 1: then also got nasty letters from people who thought it
Speaker 1: was real and didn't appreciate it, and they thought they
Speaker 1: were being they were making fun of farmers or something
Speaker 1: like that. Uh. And Carson, apparently a week or so
Speaker 1: after playing the segment, Um had to make a retraction
Speaker 1: of subsort on on the show where he held up
Speaker 1: a box of spaghetti and read off the ingredients to
Speaker 1: prove that spaghetti was in fact made and quote not born,
Speaker 1: which I love. And so Panorama retired from the April
Speaker 1: Fool's Day game. They just did the one to international
Speaker 1: acclaim and criticism, and they never did a sequel, but
Speaker 1: it became kind of an in joke in the world
Speaker 1: of television. You can see reports that are all kind
Speaker 1: of uh, paying tribute or homage to this, the Australian
Speaker 1: spaghetti crop, the dim Blebee pickle farm, which is the
Speaker 1: same thing as spaghetti on trees, bes pickles on trees,
Speaker 1: the pickle ranch harvest. It goes on and on. But
Speaker 1: we do have to say that just because Panorama never
Speaker 1: did another April Fool's Joke, that doesn't mean that the
Speaker 1: BBC itself never did something. I think it was back
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty the world Service. The BBC World Service
Speaker 1: News reported gave a lot of people some conneptions when
Speaker 1: they reported that the famous clock tower Big Ben would
Speaker 1: be given a digital display. Can you imagine that that
Speaker 1: would be insane? Uh? And here's here's the coolest part though.
Speaker 1: When they announced this, they said not only was it
Speaker 1: going to be given a digital display, but the hands
Speaker 1: of the clock would be given away to the first
Speaker 1: four people who called the station. I love it. I
Speaker 1: love it. You think people would know, uh, and and
Speaker 1: most people do. And the brit You know, the Brits
Speaker 1: are are very uh, witty people, as you can tell
Speaker 1: again by some of their pop culture stuff. I mean
Speaker 1: there's always a great amount of wit and kind of
Speaker 1: sardonic edge to It's a lot of British comedy. Um.
Speaker 1: But even still some people get taken in. It's it's
Speaker 1: fascinating and I absolutely of it. Now I'd like to
Speaker 1: to pass this over to you folks. Maybe there's a
Speaker 1: conversation we can continue on the internet, on Facebook, on Twitter, Instagram.
Speaker 1: What are your favorite April Fool's Day pranks? Either the
Speaker 1: big ones that got national attention, or maybe just some
Speaker 1: of your favorite ones that are a little more close
Speaker 1: to home in your own life. When of the best
Speaker 1: places to share these stories is our Facebook page Ridiculous Historians,
Speaker 1: which has been having some top tier meme posts lately. Ah,
Speaker 1: the memory abounds for sure. All you gotta do is
Speaker 1: go to Facebook dot com and search for Ridiculous Historians
Speaker 1: and just like, name me or Casey or or Ben
Speaker 1: or whomever, anyone associated with the show, any little ref
Speaker 1: from the show, just to lets. Sometimes we have people
Speaker 1: who are honest and say, I don't know anything about
Speaker 1: the show, but this seems like a fun group. I
Speaker 1: I I'll even let those people in. Sometimes it's not
Speaker 1: it's not about being exclusive. It's just we want to
Speaker 1: make sure you're not like some kind of Russian boty.
Speaker 1: You can also find us the social media as individuals.
Speaker 1: That's right. You can find me on Twitter at Ben
Speaker 1: Bowlen h s W, where I am currently reveling in
Speaker 1: my fascination of corvids. You can also find me on Instagram,
Speaker 1: where I have in a number of misadventures as at
Speaker 1: Ben Bowlen. That's Corvid is not COVID's right, Yeah. Corvid
Speaker 1: is a group name for things like crows and magpies
Speaker 1: and so on. I kid Ben I know about your
Speaker 1: obsession with these little rascals, which is funny considering that
Speaker 1: you're anti metal and these guys love shiny objects. Isn't
Speaker 1: that the thing? Sure? Not just metal. Corvids are very
Speaker 1: well known for forming bonds and friendships with humans, and
Speaker 1: so they try to maybe pay for food and favors
Speaker 1: by giving humans what they see as human things. So
Speaker 1: I could be like a button or a coin, or
Speaker 1: I I don't know, a shoe string. They just find
Speaker 1: stuff and they're like that looks like human stuff's currency
Speaker 1: for them. I love the idea of you perhaps commanding
Speaker 1: sort of like a crew of of of corvette that
Speaker 1: can bring you things and assist to you in your
Speaker 1: in your day to day sort of like uh, it's
Speaker 1: Cinderella gets her dress made by the woodland creatures. That's
Speaker 1: very kivy. Yeah. I got very close at our old
Speaker 1: office to befriending some crows who lived in the parking
Speaker 1: lot of a mall in Heck. While you're online, why
Speaker 1: don't you tell us a little bit more about any
Speaker 1: of your interactions with corvids. I personally would love to
Speaker 1: hear them. No, old people can find you online as well, right,
Speaker 1: They can there's zero corvidd activity on my social media
Speaker 1: feed at how now Noel Brown on Instagram as many
Speaker 1: of you know, and and rag me about pretty regularly
Speaker 1: on the Internet. I am I am a bit a
Speaker 1: feared of birds corvids in particular, but Ben, you're bringing
Speaker 1: me around. I love this friendship aspect of these creatures.
Speaker 1: That's that's fascinating and very humanizing. Um. Huge thanks to
Speaker 1: super producer Casey Pegram Alex Williams, who composed Arthene Christopher
Speaker 1: Haciotes here in spirit. Big big thanks of course to
Speaker 1: our Pure podcast or Eve's Jeff Coach. She's got some
Speaker 1: great stuff on the waist, stay tuned for her, and
Speaker 1: of course thanks to our own walking April Fools Brank
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, a k a. The Quizter. I think that's
Speaker 1: all for us today. We've never done in April Fool's
Speaker 1: uh prank episode on ridiculous history, have we. Let's just
Speaker 1: hope everybody forgets by April next year. I'm down. We'll
Speaker 1: see you next time, folks. For more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.