Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So, uh,
Speaker 1: not too long ago, Tracy, I was looking up another
Speaker 1: possible episode, which will go nameless in case it comes up,
Speaker 1: because I still might do it. Um. I stumbled across
Speaker 1: a list of historical pranks and hoaxes, and we've covered
Speaker 1: some of those before, but some of these were new
Speaker 1: to me, and it got me thinking about such things
Speaker 1: and whether any one of them might make another good episode.
Speaker 1: But really, the ones I was most interested in are
Speaker 1: a little bit shy of having enough information to be
Speaker 1: an episode all their own. So today I grouped a
Speaker 1: few together. If you were listening, you may be wondering,
Speaker 1: why not hold this until April Fool's Day? That seems
Speaker 1: like a perfect match, and it is. But here's the answer.
Speaker 1: That's twofold. One. I just didn't want to um. I
Speaker 1: didn't feel like if I'm interested in something, I tend
Speaker 1: to want to do it usually right then, and if
Speaker 1: I wait, my interest may wane, and then where will
Speaker 1: we be? Uh? And Two, I will confess to everyone
Speaker 1: now I'm not the biggest fan of April Fool's Day.
Speaker 1: Here's why. It's a little bit of a snooty thing.
Speaker 1: It always feels a little bit like an amateur hour
Speaker 1: of irritation pranks. I don't like that. Um, Which is
Speaker 1: not to say all pranks are bad, because some of
Speaker 1: them are very clever and legitimately fun. And there are
Speaker 1: things that happen on April Fool's Day that some people
Speaker 1: do that I really love. But two of the ones
Speaker 1: we're covering today are actually pretty delightful, and one was
Speaker 1: in April Fool's prank. One of the ones that we're
Speaker 1: talking about today would have left me in a full
Speaker 1: blown rage if I had been a part of it.
Speaker 1: But all of these pranks are fairly legendary, and they're
Speaker 1: all quite different. Uh So you're going to get a
Speaker 1: smattering of things. So we've got a joke that kind
Speaker 1: of became a living legend, we have a large scale
Speaker 1: prank that created complete havoc, and we have a televised
Speaker 1: hoax that reminds us all of the importance of critical thinking.
Speaker 1: So first of these three. On January at Brown University,
Speaker 1: a notice was posted on the university Hall bulletin board
Speaker 1: that advertised an upcoming lecture, and here is what it said.
Speaker 1: On Thursday evening at eight fifteen and Sales Hall, J. S.
Speaker 1: Carberry will give a lecture on Archaic Greek architectural revetments
Speaker 1: in connection with Ionian philology. For tickets and further information
Speaker 1: applied to Professor John Spaith. So this was the birth
Speaker 1: of a prank, seemingly with no end. From the beginning,
Speaker 1: there were doubters as to the identity and credentials of
Speaker 1: JS Carberry. Upon seeing this lecture flyer. One of Professor
Speaker 1: space colleagues, Professor Ben Klow, is said to have inserted
Speaker 1: the word not into the text so that it read
Speaker 1: Carberry will not give a lecture. We should note here
Speaker 1: too that even in the documentation that you can find
Speaker 1: at Brown University, sometimes the word philology in the lecture
Speaker 1: title is listed as though it said phonology. Klow, which
Speaker 1: is also a name I've heard people say as Clough.
Speaker 1: Because there's lots of ways to say things. Followed up
Speaker 1: with Professor Space to ask him what this was all about,
Speaker 1: and Spaith had loads of details about Carberry to share
Speaker 1: with this doubter. Carberry was a professor of psycho ceramics
Speaker 1: the study of cracked pots. He had a wife named Laura,
Speaker 1: who was described as ungrammatical, and two daughters, Patricia and Lois.
Speaker 1: Patricia was a poet and Lois hunted puffins. There was
Speaker 1: even an assistant in the mix to fill out this
Speaker 1: story that was a Truman Grayson, who was prone to
Speaker 1: accidents and being bitten by things that begin with the
Speaker 1: letter A. This all just sounds like a description from
Speaker 1: a children's book to me. Yeah, it's all very silly
Speaker 1: right out of the gate. And clearly this was all
Speaker 1: just a bit of fun. But unlike the other pranks
Speaker 1: on today's show, Josiah story did not fade or blow over.
Speaker 1: It grew, it became further embellished, and it became a
Speaker 1: twentieth century legend. Of course, because of that legendary status,
Speaker 1: the Carberry story has not only grown, but it has
Speaker 1: also developed some inconsistencies over the years. For example, his
Speaker 1: birthday may have been in eighteen twenty, his career may
Speaker 1: have started in eighteen five. Both of those milestones have
Speaker 1: at times been attributed instead to that year that the
Speaker 1: flyer first appeared in University Hall nine in May of
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty nine, the school paper reported that Carberry, who
Speaker 1: at that time was referred to as an expert in
Speaker 1: Hindo Jerramic pottery, was going to the Southwestern Arkansas Normal
Speaker 1: Institute as a loaner from Brown University. Carberry has had
Speaker 1: a number of titles attached to his name, but the
Speaker 1: one that sticks the most is Professor of psycho Ceramics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: depending on what you look at, you'll see him listed
Speaker 1: in a variety of different ways. It's usually always related
Speaker 1: to pottery and some form or another. Over the years,
Speaker 1: there have been a great many lectures that Josiah S.
Speaker 1: Carberry was scheduled to deliver, only to have some conflict
Speaker 1: arise to prevent the presentation. But there has always been
Speaker 1: a very good reason for such cancelations. Primarily that reason
Speaker 1: was his world travels to places allegedly like Turkey, Hawaii,
Speaker 1: or Mongolia that would keep him away. But travels are
Speaker 1: no It seems that Carberry, whose middle name is apparently Stinkney,
Speaker 1: manages to be ever present at Brown in one way
Speaker 1: or another. Over the years, his family has produced a
Speaker 1: great deal of correspondence and placed so many notices about
Speaker 1: their various doings in the paper that the Providence Journal
Speaker 1: banned them completely. Yeah, there's apparently a kill order that
Speaker 1: if the name Carburry comes up not to run it
Speaker 1: like it's not real, like maybeing like no more coin
Speaker 1: hords except as are real. In Carberry sent a check
Speaker 1: from his travels abroad in the amount of one one
Speaker 1: dollars and one cent, and the accompanying missive indicated that
Speaker 1: that money was intended to set up a memorial fund
Speaker 1: for his quote future late wife, which should be named
Speaker 1: not after her, but should be called the Josiah S.
Speaker 1: Carberry Fund. That one one dollar and one cent was
Speaker 1: seed money. In receiving it, the university had to agree
Speaker 1: to establish a donation drive every Friday and every leap
Speaker 1: day of February twenty nine, where anyone could donate their
Speaker 1: loose change into Brown jugs to add to the fund.
Speaker 1: That money was to be used to purchase books that
Speaker 1: the good Professor might or might not approve of. It
Speaker 1: has been used to purchase things. You can find a
Speaker 1: list of them the Brown University Library site. In Carberry
Speaker 1: also wrote a cookbook, The Carberry Cookbook From Nuts to Soup.
Speaker 1: It includes contributions from other people, but he was the
Speaker 1: primary editor, and the proceeds of that were also to
Speaker 1: go to the Carberry Fund. It contained recipes for such
Speaker 1: delights as chocolate ice box pie, shrimp in beer, and
Speaker 1: stuffed camel and boiled water. Chocolate ice box pie is
Speaker 1: a real thing, yes, and that came from a contributor.
Speaker 1: Shrimp and beer is that. You can find that recipe
Speaker 1: online and it's basically like dumb shrimp and beer, all right,
Speaker 1: So that donation. The following year, an article titled Josiah S. Carberry,
Speaker 1: the Professor and the Legend appeared in the Brown Daily Herald,
Speaker 1: and in it the return address of this famed initial
Speaker 1: donation to the Carberry Fund was exposed as being the
Speaker 1: New Hampshire State Liquor Store. So these Carberry mysteries continue. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are so many that we're not gonna list here,
Speaker 1: but imagine more such things happening over the years. And
Speaker 1: over the years, Carberry's name has appeared on a number
Speaker 1: of academic papers, and it has been mentioned in a
Speaker 1: variety of magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times,
Speaker 1: which claimed he was the world's greatest traveler. His books
Speaker 1: have been cited in the footnotes of other books. Sixteen
Speaker 1: minutes ran a segment on Carberry. That's right, sixteen, not sixty.
Speaker 1: It is a very artful spoof of the sixty minutes
Speaker 1: story style produced by the Brown Club of Rhode Island
Speaker 1: and friends of Brown University Library. And that particular piece
Speaker 1: is full of very fun Carberry lore, including the information
Speaker 1: that there have even been allegedly financial concerns over the
Speaker 1: mysterious faculty member, particularly whether he may have been added
Speaker 1: to the payroll at some point in time. In two
Speaker 1: thousand five, a letter from Carberry appeared in the Brown
Speaker 1: Daily Herald under the pleading headline make me Famous Again Brown.
Speaker 1: He relates that he's on a fishing trawler out of Russia,
Speaker 1: sifting through pottery shards that the crew pulls up while
Speaker 1: they quest after a mythical whale. But despite a lot
Speaker 1: of chatter, his real aim really seems to be securing
Speaker 1: his legacy by making sure that the Carberry sandwich, which
Speaker 1: at that point has two chicken patties on it, is
Speaker 1: upgraded with a third patty. You may worry about his fame,
Speaker 1: he has incidentally never been photographed with his face visible. Carberry,
Speaker 1: it appears, is either immortal or merely blessed with both
Speaker 1: longevity and vitality. It seems like as long as his
Speaker 1: name lives on, it's going to stay that way. Before
Speaker 1: we jump into our next story, which is a very
Speaker 1: ambitious prank, we will take a break and have a
Speaker 1: word from our sponsors. So for this next one, the
Speaker 1: street that the hoax took place in is what gives
Speaker 1: it its name, and that was at fifty Burner Street,
Speaker 1: London on November ten, starting at five am, Burner Street
Speaker 1: became so overrun with visitors and deliveries to the residents
Speaker 1: there that the entire street became grid locked, and the
Speaker 1: blocks surrounding the address were also jammed to the point
Speaker 1: that passage was impossible. And that whole mess was the
Speaker 1: result of a hoax, a hoax that started with a bet.
Speaker 1: So a quick note on the dates here right ups
Speaker 1: about this from the eighteen forties have put this hoax
Speaker 1: as happening in the year eighteen o nine. You'll see
Speaker 1: that repeated a lot, but searching through newspaper archives online,
Speaker 1: all the contemporary write ups about it are from eighteen ten.
Speaker 1: And the architect of this whole thing was a man
Speaker 1: named Theodore Edward Hook. Hook was born on September, so
Speaker 1: he was eventy two at the time of the Burners
Speaker 1: Street hoax. His father was composer James Hook, and Theodore
Speaker 1: was the second son born to James and his first wife.
Speaker 1: Theodore's brother, James, was eighteen years old when Theodore was born,
Speaker 1: and their mother died when Theodore was still fairly young.
Speaker 1: Some accounts place her death in eighteen o two, that
Speaker 1: means he would have been right around fourteen. He was
Speaker 1: sent to a seminary school while he was still a boy,
Speaker 1: but he was very precocious there. At one point, it
Speaker 1: was discovered he had skipped three full weeks of school,
Speaker 1: and although he eventually found that he really enjoyed writing,
Speaker 1: he never really did like school no matter which one
Speaker 1: he went to, and wrote later in his life quote,
Speaker 1: my school life was not a happy one. I was
Speaker 1: idle and careless of my tasks. I had no aptitude
Speaker 1: for learning languages. I hated Greek and absolutely shuddered at Hebrew.
Speaker 1: I fancied myself a genius, and anything that could be
Speaker 1: done in a hurry I did tolerably well, but application
Speaker 1: I had not. Even when his father arranged for Theodore
Speaker 1: to attend Oxford with the intent that he would become
Speaker 1: a lawyer. Theodore almost tanked the whole thing by making
Speaker 1: jokes during the entrance ceremony that infuriated the chancellor. This
Speaker 1: was more or less how he conducted his life, and
Speaker 1: he became a well known writer and wit. As writer J.
Speaker 1: Murray put it in eighteen forty three, quote, he carried
Speaker 1: the spirit of rebellious frolic with him. And we're giving
Speaker 1: you all this biographical information to set up who the
Speaker 1: sort of person was he would pull this particular type
Speaker 1: of involved prank. In the book The Lives of Wits
Speaker 1: and Humorists, written in eighteen sixty two, author John Tims
Speaker 1: put it this way, quote, Sheridan, as we have seen
Speaker 1: in the present volume, had a great taste, we may
Speaker 1: say constructive skill in hoaxing, but he is far exceeded
Speaker 1: by Hook. He was known to do things like order
Speaker 1: a coach with a friend and then stage a fight
Speaker 1: as they got close to their destinations, so that he
Speaker 1: would jump out of the coach and leave his friend
Speaker 1: to pay the fair. He did a lot of fair dumping,
Speaker 1: has jokes. Yeah, I don't think I don't think that's
Speaker 1: so funny, right, let's stick your friends with the bill
Speaker 1: as a joke. Over and over he did a lot
Speaker 1: of that, um, you know, humor subjective. One day in November, Hook,
Speaker 1: it said, was strolling down Burner Street with a friend
Speaker 1: and noticed a house which is described in accounts as
Speaker 1: quote particularly neat and modest in appearance. It belonged to
Speaker 1: a shopkeeper's widow. And for some reason Hook got an idea,
Speaker 1: and he is said to have turned to his friend
Speaker 1: and said, quote, I lay you a guinea that in
Speaker 1: one week, that nice, quiet dwelling shall be the most
Speaker 1: famous in all London. When his friends took the bet,
Speaker 1: Hook went into action to make sure he would win it.
Speaker 1: Over the next four or five days, Thomas Hook wrote
Speaker 1: a thousand pieces of correspondence. These were orders to all
Speaker 1: manner of tradesmen stating the need for services, all of
Speaker 1: them to be scheduled on November, and all in a
Speaker 1: short period of hours. Some were written to public officials
Speaker 1: and socially prominent Londoners requesting that they call on the
Speaker 1: address on the morning of November, all on some important
Speaker 1: matter or another, depending on what Hook thought would most
Speaker 1: entice the recipient to show up. For example, one note
Speaker 1: which was reported in the papers. Read quote, Mrs Tottenham
Speaker 1: requests Mr Blank will call upon her at two tomorrow
Speaker 1: as she wishes to consult him about the sale of
Speaker 1: an estate. Yeah. Presumably those names were left out so
Speaker 1: that people would not be harangued for having fallen for
Speaker 1: this very silly prank. And in addition to sending all
Speaker 1: of those missives out, Hook rented a room across the
Speaker 1: street from Mrs Tottenham's and sat with two of his
Speaker 1: friends watching the whole thing play out. There are some
Speaker 1: inconsistencies with this story right out of the gate, because
Speaker 1: Hook himself wrote about it, but it's not known what
Speaker 1: degree of license he took with the material. In his version.
Speaker 1: For example, he says that this happened in eighteen o nine,
Speaker 1: and he indicated that he and his friends had worked
Speaker 1: out the plan over a longer period than just a week.
Speaker 1: But the question that never gets answered in any account
Speaker 1: is why Hook selected that particular house. There's been some
Speaker 1: speculation that he had some kind of disagreement with Mrs
Speaker 1: Tottenham or that one of his friends did, but there's
Speaker 1: also precedent in his behavior that he just did a
Speaker 1: lot of things with no specific motivation. At all. It's
Speaker 1: entirely possible that he saw what looked like the most
Speaker 1: boring house on the street and he decided that was
Speaker 1: a challenge. Now, we mentioned at the beginning of this
Speaker 1: story that this shut down all passage in the area,
Speaker 1: and that cannot have been a surprise. Hook knew the
Speaker 1: the nature of the street layout was going to cause
Speaker 1: a jam because there were not as many connecting points
Speaker 1: in the city at that time that would allow you
Speaker 1: to pass through. So, according to an eight forty three
Speaker 1: right up of the affair at the time quote, Oxford
Speaker 1: Road was not approachable either from Westminster or Mayfair or
Speaker 1: the city otherwise than through a complicated series of lanes.
Speaker 1: It may be feebly and a far off guest what
Speaker 1: the crash and jam and tumult of that day was.
Speaker 1: That's because Burner Street kind of connected up to Oxford.
Speaker 1: It was one of the few connections, and in fact,
Speaker 1: Hook himself later estimated that this whole thing had impacted
Speaker 1: about a quarter of the town and short it was
Speaker 1: an abysmal mess. The Morning Post ran a story about
Speaker 1: what had happened the next day, opening with a line
Speaker 1: that must surely have delighted Theodore Hook. Quote. The greatest
Speaker 1: hoax that has ever been heard of in this metropolis
Speaker 1: was yesterday practiced in Berner Street, Oxford Street. The paper
Speaker 1: described a dozen deliveries, all arriving at once, and that's
Speaker 1: really like the light version, because this did start first
Speaker 1: thing in the morning with a chimney sweep, and the
Speaker 1: woman of the house Mrs Tottenham, had not ordered to sweep,
Speaker 1: and so that person was sent away, and reportedly a
Speaker 1: dozen more chimney sweep showed up not long after. And
Speaker 1: that was just the first of what would be a
Speaker 1: long line of tradesmen who appeared at the house that day.
Speaker 1: According to various accounts, coal wagons showed up, bakers with
Speaker 1: wedding cakes, dentists, jewelers, wigmakers, midwives, even an undertaker who
Speaker 1: had made a custom coffin for the very alive Mrs Tottenham.
Speaker 1: Furniture began to arrive, couch after couch, and then organs
Speaker 1: and even butchers with massive deliveries of meat that had
Speaker 1: not actually been ordered. Basically, anything one might order for
Speaker 1: delivery had been ordered by Hook as part of the prank,
Speaker 1: and it had been ordered in multiples. The Mayor of
Speaker 1: London and received what he believed to be a letter
Speaker 1: regarding a meeting from Mrs Tottenham, arrived by carriage, although
Speaker 1: by that time the street was already clogged with deliveries
Speaker 1: and onlookers who had gathered to marvel at all these
Speaker 1: comings and goings, and often to mock the various tradespeople
Speaker 1: who were being turned away from the house. The mayor
Speaker 1: was taken to the nearby Marlborough Street Police Office to
Speaker 1: get him out of the crowd to try to contain things.
Speaker 1: Police officers were posted at the street corners to preemptively
Speaker 1: turn deliveries away, and it took until the late evening
Speaker 1: to get the crowd to go home and get the
Speaker 1: street unjammed. This all may have seemed like a really
Speaker 1: funny idea to Hook, but it was actually a big
Speaker 1: issue for a lot of people. The Quarterly Review wrote
Speaker 1: about the incident an outlined just how much damage, far
Speaker 1: beyond mere nuisance, had been done by the prank. Quote.
Speaker 1: Perhaps no assassination, no conspiracy, no royal demise or ministerial
Speaker 1: revolution of recent times was greater godsend to the newspapers
Speaker 1: than this audacious piece of mischief. In Hook's own theatrical world,
Speaker 1: he was instantly suspected, but no sign escaped whither him
Speaker 1: or his confidants. The affair was beyond that circle, a
Speaker 1: serious one. Fierce were the growlings of the doctors and surgeons,
Speaker 1: scores of whom had been cheated a valuable hours. Attorneys,
Speaker 1: teachers of all kinds, hairdressers, tailors, popular preachers, parliamentary philanthropists
Speaker 1: had been alike victimized, and were, in their various notes
Speaker 1: alike vociferous. But the tangible material damage done was itself
Speaker 1: no joking matter. There had been an awful smashing of glass, china, harpsichord,
Speaker 1: and coach panels. Many a horse fell, never to rise again.
Speaker 1: Beer barrels and wine barrels had been overturned and exhausted
Speaker 1: with impunity. Amid the press of countless multitudes, it had
Speaker 1: been a fine field day for pickpockets. There arose a
Speaker 1: fervent hu and cry for the detection of the wholesale
Speaker 1: deceiver and destroyer. That right up was written several decades later,
Speaker 1: and as it indicates, Hook was not immediately identified as
Speaker 1: the hoaxer. He feigned illness for a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: and then went to the country under the guise of
Speaker 1: seeking wellness through fresh air and rest. There was, however,
Speaker 1: a satirical print that was released in eighteen ten that
Speaker 1: hints that people knew it must be Hook's work. There's
Speaker 1: a speech bubble in the picture that has the mayor saying, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a pretty hoax, but I'll find it out
Speaker 1: by hook or by crook, with the word hook capitalized
Speaker 1: like it's a proper name. As the news of this
Speaker 1: hoax hit the press, similar copycat pranks started popping up
Speaker 1: around England and even some in France, and Hook was
Speaker 1: apparently miffed by the imitators and wrote as much as
Speaker 1: his autobiographical but fictional persona Gilbert Gurney, intimating that anyone
Speaker 1: doing the same prank after him as a plagiarist. He
Speaker 1: later wrote, copy the joke, and it ceases to be one.
Speaker 1: Any fool can imitate an example once set. But for
Speaker 1: originality of thought and design, I do think that was perfect. Cook,
Speaker 1: who of course won his bet, does not appear to
Speaker 1: have been sobered by all the trouble that he caused.
Speaker 1: After things blew over and he returned from the country,
Speaker 1: he kept brewing up pranks, including one where he gave
Speaker 1: a well known actor of the day, Romeo Coats forged
Speaker 1: tickets to a lavish party being thrown by the Prince Regent.
Speaker 1: As for Mrs Tottenham, there's not much information on how
Speaker 1: she recovered after what must have really just been an
Speaker 1: exhausting and confusing and infuriating day. I would have said
Speaker 1: something on fire. But the third hoax on our list
Speaker 1: is in fact my favorite, and it is not nearly
Speaker 1: so stressful to think about as the chaos of Berner Street.
Speaker 1: And we will get right to it after we hear
Speaker 1: from the sponsors that keep stuff you missed history class going.
Speaker 1: On April one seven, a short film ran on the
Speaker 1: BBC Current Events show Panorama titled Spaghetti Harvest into Chino.
Speaker 1: It explains how the early spring had resulted in quote
Speaker 1: an exceptionally heavy spaghetti crop into Chino, Switzerland, which is
Speaker 1: right on the border with Italy. According to the segment,
Speaker 1: which ran less than three minutes, quote, the last two
Speaker 1: weeks of March are an anxious time for the spaghetti farmer.
Speaker 1: There's always the chance of a late frost, which, while
Speaker 1: not entirely ruining the crop, generally impairs the flavor and
Speaker 1: makes it difficult for him to obtain top prices in
Speaker 1: world markets. This informative peace continues explaining that Swiss efforts
Speaker 1: at growing spaghetti are quite small compared to a Hallieans
Speaker 1: spaghetti agriculture, and it makes references to the vast spaghetti
Speaker 1: plantations in the po valley of Italy. All of this
Speaker 1: information is conveyed via a voiceover as the camera p
Speaker 1: hands over these idyllic scenes of women harvesting spaghetti from
Speaker 1: the trees, that the spaghetti dangles from the branches before
Speaker 1: it's plucked. The pesky spaghetti evil, according to the narration,
Speaker 1: has disappeared and that has led to a bumper harvest.
Speaker 1: The freshly picked spaghetti is so beautifully uniform, we're told,
Speaker 1: thanks to careful cultivation by skilled growers over a period
Speaker 1: of years. And the voiceover of this short film was
Speaker 1: Richard Dimbleby, the host of Panorama, and he is earnest
Speaker 1: in his delivery throughout. It is very convincing. When Michael Peacock,
Speaker 1: who approved the project, was interviewed about it in he
Speaker 1: told the BBC of Dimbleby quote, he knew perfectly well
Speaker 1: we were using his authority to make the joke work.
Speaker 1: He loved the idea so reviewers convinced that's really a
Speaker 1: mixed bag. The phones at the BBC started to ring
Speaker 1: as soon as the segment finished. Some people seemed to
Speaker 1: want to correct them, to explain that spaghetti did not
Speaker 1: grow on trees. Some viewers clearly did get the joke.
Speaker 1: There were occasional family arguments that had people calling the
Speaker 1: network to settle the matter about whether it was real
Speaker 1: or a hoax. Some people just thought it was in
Speaker 1: poor taste that a news program would run any sort
Speaker 1: of fake story, and a handful reportedly wanted to know
Speaker 1: if there was somewhere they could purchase spaghetti trees. Eventually,
Speaker 1: somebody had the idea to have the operators at the
Speaker 1: BBC continue the joke, with gullible collars telling people who
Speaker 1: wanted their own spaghetti tree to place a sprig of
Speaker 1: spaghetti into a tomato sauce tin and quote hope for
Speaker 1: the best. If I were a kid and I was
Speaker 1: told that by an operator at the BBC, I would
Speaker 1: want be doing it. This project was so well produced
Speaker 1: that even the Director General of the BBC, Sir Ian Jacob,
Speaker 1: was momentarily astounded to learn that spaghetti grew on trees.
Speaker 1: As the story goes his wife quickly set him straight
Speaker 1: on that matter, although they did turn to a reference book,
Speaker 1: the Encyclopedia Britannica, to settle the matter. It turns out,
Speaker 1: though there was no entry for spaghetti at that time,
Speaker 1: the segment and viewers reactions to it really made news
Speaker 1: around the world. One of the most negative ride ups
Speaker 1: Holly found appeared in Alberta, Canada's Calgary Harold under the
Speaker 1: headline frightening joke. In this column, writer Jack Stepler takes
Speaker 1: a very alarmous tone, stating quote, but what is disturbing
Speaker 1: is that because Mr Dimblebee delivered a monstrous hope straight faced,
Speaker 1: wrapped it up in plausible sounding discourse about the tribulations
Speaker 1: of a spaghetti farmer, and fortified it with a faked film,
Speaker 1: a large number of people did take it seriously, and
Speaker 1: then goes on to say some pretty racist and zeno
Speaker 1: phobic things, basically along the lines that if Britain's smart
Speaker 1: and informed public can be fooled by such things, how
Speaker 1: can less educated people in other countries ever discern truth
Speaker 1: from fiction, especially when it's delivered in such a serious manner,
Speaker 1: And then goes on to compare this prank to the
Speaker 1: quote hit Larry in formula of telling a big enough
Speaker 1: lie and telling it often enough to be believed. Steppler
Speaker 1: sort of sums it up in a way that's part
Speaker 1: people need to be critical thinkers and part trusted newspeople
Speaker 1: should never give prank news. Yeah, it struck me as
Speaker 1: a little startling that he went right for a Hitler comparison.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, it wasn't like they aired this over
Speaker 1: and over to try to convince anybody. It was like
Speaker 1: two minutes and forty seconds one right, and look at
Speaker 1: the date, right, And they did. At the end of
Speaker 1: it mentioned like that's the news from April one. So
Speaker 1: you may be wondering how such a project that ended
Speaker 1: up being a bit controversial was hatched at a well
Speaker 1: respected show. Apparently, during one of the team's meetings earlier
Speaker 1: that year, they had noticed that April Fool's Day was
Speaker 1: going to fall on a Monday. That was the day
Speaker 1: of the week that Panorama aired, and a contract cameraman
Speaker 1: from Austrian named Charles de Yeager had the idea. He
Speaker 1: later claimed it was based on a teacher who used
Speaker 1: to tell the class that they were so stupid they'd
Speaker 1: believe that spaghetti grows on trees. He was already scheduled
Speaker 1: to go on a shoot in Switzerland, so he pitched
Speaker 1: this as something that they could easily do on the cheap,
Speaker 1: and so he was given a budget of one hundred
Speaker 1: pounds by the show's editor, Michael Peacock, and off di
Speaker 1: Yeager went. So this fake harvest required twenty pounds of
Speaker 1: uncooked spaghetti. So you may hear that he used cooked spaghetti.
Speaker 1: If you have only ever used dry spaghetti in the
Speaker 1: box from the grocery store, that maybe the only thing
Speaker 1: that makes sense to you. But there was no way
Speaker 1: for cooked spaghetti to stay off the branches of the trees.
Speaker 1: It's very slippery. It would just slide off. So they
Speaker 1: used freshly made but uncooked spaghetti. It was still flexible
Speaker 1: enough to hang gracefully from the trees, but it had
Speaker 1: enough surface texture left that it just did slide right
Speaker 1: off there. But it also meant that it had to
Speaker 1: be kept just moist enough throughout the shoot, so as
Speaker 1: they prepped different angles, they would keep this spaghetti damp
Speaker 1: between damp cloths. Yeah, if you've ever handled like fresh pasta,
Speaker 1: you know it's got some bendinus to it, but it
Speaker 1: does pretty quickly start to harden up and not be
Speaker 1: quite so pliable. So and it's definitely not like when
Speaker 1: you try to scoop out your spaghetti that's been cooked
Speaker 1: and it just slides through your serving utensil. Yes, Lake Lugano,
Speaker 1: on the border between Italy and Switzerland was the location
Speaker 1: for the shoot and locals were asked to harvest the spaghetti.
Speaker 1: They also got dressed in like Swiss national costume. They
Speaker 1: carefully draped it into wicker baskets like any other harvested
Speaker 1: tree fruit might be handled, and then they staged a
Speaker 1: drying setup where these quote freshly picked noodles are left
Speaker 1: in the sun. There is also, of course a scene
Speaker 1: at the end of this mini documentary showing the people
Speaker 1: enjoying their harvest, and that was actually also the cast
Speaker 1: and crew wrap meal, which they filmed to use in
Speaker 1: the final production once the footage was back at the BBC.
Speaker 1: Producer David Wheeler wrote the script for it. Like Peacocky
Speaker 1: credited Richard Dimbleby with being the most valuable asset they
Speaker 1: had and pulling off this stunt. In two thousand four,
Speaker 1: he said quote he had enough gravitas to float an
Speaker 1: aircraft carrier. Although the reaction had been mixed and had
Speaker 1: perhaps made some of their viewers feel foolish, the people
Speaker 1: involved have pointed out in several different interviews over the
Speaker 1: years that this was a time when fresh spaghetti was
Speaker 1: really only just being introduced to most households in Britain,
Speaker 1: and really kind of pasta in general. Up to that point,
Speaker 1: camp spaghetti was kind of the most common way of
Speaker 1: family of of British aisles might encounter it, so maybe
Speaker 1: they didn't know where it came from. Despite the whole
Speaker 1: dust up around it, Sir Ian Jacob wrote to Diegger
Speaker 1: to congratulate him, quote, The spaghetti Harvest was a splendid
Speaker 1: idea beautifully shot and organized. This item has caused a
Speaker 1: great deal of delight one way at another. Over the years,
Speaker 1: the hoax has been revisited by the BBC as one
Speaker 1: of the earliest examples of television pranking, and often coverage
Speaker 1: of it has included interviews with some of the people involved,
Speaker 1: some of which we've quoted here. In two thousand four,
Speaker 1: when he was interviewed about the prank as Like a
Speaker 1: Look Back, producer David Wheeler said quote We were criticized
Speaker 1: for doing it, but I had no regrets about it
Speaker 1: at all. I think it was a good idea for
Speaker 1: people to be aware they couldn't believe everything they saw
Speaker 1: on the television, and that they ought to adopt a
Speaker 1: slightly critical attitude to it. And I chose that one
Speaker 1: because it seemed germane to our lives today. Uh. And
Speaker 1: having worked on the internet since what two thousand and
Speaker 1: three or something like that, uh, and having seen the
Speaker 1: long arc of companies writing fake April fools Day articles
Speaker 1: and making fake April Fool's Day products, I feel like
Speaker 1: that's fallen off a little bit, right in more recent years,
Speaker 1: people got kind of tired of it. There's still some
Speaker 1: places that have, like they're tried in true April Fool's
Speaker 1: Day events that people seem to still enjoy. But this
Speaker 1: is an example of that that's a little earlier then,
Speaker 1: you know. I imagine it from my own time working
Speaker 1: for a website. Yeah. I mean this is sometimes pointed
Speaker 1: to you as being like the first televised prank. Not
Speaker 1: everyone in Great Britain had TVs at the time. The
Speaker 1: estimated viewership wasn't the millions though, so it was a
Speaker 1: significant number of people. But yeah, it's um at that point,
Speaker 1: maybe they had not come to that idea that like
Speaker 1: we should question things that show up on television. And
Speaker 1: I will say, you can find it online. It's really
Speaker 1: easy to find this footage. If not for the absurd
Speaker 1: subject matter, you had a percent believe that it was
Speaker 1: a documentary. It's filmed so perfectly. Nothing about it reads
Speaker 1: as campy as at all. It's definitely very much like
Speaker 1: played as straight as convey. So I suppose if you
Speaker 1: were not familiar with the production of pasta and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe had had only been watching that news
Speaker 1: program for a bit and trusted it completely, maybe I
Speaker 1: would be listen. If there were a Spighetti tree, I'd
Speaker 1: buy it. Spaghetti squash is good, but not quite as delicious,
Speaker 1: I'd be in. Uh, since I wanted to go with
Speaker 1: silly things for this one, I I'm going to the
Speaker 1: very lighthearted listener mail, which is brief from our listener.
Speaker 1: I don't know if she pronounces it Andrea or Andrea,
Speaker 1: but she writes high Holly and Tracy. I have been
Speaker 1: a joyful listener of the podcast for a couple of
Speaker 1: years now. A few episodes ago Holly mentioned that she
Speaker 1: would love to stop the Haunted Mansion ride in the
Speaker 1: ballroom scene. I have just returned from a visit to
Speaker 1: Disney World, and believe it or not, the ride came
Speaker 1: to a halt in the ballroom. I instantly leaned forward
Speaker 1: to take in the whole room for several seconds before
Speaker 1: the ride started to move again. I then told my spouse,
Speaker 1: who was writing with me, that Holly from MS in
Speaker 1: History would be so jealous. Thank you for the wonderful content.
Speaker 1: Keep up the good work. Thanks Andrea Um. I'm so
Speaker 1: happy for you because it has happened to me a
Speaker 1: few times. It did happen recently. There's something so spectacular
Speaker 1: about stopping right there. Also, if you are ever in
Speaker 1: the one in Anaheim and you get stopped in the ballroom,
Speaker 1: take a look at the giant glass that creates the
Speaker 1: Peppers ghost illusion. On the left side of it, there
Speaker 1: is a tiny spot where there's like a tarantula placed
Speaker 1: over it. And I am not reporting this as fact
Speaker 1: because I don't know for sure, but the lore is
Speaker 1: that someone actually had managed to fire a weapon in
Speaker 1: there at some point and put a tiny hole in
Speaker 1: the glass which is covered with that Spider if anyone,
Speaker 1: if anyone in the Disney family knows the truth and
Speaker 1: wants to share it, please do. But that is the
Speaker 1: lord that has always perked up around it. Um, and
Speaker 1: it's over by the Duellists, So it gives me some
Speaker 1: question marks about that. Perhaps it's all a setup so
Speaker 1: that we'll believe the dualists can actually shoot real projectiles. Um.
Speaker 1: I hope not because that would be terrifying. But in
Speaker 1: any case, UM, yeah, I hope everyone has a magical
Speaker 1: Haunt and Mansion ballroom moment, whether that's in the ball
Speaker 1: room or not. And if you are the type of
Speaker 1: person who plays practical jokes atleways be sensible and kind.
Speaker 1: That's my finish for today. If you would like to
Speaker 1: write to us, you can do so at History Podcast
Speaker 1: at iHeart radio dot com. You can also find us
Speaker 1: anywhere on social media as Missed in History And if
Speaker 1: you would like to subscribe to our podcast, you can
Speaker 1: do that and we would love it if you would.
Speaker 1: You can do that on the iHeart radio app or
Speaker 1: anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. M Stuff you
Speaker 1: Missed in History Class is a production of i Heart Radio.
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