I was involved in several pranks during my radio years and like RA says, some worked and some didn't. The worst one I was involved in took place many years ago in southern Saskatchewan. The two lazy idiots who hosted our morning show couldn't be bothered to come up with a prank that at least had a semblance of logic, so the night before April 1st, they came up with the idea that the clocks had inexplicably gone back one hour, even though Saskatchewan had never implemented daylight savings time. The next morning, the phones began ringing off the hook with people complaining about the radio telling them the wrong time and they were now late for school, work, appointments, etc. Since the jocks hadn't bothered to inform us in the news department about the switch, we couldn't come up with a plausible explanation and had to endure the rage of callers when we explained it was just an "April Fools prank." The station manager called the two morning idiots into his office when he got there and read them the riot act. They issued the standard non-apology ("we're sorry if we inadvertently confused anyone....") on the next day's show, but it was whispered in the hallways that we'd lost some ads from local businesses as a result of their foolishness.

Any other April Fools' jokes gone wrong in your broadcasting history?

BTW, I love Walter's contribution to the April Fools' Day theme with his comments on the carbon tax. Hilarious stuff as he pretends to huff and puff about the "official party line" and how the tax on CO2 emissions doesn't "reduce pollution." It's a good thing we all know its April Fools' Day and he's just trying to pull a fast one on us, right?

[url=https://ecofiscal.ca/2024/03/26/open-letter-carbon-pricing/#:~:text=What%20the%20evidence%20shows%3A%20Not,policies%20were%20also%20at%20work.]More than 200 economists endorse the carbon tax as cost-efficient and effective[/url]

Last edited by BowmanvilleBob (April 1, 2024 9:06 am)

Some may think that the oddest, maybe even the cruelest  April Fool's Joke, was on this date in 1968.  April 1st was the day that the Board of Broadcast Governors or BBG became the Canadian Radio Television Commission and the new Broadcasting Act took effect.  Pierre Juneau was appointed the first chairman of the new CRTC. 

One of my favourites was the time BBC World Service led off the newscast with the news that Big Ben was to be replaced by a digital clock.

I also remember the time the Toronto Star published a story saying a project was afoot to add length to the CN Tower by cutting the top off and adding a piece to it by helicopter.  The article even had a serious looking diagram of how the piece would be inserted and the top then put back on.