April fool!

From … No Tern Unstoned — Musings at Breakfast, by Tim Bowden, published by ABC Books, 2004:

One of the problems faced by satirists is that there is a grave danger that people will believe the satire — or perhaps that is a plus. I have to plead guilty myself. When I arrived in New York fresh from Asia in 1967 as a correspondent for the ABC, I read with great interest an article in the New York Times by a man called Russell Baker. It was a time of great racial upset, with the black ghettos of Watts and Detroit erupting in fire and violence. Mr Baker put forward a most interesting and ingenious theory in his article, that many of the leading black activists of the day, like Malcolm X and H Rap Brown, were in fact under-cover CIA operatives who performed a useful task — for the white establishment — by whipping up fear and loathing by the outrageous statements they were making, which would in due course rebound on the black Americans they were purporting to represent. Being a new boy I started to work on a current affairs think piece on black unrest, quoting some of Mr Baker’s remarkable claims. Fortunately I showed it to the ABC’s North American manager Charles Buttrose before sending it off. Charlie was not only well informed on American politics, but he was also an ex-journo. He gently pointed out to me that Russell Baker was one of America’s foremost political satirists. It was a close call for a new chum.

Despite the fact that the first of April should cause the general public to be wary of unusual stories, there is a long tradition of public gullibility. The most oft-quoted April Fools hoax was pulled off by the usually serious and sage BBC television program Panorama in 1957. The BBC reported that due to the successful control of the rampaging spaghetti weevil by the Swiss, the land locked country was enjoying a bumper spaghetti harvest, to the delight of nearby Italy. Black and white footage showed Swiss rural workers gathering the strands of pasta from heavily laden spaghetti trees, and piling them carefully into large wicker baskets. The prank was brilliantly successful. Some people even rang the Corporation to ask whether they could grow their own spaghetti trees. The BBC said they could, by placing a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hoping for the best.

Innovative furphies

Since then there have been other brilliant and innovative furphies perpetrated in many lands on April the First, and anyone wishing to find out more can find them easily on the web. I was surprised to find no reference there to Bob Cure, surely one of the most successful hoax hatchers of all time on Australian radio. Let me remedy that omission. Bob Cure hosted the ABC’s breakfast program on 7ZR in Hobart for some thirty years. I’ve heard second-hand stories about his April Fools Day pranks over the years, and contacted him recently to get the real story. And I’m glad I did.

During the 1960s the Queen and Prince Phillip visited Australia. Capitalising on Tasmanians keen interest in the British royal family, Cure was able to tell his listeners on April the first that, although the Queen had returned to England, Prince Phillip had stayed on to visit some friends in Tasmania. This was sheer nonsense, and straight out of Cure’s head. He told his listeners that Prince Phillip had expressed a desire to take a last look at Tasmania from his departing Royal Flight, and that Tasmanians could show their loyalty and affection by going outside and waving anything that was brightly coloured.

The Prince’s aircraft, said Cure, was painted royal blue and therefore difficult to pick up against the sky, but people would probably hear the throb of the engines after he’d passed over. His flight plan would take him first over Smithton, then Queenstown, Hobart and finally Launceston. During his breakfast show, Bob Cure alerted the residents of these towns and cities when to wave. Bob said he didn’t have a clue whether he was getting any response, but such was the royal fervour of Tasmanians that reports started coming in of whole hillsides full of loyal subjects enthusiastically waving handkerchiefs, tea towels and table-cloths. Some people, said Bob, actually claimed they saw Prince Phillip wave back!

Metric time

The 1960s was also when Australians were forced to adopt metric measurements — and forced is the operative word because we had an unbelievably draconian Decimal Currency Board that even banned tape measures and rulers with feet and inches on one side, and centimetres and metres on the other. When April the first came around Bob had the brilliant idea of announcing the introduction of metric time to get rid of that inconvenient twelve hours and sixty minutes and seconds routine. Chron Time he called it. Listeners were told that the government had delivered cardboard clock faces, which they should get from their letterboxes, and paste the new metric system over their old clock faces.

Mel Blanc, the man who did the Bugs Bunny voice among cartoon characters, died in 1989 and Bob announced auditions for a replacement. He gave out a telephone number — actually it belonged to one of his listeners he said had it coming to him — and suggested callers give their names and number in a Bugs Bunny voice. This would be recorded and sent to Hollywood, and fame and fortune awaited the successful candidate.

On one First of April morning Bob mused about the Australian expeditioners in Antarctica who were missing their football and cricket. It had been found, said Bob, that grass could actually grow in Antarctica if it had a couple of inches of soil. He asked his listeners to dig up a brick sized chunk of their lawns and put it outside their front gate to be collected by a council truck, so it could be sent south. A reporter from the Hobart Mercury rang Bob to say what a stupid idea that was — who would fall for it? And then he confessed that he saw his wife through the window, digging out a piece of their lawn.

Quality stuff Bob. They should bring you back on ABC airwaves each year just for April Fools Day. But that would be a dead giveaway I suppose. On second thoughts, considering your track record, maybe not!

Tim Bowden
Pacific Palms NSW