Spaghetti Farming: A 1st of April Tale

On April 1, 1957, the BBC's Richard Dimbleby produced a two-minute segment on “spaghetti harvesting” in Switzerland. Viewers watched spaghetti farmers pull pasta from trees as Dimbleby intoned “There’s nothing like real, home-grown spaghetti.“

Spaghetti is not a widely-eaten food in the UK and is considered by many as an exotic delicacy.

The footage, of course, was fake. But its impact was very real: Hundreds of viewers called the BBC, wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. The network’s response: “Take a sprig of pasta, place it in tomato sauce, and wait.”

April Fool's Day lesson? Corny pranks kill! Or even ones involving elongated rice.