December 1, 2021 • 35 mins
Today we have a series of prank stories that aren’t quite substantial enough to be their own episodes. We’ve got a joke that became a living legend, a large-scale prank that created havoc, and a televised hoax that reminds us all of the importance of critical thinking.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So, uh,
not too long ago, Tracy, I was looking up another
possible episode, which will go nameless in case it comes up,
(00:23):
because I still might do it. Um. I stumbled across
a list of historical pranks and hoaxes, and we've covered
some of those before, but some of these were new
to me, and it got me thinking about such things
and whether any one of them might make another good episode.
But really, the ones I was most interested in are
a little bit shy of having enough information to be
(00:44):
an episode all their own. So today I grouped a
few together. If you were listening, you may be wondering,
why not hold this until April Fool's Day? That seems
like a perfect match, and it is. But here's the answer.
That's twofold. One. I just didn't want to um. I
didn't feel like if I'm interested in something, I tend
to want to do it usually right then, and if
(01:04):
I wait, my interest may wane, and then where will
we be? Uh? And Two, I will confess to everyone
now I'm not the biggest fan of April Fool's Day.
Here's why. It's a little bit of a snooty thing.
It always feels a little bit like an amateur hour
of irritation pranks. I don't like that. Um, Which is
(01:26):
not to say all pranks are bad, because some of
them are very clever and legitimately fun. And there are
things that happen on April Fool's Day that some people
do that I really love. But two of the ones
we're covering today are actually pretty delightful, and one was
in April Fool's prank. One of the ones that we're
talking about today would have left me in a full
blown rage if I had been a part of it.
(01:47):
But all of these pranks are fairly legendary, and they're
all quite different. Uh So you're going to get a
smattering of things. So we've got a joke that kind
of became a living legend, we have a large scale
prank that created complete havoc, and we have a televised
hoax that reminds us all of the importance of critical thinking.
(02:07):
So first of these three. On January at Brown University,
a notice was posted on the university Hall bulletin board
that advertised an upcoming lecture, and here is what it said.
On Thursday evening at eight fifteen and Sales Hall, J. S.
Carberry will give a lecture on Archaic Greek architectural revetments
(02:33):
in connection with Ionian philology. For tickets and further information
applied to Professor John Spaith. So this was the birth
of a prank, seemingly with no end. From the beginning,
there were doubters as to the identity and credentials of
JS Carberry. Upon seeing this lecture flyer. One of Professor
(02:55):
space colleagues, Professor Ben Klow, is said to have inserted
the word not into the text so that it read
Carberry will not give a lecture. We should note here
too that even in the documentation that you can find
at Brown University, sometimes the word philology in the lecture
title is listed as though it said phonology. Klow, which
(03:16):
is also a name I've heard people say as Clough.
Because there's lots of ways to say things. Followed up
with Professor Space to ask him what this was all about,
and Spaith had loads of details about Carberry to share
with this doubter. Carberry was a professor of psycho ceramics
the study of cracked pots. He had a wife named Laura,
(03:38):
who was described as ungrammatical, and two daughters, Patricia and Lois.
Patricia was a poet and Lois hunted puffins. There was
even an assistant in the mix to fill out this
story that was a Truman Grayson, who was prone to
accidents and being bitten by things that begin with the
letter A. This all just sounds like a description from
(03:59):
a children's book to me. Yeah, it's all very silly
right out of the gate. And clearly this was all
just a bit of fun. But unlike the other pranks
on today's show, Josiah story did not fade or blow over.
It grew, it became further embellished, and it became a
twentieth century legend. Of course, because of that legendary status,
(04:19):
the Carberry story has not only grown, but it has
also developed some inconsistencies over the years. For example, his
birthday may have been in eighteen twenty, his career may
have started in eighteen five. Both of those milestones have
at times been attributed instead to that year that the
flyer first appeared in University Hall nine in May of
(04:42):
nineteen twenty nine, the school paper reported that Carberry, who
at that time was referred to as an expert in
Hindo Jerramic pottery, was going to the Southwestern Arkansas Normal
Institute as a loaner from Brown University. Carberry has had
a number of titles attached to his name, but the
one that sticks the most is Professor of psycho Ceramics. Yeah,
(05:07):
depending on what you look at, you'll see him listed
in a variety of different ways. It's usually always related
to pottery and some form or another. Over the years,
there have been a great many lectures that Josiah S.
Carberry was scheduled to deliver, only to have some conflict
arise to prevent the presentation. But there has always been
a very good reason for such cancelations. Primarily that reason
(05:29):
was his world travels to places allegedly like Turkey, Hawaii,
or Mongolia that would keep him away. But travels are
no It seems that Carberry, whose middle name is apparently Stinkney,
manages to be ever present at Brown in one way
or another. Over the years, his family has produced a
great deal of correspondence and placed so many notices about
(05:52):
their various doings in the paper that the Providence Journal
banned them completely. Yeah, there's apparently a kill order that
if the name Carburry comes up not to run it
like it's not real, like maybeing like no more coin
hords except as are real. In Carberry sent a check
from his travels abroad in the amount of one one
(06:14):
dollars and one cent, and the accompanying missive indicated that
that money was intended to set up a memorial fund
for his quote future late wife, which should be named
not after her, but should be called the Josiah S.
Carberry Fund. That one one dollar and one cent was
seed money. In receiving it, the university had to agree
(06:35):
to establish a donation drive every Friday and every leap
day of February twenty nine, where anyone could donate their
loose change into Brown jugs to add to the fund.
That money was to be used to purchase books that
the good Professor might or might not approve of. It
has been used to purchase things. You can find a
list of them the Brown University Library site. In Carberry
(06:59):
also wrote a cookbook, The Carberry Cookbook From Nuts to Soup.
It includes contributions from other people, but he was the
primary editor, and the proceeds of that were also to
go to the Carberry Fund. It contained recipes for such
delights as chocolate ice box pie, shrimp in beer, and
stuffed camel and boiled water. Chocolate ice box pie is
(07:24):
a real thing, yes, and that came from a contributor.
Shrimp and beer is that. You can find that recipe
online and it's basically like dumb shrimp and beer, all right,
So that donation. The following year, an article titled Josiah S. Carberry,
(07:45):
the Professor and the Legend appeared in the Brown Daily Herald,
and in it the return address of this famed initial
donation to the Carberry Fund was exposed as being the
New Hampshire State Liquor Store. So these Carberry mysteries continue. Yeah,
there are so many that we're not gonna list here,
but imagine more such things happening over the years. And
(08:09):
over the years, Carberry's name has appeared on a number
of academic papers, and it has been mentioned in a
variety of magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times,
which claimed he was the world's greatest traveler. His books
have been cited in the footnotes of other books. Sixteen
minutes ran a segment on Carberry. That's right, sixteen, not sixty.
(08:31):
It is a very artful spoof of the sixty minutes
story style produced by the Brown Club of Rhode Island
and friends of Brown University Library. And that particular piece
is full of very fun Carberry lore, including the information
that there have even been allegedly financial concerns over the
mysterious faculty member, particularly whether he may have been added
(08:53):
to the payroll at some point in time. In two
thousand five, a letter from Carberry appeared in the Brown
Daily Herald under the pleading headline make me Famous Again Brown.
He relates that he's on a fishing trawler out of Russia,
sifting through pottery shards that the crew pulls up while
they quest after a mythical whale. But despite a lot
(09:15):
of chatter, his real aim really seems to be securing
his legacy by making sure that the Carberry sandwich, which
at that point has two chicken patties on it, is
upgraded with a third patty. You may worry about his fame,
he has incidentally never been photographed with his face visible. Carberry,
it appears, is either immortal or merely blessed with both
(09:38):
longevity and vitality. It seems like as long as his
name lives on, it's going to stay that way. Before
we jump into our next story, which is a very
ambitious prank, we will take a break and have a
word from our sponsors. So for this next one, the
(10:02):
street that the hoax took place in is what gives
it its name, and that was at fifty Burner Street,
London on November ten, starting at five am, Burner Street
became so overrun with visitors and deliveries to the residents
there that the entire street became grid locked, and the
blocks surrounding the address were also jammed to the point
(10:24):
that passage was impossible. And that whole mess was the
result of a hoax, a hoax that started with a bet.
So a quick note on the dates here right ups
about this from the eighteen forties have put this hoax
as happening in the year eighteen o nine. You'll see
that repeated a lot, but searching through newspaper archives online,
(10:47):
all the contemporary write ups about it are from eighteen ten.
And the architect of this whole thing was a man
named Theodore Edward Hook. Hook was born on September, so
he was eventy two at the time of the Burners
Street hoax. His father was composer James Hook, and Theodore
was the second son born to James and his first wife.
(11:10):
Theodore's brother, James, was eighteen years old when Theodore was born,
and their mother died when Theodore was still fairly young.
Some accounts place her death in eighteen o two, that
means he would have been right around fourteen. He was
sent to a seminary school while he was still a boy,
but he was very precocious there. At one point, it
was discovered he had skipped three full weeks of school,
(11:32):
and although he eventually found that he really enjoyed writing,
he never really did like school no matter which one
he went to, and wrote later in his life quote,
my school life was not a happy one. I was
idle and careless of my tasks. I had no aptitude
for learning languages. I hated Greek and absolutely shuddered at Hebrew.
I fancied myself a genius, and anything that could be
(11:53):
done in a hurry I did tolerably well, but application
I had not. Even when his father arranged for Theodore
to attend Oxford with the intent that he would become
a lawyer. Theodore almost tanked the whole thing by making
jokes during the entrance ceremony that infuriated the chancellor. This
was more or less how he conducted his life, and
(12:15):
he became a well known writer and wit. As writer J.
Murray put it in eighteen forty three, quote, he carried
the spirit of rebellious frolic with him. And we're giving
you all this biographical information to set up who the
sort of person was he would pull this particular type
of involved prank. In the book The Lives of Wits
(12:37):
and Humorists, written in eighteen sixty two, author John Tims
put it this way, quote, Sheridan, as we have seen
in the present volume, had a great taste, we may
say constructive skill in hoaxing, but he is far exceeded
by Hook. He was known to do things like order
a coach with a friend and then stage a fight
(12:58):
as they got close to their destinations, so that he
would jump out of the coach and leave his friend
to pay the fair. He did a lot of fair dumping,
has jokes. Yeah, I don't think I don't think that's
so funny, right, let's stick your friends with the bill
as a joke. Over and over he did a lot
of that, um, you know, humor subjective. One day in November, Hook,
(13:22):
it said, was strolling down Burner Street with a friend
and noticed a house which is described in accounts as
quote particularly neat and modest in appearance. It belonged to
a shopkeeper's widow. And for some reason Hook got an idea,
and he is said to have turned to his friend
and said, quote, I lay you a guinea that in
(13:43):
one week, that nice, quiet dwelling shall be the most
famous in all London. When his friends took the bet,
Hook went into action to make sure he would win it.
Over the next four or five days, Thomas Hook wrote
a thousand pieces of correspondence. These were orders to all
manner of tradesmen stating the need for services, all of
(14:03):
them to be scheduled on November, and all in a
short period of hours. Some were written to public officials
and socially prominent Londoners requesting that they call on the
address on the morning of November, all on some important
matter or another, depending on what Hook thought would most
(14:24):
entice the recipient to show up. For example, one note
which was reported in the papers. Read quote, Mrs Tottenham
requests Mr Blank will call upon her at two tomorrow
as she wishes to consult him about the sale of
an estate. Yeah. Presumably those names were left out so
(14:44):
that people would not be harangued for having fallen for
this very silly prank. And in addition to sending all
of those missives out, Hook rented a room across the
street from Mrs Tottenham's and sat with two of his
friends watching the whole thing play out. There are some
inconsistencies with this story right out of the gate, because
(15:05):
Hook himself wrote about it, but it's not known what
degree of license he took with the material. In his version.
For example, he says that this happened in eighteen o nine,
and he indicated that he and his friends had worked
out the plan over a longer period than just a week.
But the question that never gets answered in any account
(15:26):
is why Hook selected that particular house. There's been some
speculation that he had some kind of disagreement with Mrs
Tottenham or that one of his friends did, but there's
also precedent in his behavior that he just did a
lot of things with no specific motivation. At all. It's
entirely possible that he saw what looked like the most
(15:46):
boring house on the street and he decided that was
a challenge. Now, we mentioned at the beginning of this
story that this shut down all passage in the area,
and that cannot have been a surprise. Hook knew the
the nature of the street layout was going to cause
a jam because there were not as many connecting points
in the city at that time that would allow you
(16:07):
to pass through. So, according to an eight forty three
right up of the affair at the time quote, Oxford
Road was not approachable either from Westminster or Mayfair or
the city otherwise than through a complicated series of lanes.
It may be feebly and a far off guest what
the crash and jam and tumult of that day was.
(16:27):
That's because Burner Street kind of connected up to Oxford.
It was one of the few connections, and in fact,
Hook himself later estimated that this whole thing had impacted
about a quarter of the town and short it was
an abysmal mess. The Morning Post ran a story about
what had happened the next day, opening with a line
(16:47):
that must surely have delighted Theodore Hook. Quote. The greatest
hoax that has ever been heard of in this metropolis
was yesterday practiced in Berner Street, Oxford Street. The paper
described a dozen deliveries, all arriving at once, and that's
really like the light version, because this did start first
thing in the morning with a chimney sweep, and the
(17:09):
woman of the house Mrs Tottenham, had not ordered to sweep,
and so that person was sent away, and reportedly a
dozen more chimney sweep showed up not long after. And
that was just the first of what would be a
long line of tradesmen who appeared at the house that day.
According to various accounts, coal wagons showed up, bakers with
(17:29):
wedding cakes, dentists, jewelers, wigmakers, midwives, even an undertaker who
had made a custom coffin for the very alive Mrs Tottenham.
Furniture began to arrive, couch after couch, and then organs
and even butchers with massive deliveries of meat that had
not actually been ordered. Basically, anything one might order for
(17:52):
delivery had been ordered by Hook as part of the prank,
and it had been ordered in multiples. The Mayor of
London and received what he believed to be a letter
regarding a meeting from Mrs Tottenham, arrived by carriage, although
by that time the street was already clogged with deliveries
and onlookers who had gathered to marvel at all these
(18:13):
comings and goings, and often to mock the various tradespeople
who were being turned away from the house. The mayor
was taken to the nearby Marlborough Street Police Office to
get him out of the crowd to try to contain things.
Police officers were posted at the street corners to preemptively
turn deliveries away, and it took until the late evening
to get the crowd to go home and get the
(18:35):
street unjammed. This all may have seemed like a really
funny idea to Hook, but it was actually a big
issue for a lot of people. The Quarterly Review wrote
about the incident an outlined just how much damage, far
beyond mere nuisance, had been done by the prank. Quote.
Perhaps no assassination, no conspiracy, no royal demise or ministerial
(18:55):
revolution of recent times was greater godsend to the newspapers
than this audacious piece of mischief. In Hook's own theatrical world,
he was instantly suspected, but no sign escaped whither him
or his confidants. The affair was beyond that circle, a
serious one. Fierce were the growlings of the doctors and surgeons,
(19:17):
scores of whom had been cheated a valuable hours. Attorneys,
teachers of all kinds, hairdressers, tailors, popular preachers, parliamentary philanthropists
had been alike victimized, and were, in their various notes
alike vociferous. But the tangible material damage done was itself
no joking matter. There had been an awful smashing of glass, china, harpsichord,
(19:42):
and coach panels. Many a horse fell, never to rise again.
Beer barrels and wine barrels had been overturned and exhausted
with impunity. Amid the press of countless multitudes, it had
been a fine field day for pickpockets. There arose a
fervent hu and cry for the detection of the wholesale
(20:02):
deceiver and destroyer. That right up was written several decades later,
and as it indicates, Hook was not immediately identified as
the hoaxer. He feigned illness for a couple of weeks
and then went to the country under the guise of
seeking wellness through fresh air and rest. There was, however,
a satirical print that was released in eighteen ten that
(20:25):
hints that people knew it must be Hook's work. There's
a speech bubble in the picture that has the mayor saying, oh,
this is a pretty hoax, but I'll find it out
by hook or by crook, with the word hook capitalized
like it's a proper name. As the news of this
hoax hit the press, similar copycat pranks started popping up
(20:46):
around England and even some in France, and Hook was
apparently miffed by the imitators and wrote as much as
his autobiographical but fictional persona Gilbert Gurney, intimating that anyone
doing the same prank after him as a plagiarist. He
later wrote, copy the joke, and it ceases to be one.
Any fool can imitate an example once set. But for
(21:07):
originality of thought and design, I do think that was perfect. Cook,
who of course won his bet, does not appear to
have been sobered by all the trouble that he caused.
After things blew over and he returned from the country,
he kept brewing up pranks, including one where he gave
a well known actor of the day, Romeo Coats forged
(21:28):
tickets to a lavish party being thrown by the Prince Regent.
As for Mrs Tottenham, there's not much information on how
she recovered after what must have really just been an
exhausting and confusing and infuriating day. I would have said
something on fire. But the third hoax on our list
(21:50):
is in fact my favorite, and it is not nearly
so stressful to think about as the chaos of Berner Street.
And we will get right to it after we hear
from the sponsors that keep stuff you missed history class going.
(22:10):
On April one seven, a short film ran on the
BBC Current Events show Panorama titled Spaghetti Harvest into Chino.
It explains how the early spring had resulted in quote
an exceptionally heavy spaghetti crop into Chino, Switzerland, which is
right on the border with Italy. According to the segment,
which ran less than three minutes, quote, the last two
(22:32):
weeks of March are an anxious time for the spaghetti farmer.
There's always the chance of a late frost, which, while
not entirely ruining the crop, generally impairs the flavor and
makes it difficult for him to obtain top prices in
world markets. This informative peace continues explaining that Swiss efforts
at growing spaghetti are quite small compared to a Hallieans
(22:56):
spaghetti agriculture, and it makes references to the vast spaghetti
plantations in the po valley of Italy. All of this
information is conveyed via a voiceover as the camera p
hands over these idyllic scenes of women harvesting spaghetti from
the trees, that the spaghetti dangles from the branches before
it's plucked. The pesky spaghetti evil, according to the narration,
(23:21):
has disappeared and that has led to a bumper harvest.
The freshly picked spaghetti is so beautifully uniform, we're told,
thanks to careful cultivation by skilled growers over a period
of years. And the voiceover of this short film was
Richard Dimbleby, the host of Panorama, and he is earnest
in his delivery throughout. It is very convincing. When Michael Peacock,
(23:45):
who approved the project, was interviewed about it in he
told the BBC of Dimbleby quote, he knew perfectly well
we were using his authority to make the joke work.
He loved the idea so reviewers convinced that's really a
mixed bag. The phones at the BBC started to ring
as soon as the segment finished. Some people seemed to
(24:07):
want to correct them, to explain that spaghetti did not
grow on trees. Some viewers clearly did get the joke.
There were occasional family arguments that had people calling the
network to settle the matter about whether it was real
or a hoax. Some people just thought it was in
poor taste that a news program would run any sort
of fake story, and a handful reportedly wanted to know
(24:31):
if there was somewhere they could purchase spaghetti trees. Eventually,
somebody had the idea to have the operators at the
BBC continue the joke, with gullible collars telling people who
wanted their own spaghetti tree to place a sprig of
spaghetti into a tomato sauce tin and quote hope for
the best. If I were a kid and I was
told that by an operator at the BBC, I would
(24:53):
want be doing it. This project was so well produced
that even the Director General of the BBC, Sir Ian Jacob,
was momentarily astounded to learn that spaghetti grew on trees.
As the story goes his wife quickly set him straight
on that matter, although they did turn to a reference book,
the Encyclopedia Britannica, to settle the matter. It turns out,
(25:16):
though there was no entry for spaghetti at that time,
the segment and viewers reactions to it really made news
around the world. One of the most negative ride ups
Holly found appeared in Alberta, Canada's Calgary Harold under the
headline frightening joke. In this column, writer Jack Stepler takes
(25:36):
a very alarmous tone, stating quote, but what is disturbing
is that because Mr Dimblebee delivered a monstrous hope straight faced,
wrapped it up in plausible sounding discourse about the tribulations
of a spaghetti farmer, and fortified it with a faked film,
a large number of people did take it seriously, and
(25:57):
then goes on to say some pretty racist and zeno
phobic things, basically along the lines that if Britain's smart
and informed public can be fooled by such things, how
can less educated people in other countries ever discern truth
from fiction, especially when it's delivered in such a serious manner,
And then goes on to compare this prank to the
(26:18):
quote hit Larry in formula of telling a big enough
lie and telling it often enough to be believed. Steppler
sort of sums it up in a way that's part
people need to be critical thinkers and part trusted newspeople
should never give prank news. Yeah, it struck me as
a little startling that he went right for a Hitler comparison.
And I'm like, it wasn't like they aired this over
(26:38):
and over to try to convince anybody. It was like
two minutes and forty seconds one right, and look at
the date, right, And they did. At the end of
it mentioned like that's the news from April one. So
you may be wondering how such a project that ended
up being a bit controversial was hatched at a well
(26:59):
respected show. Apparently, during one of the team's meetings earlier
that year, they had noticed that April Fool's Day was
going to fall on a Monday. That was the day
of the week that Panorama aired, and a contract cameraman
from Austrian named Charles de Yeager had the idea. He
later claimed it was based on a teacher who used
to tell the class that they were so stupid they'd
(27:20):
believe that spaghetti grows on trees. He was already scheduled
to go on a shoot in Switzerland, so he pitched
this as something that they could easily do on the cheap,
and so he was given a budget of one hundred
pounds by the show's editor, Michael Peacock, and off di
Yeager went. So this fake harvest required twenty pounds of
uncooked spaghetti. So you may hear that he used cooked spaghetti.
(27:44):
If you have only ever used dry spaghetti in the
box from the grocery store, that maybe the only thing
that makes sense to you. But there was no way
for cooked spaghetti to stay off the branches of the trees.
It's very slippery. It would just slide off. So they
used freshly made but uncooked spaghetti. It was still flexible
(28:05):
enough to hang gracefully from the trees, but it had
enough surface texture left that it just did slide right
off there. But it also meant that it had to
be kept just moist enough throughout the shoot, so as
they prepped different angles, they would keep this spaghetti damp
between damp cloths. Yeah, if you've ever handled like fresh pasta,
(28:26):
you know it's got some bendinus to it, but it
does pretty quickly start to harden up and not be
quite so pliable. So and it's definitely not like when
you try to scoop out your spaghetti that's been cooked
and it just slides through your serving utensil. Yes, Lake Lugano,
on the border between Italy and Switzerland was the location
(28:48):
for the shoot and locals were asked to harvest the spaghetti.
They also got dressed in like Swiss national costume. They
carefully draped it into wicker baskets like any other harvested
tree fruit might be handled, and then they staged a
drying setup where these quote freshly picked noodles are left
in the sun. There is also, of course a scene
(29:08):
at the end of this mini documentary showing the people
enjoying their harvest, and that was actually also the cast
and crew wrap meal, which they filmed to use in
the final production once the footage was back at the BBC.
Producer David Wheeler wrote the script for it. Like Peacocky
credited Richard Dimbleby with being the most valuable asset they
(29:29):
had and pulling off this stunt. In two thousand four,
he said quote he had enough gravitas to float an
aircraft carrier. Although the reaction had been mixed and had
perhaps made some of their viewers feel foolish, the people
involved have pointed out in several different interviews over the
years that this was a time when fresh spaghetti was
(29:50):
really only just being introduced to most households in Britain,
and really kind of pasta in general. Up to that point,
camp spaghetti was kind of the most common way of
family of of British aisles might encounter it, so maybe
they didn't know where it came from. Despite the whole
dust up around it, Sir Ian Jacob wrote to Diegger
to congratulate him, quote, The spaghetti Harvest was a splendid
(30:12):
idea beautifully shot and organized. This item has caused a
great deal of delight one way at another. Over the years,
the hoax has been revisited by the BBC as one
of the earliest examples of television pranking, and often coverage
of it has included interviews with some of the people involved,
some of which we've quoted here. In two thousand four,
(30:32):
when he was interviewed about the prank as Like a
Look Back, producer David Wheeler said quote We were criticized
for doing it, but I had no regrets about it
at all. I think it was a good idea for
people to be aware they couldn't believe everything they saw
on the television, and that they ought to adopt a
slightly critical attitude to it. And I chose that one
(30:53):
because it seemed germane to our lives today. Uh. And
having worked on the internet since what two thousand and
three or something like that, uh, and having seen the
long arc of companies writing fake April fools Day articles
(31:17):
and making fake April Fool's Day products, I feel like
that's fallen off a little bit, right in more recent years,
people got kind of tired of it. There's still some
places that have, like they're tried in true April Fool's
Day events that people seem to still enjoy. But this
is an example of that that's a little earlier then,
(31:37):
you know. I imagine it from my own time working
for a website. Yeah. I mean this is sometimes pointed
to you as being like the first televised prank. Not
everyone in Great Britain had TVs at the time. The
estimated viewership wasn't the millions though, so it was a
significant number of people. But yeah, it's um at that point,
(32:00):
maybe they had not come to that idea that like
we should question things that show up on television. And
I will say, you can find it online. It's really
easy to find this footage. If not for the absurd
subject matter, you had a percent believe that it was
a documentary. It's filmed so perfectly. Nothing about it reads
as campy as at all. It's definitely very much like
(32:21):
played as straight as convey. So I suppose if you
were not familiar with the production of pasta and uh,
you know, maybe had had only been watching that news
program for a bit and trusted it completely, maybe I
would be listen. If there were a Spighetti tree, I'd
buy it. Spaghetti squash is good, but not quite as delicious,
(32:44):
I'd be in. Uh, since I wanted to go with
silly things for this one, I I'm going to the
very lighthearted listener mail, which is brief from our listener.
I don't know if she pronounces it Andrea or Andrea,
but she writes high Holly and Tracy. I have been
a joyful listener of the podcast for a couple of
(33:05):
years now. A few episodes ago Holly mentioned that she
would love to stop the Haunted Mansion ride in the
ballroom scene. I have just returned from a visit to
Disney World, and believe it or not, the ride came
to a halt in the ballroom. I instantly leaned forward
to take in the whole room for several seconds before
the ride started to move again. I then told my spouse,
who was writing with me, that Holly from MS in
(33:25):
History would be so jealous. Thank you for the wonderful content.
Keep up the good work. Thanks Andrea Um. I'm so
happy for you because it has happened to me a
few times. It did happen recently. There's something so spectacular
about stopping right there. Also, if you are ever in
the one in Anaheim and you get stopped in the ballroom,
take a look at the giant glass that creates the
(33:46):
Peppers ghost illusion. On the left side of it, there
is a tiny spot where there's like a tarantula placed
over it. And I am not reporting this as fact
because I don't know for sure, but the lore is
that someone actually had managed to fire a weapon in
there at some point and put a tiny hole in
the glass which is covered with that Spider if anyone,
(34:06):
if anyone in the Disney family knows the truth and
wants to share it, please do. But that is the
lord that has always perked up around it. Um, and
it's over by the Duellists, So it gives me some
question marks about that. Perhaps it's all a setup so
that we'll believe the dualists can actually shoot real projectiles. Um.
I hope not because that would be terrifying. But in
any case, UM, yeah, I hope everyone has a magical
(34:30):
Haunt and Mansion ballroom moment, whether that's in the ball
room or not. And if you are the type of
person who plays practical jokes atleways be sensible and kind.
That's my finish for today. If you would like to
write to us, you can do so at History Podcast
at iHeart radio dot com. You can also find us
anywhere on social media as Missed in History And if
(34:50):
you would like to subscribe to our podcast, you can
do that and we would love it if you would.
You can do that on the iHeart radio app or
anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. M Stuff you
Missed in History Class is a production of i Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from I Heart radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
(35:13):
your favorite shows. H
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So, uh,
not too long ago, Tracy, I was looking up another
possible episode, which will go nameless in case it comes up,
(00:23):
because I still might do it. Um. I stumbled across
a list of historical pranks and hoaxes, and we've covered
some of those before, but some of these were new
to me, and it got me thinking about such things
and whether any one of them might make another good episode.
But really, the ones I was most interested in are
a little bit shy of having enough information to be
(00:44):
an episode all their own. So today I grouped a
few together. If you were listening, you may be wondering,
why not hold this until April Fool's Day? That seems
like a perfect match, and it is. But here's the answer.
That's twofold. One. I just didn't want to um. I
didn't feel like if I'm interested in something, I tend
to want to do it usually right then, and if
(01:04):
I wait, my interest may wane, and then where will
we be? Uh? And Two, I will confess to everyone
now I'm not the biggest fan of April Fool's Day.
Here's why. It's a little bit of a snooty thing.
It always feels a little bit like an amateur hour
of irritation pranks. I don't like that. Um, Which is
(01:26):
not to say all pranks are bad, because some of
them are very clever and legitimately fun. And there are
things that happen on April Fool's Day that some people
do that I really love. But two of the ones
we're covering today are actually pretty delightful, and one was
in April Fool's prank. One of the ones that we're
talking about today would have left me in a full
blown rage if I had been a part of it.
(01:47):
But all of these pranks are fairly legendary, and they're
all quite different. Uh So you're going to get a
smattering of things. So we've got a joke that kind
of became a living legend, we have a large scale
prank that created complete havoc, and we have a televised
hoax that reminds us all of the importance of critical thinking.
(02:07):
So first of these three. On January at Brown University,
a notice was posted on the university Hall bulletin board
that advertised an upcoming lecture, and here is what it said.
On Thursday evening at eight fifteen and Sales Hall, J. S.
Carberry will give a lecture on Archaic Greek architectural revetments
(02:33):
in connection with Ionian philology. For tickets and further information
applied to Professor John Spaith. So this was the birth
of a prank, seemingly with no end. From the beginning,
there were doubters as to the identity and credentials of
JS Carberry. Upon seeing this lecture flyer. One of Professor
(02:55):
space colleagues, Professor Ben Klow, is said to have inserted
the word not into the text so that it read
Carberry will not give a lecture. We should note here
too that even in the documentation that you can find
at Brown University, sometimes the word philology in the lecture
title is listed as though it said phonology. Klow, which
(03:16):
is also a name I've heard people say as Clough.
Because there's lots of ways to say things. Followed up
with Professor Space to ask him what this was all about,
and Spaith had loads of details about Carberry to share
with this doubter. Carberry was a professor of psycho ceramics
the study of cracked pots. He had a wife named Laura,
(03:38):
who was described as ungrammatical, and two daughters, Patricia and Lois.
Patricia was a poet and Lois hunted puffins. There was
even an assistant in the mix to fill out this
story that was a Truman Grayson, who was prone to
accidents and being bitten by things that begin with the
letter A. This all just sounds like a description from
(03:59):
a children's book to me. Yeah, it's all very silly
right out of the gate. And clearly this was all
just a bit of fun. But unlike the other pranks
on today's show, Josiah story did not fade or blow over.
It grew, it became further embellished, and it became a
twentieth century legend. Of course, because of that legendary status,
(04:19):
the Carberry story has not only grown, but it has
also developed some inconsistencies over the years. For example, his
birthday may have been in eighteen twenty, his career may
have started in eighteen five. Both of those milestones have
at times been attributed instead to that year that the
flyer first appeared in University Hall nine in May of
(04:42):
nineteen twenty nine, the school paper reported that Carberry, who
at that time was referred to as an expert in
Hindo Jerramic pottery, was going to the Southwestern Arkansas Normal
Institute as a loaner from Brown University. Carberry has had
a number of titles attached to his name, but the
one that sticks the most is Professor of psycho Ceramics. Yeah,
(05:07):
depending on what you look at, you'll see him listed
in a variety of different ways. It's usually always related
to pottery and some form or another. Over the years,
there have been a great many lectures that Josiah S.
Carberry was scheduled to deliver, only to have some conflict
arise to prevent the presentation. But there has always been
a very good reason for such cancelations. Primarily that reason
(05:29):
was his world travels to places allegedly like Turkey, Hawaii,
or Mongolia that would keep him away. But travels are
no It seems that Carberry, whose middle name is apparently Stinkney,
manages to be ever present at Brown in one way
or another. Over the years, his family has produced a
great deal of correspondence and placed so many notices about
(05:52):
their various doings in the paper that the Providence Journal
banned them completely. Yeah, there's apparently a kill order that
if the name Carburry comes up not to run it
like it's not real, like maybeing like no more coin
hords except as are real. In Carberry sent a check
from his travels abroad in the amount of one one
(06:14):
dollars and one cent, and the accompanying missive indicated that
that money was intended to set up a memorial fund
for his quote future late wife, which should be named
not after her, but should be called the Josiah S.
Carberry Fund. That one one dollar and one cent was
seed money. In receiving it, the university had to agree
(06:35):
to establish a donation drive every Friday and every leap
day of February twenty nine, where anyone could donate their
loose change into Brown jugs to add to the fund.
That money was to be used to purchase books that
the good Professor might or might not approve of. It
has been used to purchase things. You can find a
list of them the Brown University Library site. In Carberry
(06:59):
also wrote a cookbook, The Carberry Cookbook From Nuts to Soup.
It includes contributions from other people, but he was the
primary editor, and the proceeds of that were also to
go to the Carberry Fund. It contained recipes for such
delights as chocolate ice box pie, shrimp in beer, and
stuffed camel and boiled water. Chocolate ice box pie is
(07:24):
a real thing, yes, and that came from a contributor.
Shrimp and beer is that. You can find that recipe
online and it's basically like dumb shrimp and beer, all right,
So that donation. The following year, an article titled Josiah S. Carberry,
(07:45):
the Professor and the Legend appeared in the Brown Daily Herald,
and in it the return address of this famed initial
donation to the Carberry Fund was exposed as being the
New Hampshire State Liquor Store. So these Carberry mysteries continue. Yeah,
there are so many that we're not gonna list here,
but imagine more such things happening over the years. And
(08:09):
over the years, Carberry's name has appeared on a number
of academic papers, and it has been mentioned in a
variety of magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times,
which claimed he was the world's greatest traveler. His books
have been cited in the footnotes of other books. Sixteen
minutes ran a segment on Carberry. That's right, sixteen, not sixty.
(08:31):
It is a very artful spoof of the sixty minutes
story style produced by the Brown Club of Rhode Island
and friends of Brown University Library. And that particular piece
is full of very fun Carberry lore, including the information
that there have even been allegedly financial concerns over the
mysterious faculty member, particularly whether he may have been added
(08:53):
to the payroll at some point in time. In two
thousand five, a letter from Carberry appeared in the Brown
Daily Herald under the pleading headline make me Famous Again Brown.
He relates that he's on a fishing trawler out of Russia,
sifting through pottery shards that the crew pulls up while
they quest after a mythical whale. But despite a lot
(09:15):
of chatter, his real aim really seems to be securing
his legacy by making sure that the Carberry sandwich, which
at that point has two chicken patties on it, is
upgraded with a third patty. You may worry about his fame,
he has incidentally never been photographed with his face visible. Carberry,
it appears, is either immortal or merely blessed with both
(09:38):
longevity and vitality. It seems like as long as his
name lives on, it's going to stay that way. Before
we jump into our next story, which is a very
ambitious prank, we will take a break and have a
word from our sponsors. So for this next one, the
(10:02):
street that the hoax took place in is what gives
it its name, and that was at fifty Burner Street,
London on November ten, starting at five am, Burner Street
became so overrun with visitors and deliveries to the residents
there that the entire street became grid locked, and the
blocks surrounding the address were also jammed to the point
(10:24):
that passage was impossible. And that whole mess was the
result of a hoax, a hoax that started with a bet.
So a quick note on the dates here right ups
about this from the eighteen forties have put this hoax
as happening in the year eighteen o nine. You'll see
that repeated a lot, but searching through newspaper archives online,
(10:47):
all the contemporary write ups about it are from eighteen ten.
And the architect of this whole thing was a man
named Theodore Edward Hook. Hook was born on September, so
he was eventy two at the time of the Burners
Street hoax. His father was composer James Hook, and Theodore
was the second son born to James and his first wife.
(11:10):
Theodore's brother, James, was eighteen years old when Theodore was born,
and their mother died when Theodore was still fairly young.
Some accounts place her death in eighteen o two, that
means he would have been right around fourteen. He was
sent to a seminary school while he was still a boy,
but he was very precocious there. At one point, it
was discovered he had skipped three full weeks of school,
(11:32):
and although he eventually found that he really enjoyed writing,
he never really did like school no matter which one
he went to, and wrote later in his life quote,
my school life was not a happy one. I was
idle and careless of my tasks. I had no aptitude
for learning languages. I hated Greek and absolutely shuddered at Hebrew.
I fancied myself a genius, and anything that could be
(11:53):
done in a hurry I did tolerably well, but application
I had not. Even when his father arranged for Theodore
to attend Oxford with the intent that he would become
a lawyer. Theodore almost tanked the whole thing by making
jokes during the entrance ceremony that infuriated the chancellor. This
was more or less how he conducted his life, and
(12:15):
he became a well known writer and wit. As writer J.
Murray put it in eighteen forty three, quote, he carried
the spirit of rebellious frolic with him. And we're giving
you all this biographical information to set up who the
sort of person was he would pull this particular type
of involved prank. In the book The Lives of Wits
(12:37):
and Humorists, written in eighteen sixty two, author John Tims
put it this way, quote, Sheridan, as we have seen
in the present volume, had a great taste, we may
say constructive skill in hoaxing, but he is far exceeded
by Hook. He was known to do things like order
a coach with a friend and then stage a fight
(12:58):
as they got close to their destinations, so that he
would jump out of the coach and leave his friend
to pay the fair. He did a lot of fair dumping,
has jokes. Yeah, I don't think I don't think that's
so funny, right, let's stick your friends with the bill
as a joke. Over and over he did a lot
of that, um, you know, humor subjective. One day in November, Hook,
(13:22):
it said, was strolling down Burner Street with a friend
and noticed a house which is described in accounts as
quote particularly neat and modest in appearance. It belonged to
a shopkeeper's widow. And for some reason Hook got an idea,
and he is said to have turned to his friend
and said, quote, I lay you a guinea that in
(13:43):
one week, that nice, quiet dwelling shall be the most
famous in all London. When his friends took the bet,
Hook went into action to make sure he would win it.
Over the next four or five days, Thomas Hook wrote
a thousand pieces of correspondence. These were orders to all
manner of tradesmen stating the need for services, all of
(14:03):
them to be scheduled on November, and all in a
short period of hours. Some were written to public officials
and socially prominent Londoners requesting that they call on the
address on the morning of November, all on some important
matter or another, depending on what Hook thought would most
(14:24):
entice the recipient to show up. For example, one note
which was reported in the papers. Read quote, Mrs Tottenham
requests Mr Blank will call upon her at two tomorrow
as she wishes to consult him about the sale of
an estate. Yeah. Presumably those names were left out so
(14:44):
that people would not be harangued for having fallen for
this very silly prank. And in addition to sending all
of those missives out, Hook rented a room across the
street from Mrs Tottenham's and sat with two of his
friends watching the whole thing play out. There are some
inconsistencies with this story right out of the gate, because
(15:05):
Hook himself wrote about it, but it's not known what
degree of license he took with the material. In his version.
For example, he says that this happened in eighteen o nine,
and he indicated that he and his friends had worked
out the plan over a longer period than just a week.
But the question that never gets answered in any account
(15:26):
is why Hook selected that particular house. There's been some
speculation that he had some kind of disagreement with Mrs
Tottenham or that one of his friends did, but there's
also precedent in his behavior that he just did a
lot of things with no specific motivation. At all. It's
entirely possible that he saw what looked like the most
(15:46):
boring house on the street and he decided that was
a challenge. Now, we mentioned at the beginning of this
story that this shut down all passage in the area,
and that cannot have been a surprise. Hook knew the
the nature of the street layout was going to cause
a jam because there were not as many connecting points
in the city at that time that would allow you
(16:07):
to pass through. So, according to an eight forty three
right up of the affair at the time quote, Oxford
Road was not approachable either from Westminster or Mayfair or
the city otherwise than through a complicated series of lanes.
It may be feebly and a far off guest what
the crash and jam and tumult of that day was.
(16:27):
That's because Burner Street kind of connected up to Oxford.
It was one of the few connections, and in fact,
Hook himself later estimated that this whole thing had impacted
about a quarter of the town and short it was
an abysmal mess. The Morning Post ran a story about
what had happened the next day, opening with a line
(16:47):
that must surely have delighted Theodore Hook. Quote. The greatest
hoax that has ever been heard of in this metropolis
was yesterday practiced in Berner Street, Oxford Street. The paper
described a dozen deliveries, all arriving at once, and that's
really like the light version, because this did start first
thing in the morning with a chimney sweep, and the
(17:09):
woman of the house Mrs Tottenham, had not ordered to sweep,
and so that person was sent away, and reportedly a
dozen more chimney sweep showed up not long after. And
that was just the first of what would be a
long line of tradesmen who appeared at the house that day.
According to various accounts, coal wagons showed up, bakers with
(17:29):
wedding cakes, dentists, jewelers, wigmakers, midwives, even an undertaker who
had made a custom coffin for the very alive Mrs Tottenham.
Furniture began to arrive, couch after couch, and then organs
and even butchers with massive deliveries of meat that had
not actually been ordered. Basically, anything one might order for
(17:52):
delivery had been ordered by Hook as part of the prank,
and it had been ordered in multiples. The Mayor of
London and received what he believed to be a letter
regarding a meeting from Mrs Tottenham, arrived by carriage, although
by that time the street was already clogged with deliveries
and onlookers who had gathered to marvel at all these
(18:13):
comings and goings, and often to mock the various tradespeople
who were being turned away from the house. The mayor
was taken to the nearby Marlborough Street Police Office to
get him out of the crowd to try to contain things.
Police officers were posted at the street corners to preemptively
turn deliveries away, and it took until the late evening
to get the crowd to go home and get the
(18:35):
street unjammed. This all may have seemed like a really
funny idea to Hook, but it was actually a big
issue for a lot of people. The Quarterly Review wrote
about the incident an outlined just how much damage, far
beyond mere nuisance, had been done by the prank. Quote.
Perhaps no assassination, no conspiracy, no royal demise or ministerial
(18:55):
revolution of recent times was greater godsend to the newspapers
than this audacious piece of mischief. In Hook's own theatrical world,
he was instantly suspected, but no sign escaped whither him
or his confidants. The affair was beyond that circle, a
serious one. Fierce were the growlings of the doctors and surgeons,
(19:17):
scores of whom had been cheated a valuable hours. Attorneys,
teachers of all kinds, hairdressers, tailors, popular preachers, parliamentary philanthropists
had been alike victimized, and were, in their various notes
alike vociferous. But the tangible material damage done was itself
no joking matter. There had been an awful smashing of glass, china, harpsichord,
(19:42):
and coach panels. Many a horse fell, never to rise again.
Beer barrels and wine barrels had been overturned and exhausted
with impunity. Amid the press of countless multitudes, it had
been a fine field day for pickpockets. There arose a
fervent hu and cry for the detection of the wholesale
(20:02):
deceiver and destroyer. That right up was written several decades later,
and as it indicates, Hook was not immediately identified as
the hoaxer. He feigned illness for a couple of weeks
and then went to the country under the guise of
seeking wellness through fresh air and rest. There was, however,
a satirical print that was released in eighteen ten that
(20:25):
hints that people knew it must be Hook's work. There's
a speech bubble in the picture that has the mayor saying, oh,
this is a pretty hoax, but I'll find it out
by hook or by crook, with the word hook capitalized
like it's a proper name. As the news of this
hoax hit the press, similar copycat pranks started popping up
(20:46):
around England and even some in France, and Hook was
apparently miffed by the imitators and wrote as much as
his autobiographical but fictional persona Gilbert Gurney, intimating that anyone
doing the same prank after him as a plagiarist. He
later wrote, copy the joke, and it ceases to be one.
Any fool can imitate an example once set. But for
(21:07):
originality of thought and design, I do think that was perfect. Cook,
who of course won his bet, does not appear to
have been sobered by all the trouble that he caused.
After things blew over and he returned from the country,
he kept brewing up pranks, including one where he gave
a well known actor of the day, Romeo Coats forged
(21:28):
tickets to a lavish party being thrown by the Prince Regent.
As for Mrs Tottenham, there's not much information on how
she recovered after what must have really just been an
exhausting and confusing and infuriating day. I would have said
something on fire. But the third hoax on our list
(21:50):
is in fact my favorite, and it is not nearly
so stressful to think about as the chaos of Berner Street.
And we will get right to it after we hear
from the sponsors that keep stuff you missed history class going.
(22:10):
On April one seven, a short film ran on the
BBC Current Events show Panorama titled Spaghetti Harvest into Chino.
It explains how the early spring had resulted in quote
an exceptionally heavy spaghetti crop into Chino, Switzerland, which is
right on the border with Italy. According to the segment,
which ran less than three minutes, quote, the last two
(22:32):
weeks of March are an anxious time for the spaghetti farmer.
There's always the chance of a late frost, which, while
not entirely ruining the crop, generally impairs the flavor and
makes it difficult for him to obtain top prices in
world markets. This informative peace continues explaining that Swiss efforts
at growing spaghetti are quite small compared to a Hallieans
(22:56):
spaghetti agriculture, and it makes references to the vast spaghetti
plantations in the po valley of Italy. All of this
information is conveyed via a voiceover as the camera p
hands over these idyllic scenes of women harvesting spaghetti from
the trees, that the spaghetti dangles from the branches before
it's plucked. The pesky spaghetti evil, according to the narration,
(23:21):
has disappeared and that has led to a bumper harvest.
The freshly picked spaghetti is so beautifully uniform, we're told,
thanks to careful cultivation by skilled growers over a period
of years. And the voiceover of this short film was
Richard Dimbleby, the host of Panorama, and he is earnest
in his delivery throughout. It is very convincing. When Michael Peacock,
(23:45):
who approved the project, was interviewed about it in he
told the BBC of Dimbleby quote, he knew perfectly well
we were using his authority to make the joke work.
He loved the idea so reviewers convinced that's really a
mixed bag. The phones at the BBC started to ring
as soon as the segment finished. Some people seemed to
(24:07):
want to correct them, to explain that spaghetti did not
grow on trees. Some viewers clearly did get the joke.
There were occasional family arguments that had people calling the
network to settle the matter about whether it was real
or a hoax. Some people just thought it was in
poor taste that a news program would run any sort
of fake story, and a handful reportedly wanted to know
(24:31):
if there was somewhere they could purchase spaghetti trees. Eventually,
somebody had the idea to have the operators at the
BBC continue the joke, with gullible collars telling people who
wanted their own spaghetti tree to place a sprig of
spaghetti into a tomato sauce tin and quote hope for
the best. If I were a kid and I was
told that by an operator at the BBC, I would
(24:53):
want be doing it. This project was so well produced
that even the Director General of the BBC, Sir Ian Jacob,
was momentarily astounded to learn that spaghetti grew on trees.
As the story goes his wife quickly set him straight
on that matter, although they did turn to a reference book,
the Encyclopedia Britannica, to settle the matter. It turns out,
(25:16):
though there was no entry for spaghetti at that time,
the segment and viewers reactions to it really made news
around the world. One of the most negative ride ups
Holly found appeared in Alberta, Canada's Calgary Harold under the
headline frightening joke. In this column, writer Jack Stepler takes
(25:36):
a very alarmous tone, stating quote, but what is disturbing
is that because Mr Dimblebee delivered a monstrous hope straight faced,
wrapped it up in plausible sounding discourse about the tribulations
of a spaghetti farmer, and fortified it with a faked film,
a large number of people did take it seriously, and
(25:57):
then goes on to say some pretty racist and zeno
phobic things, basically along the lines that if Britain's smart
and informed public can be fooled by such things, how
can less educated people in other countries ever discern truth
from fiction, especially when it's delivered in such a serious manner,
And then goes on to compare this prank to the
(26:18):
quote hit Larry in formula of telling a big enough
lie and telling it often enough to be believed. Steppler
sort of sums it up in a way that's part
people need to be critical thinkers and part trusted newspeople
should never give prank news. Yeah, it struck me as
a little startling that he went right for a Hitler comparison.
And I'm like, it wasn't like they aired this over
(26:38):
and over to try to convince anybody. It was like
two minutes and forty seconds one right, and look at
the date, right, And they did. At the end of
it mentioned like that's the news from April one. So
you may be wondering how such a project that ended
up being a bit controversial was hatched at a well
(26:59):
respected show. Apparently, during one of the team's meetings earlier
that year, they had noticed that April Fool's Day was
going to fall on a Monday. That was the day
of the week that Panorama aired, and a contract cameraman
from Austrian named Charles de Yeager had the idea. He
later claimed it was based on a teacher who used
to tell the class that they were so stupid they'd
(27:20):
believe that spaghetti grows on trees. He was already scheduled
to go on a shoot in Switzerland, so he pitched
this as something that they could easily do on the cheap,
and so he was given a budget of one hundred
pounds by the show's editor, Michael Peacock, and off di
Yeager went. So this fake harvest required twenty pounds of
uncooked spaghetti. So you may hear that he used cooked spaghetti.
(27:44):
If you have only ever used dry spaghetti in the
box from the grocery store, that maybe the only thing
that makes sense to you. But there was no way
for cooked spaghetti to stay off the branches of the trees.
It's very slippery. It would just slide off. So they
used freshly made but uncooked spaghetti. It was still flexible
(28:05):
enough to hang gracefully from the trees, but it had
enough surface texture left that it just did slide right
off there. But it also meant that it had to
be kept just moist enough throughout the shoot, so as
they prepped different angles, they would keep this spaghetti damp
between damp cloths. Yeah, if you've ever handled like fresh pasta,
(28:26):
you know it's got some bendinus to it, but it
does pretty quickly start to harden up and not be
quite so pliable. So and it's definitely not like when
you try to scoop out your spaghetti that's been cooked
and it just slides through your serving utensil. Yes, Lake Lugano,
on the border between Italy and Switzerland was the location
(28:48):
for the shoot and locals were asked to harvest the spaghetti.
They also got dressed in like Swiss national costume. They
carefully draped it into wicker baskets like any other harvested
tree fruit might be handled, and then they staged a
drying setup where these quote freshly picked noodles are left
in the sun. There is also, of course a scene
(29:08):
at the end of this mini documentary showing the people
enjoying their harvest, and that was actually also the cast
and crew wrap meal, which they filmed to use in
the final production once the footage was back at the BBC.
Producer David Wheeler wrote the script for it. Like Peacocky
credited Richard Dimbleby with being the most valuable asset they
(29:29):
had and pulling off this stunt. In two thousand four,
he said quote he had enough gravitas to float an
aircraft carrier. Although the reaction had been mixed and had
perhaps made some of their viewers feel foolish, the people
involved have pointed out in several different interviews over the
years that this was a time when fresh spaghetti was
(29:50):
really only just being introduced to most households in Britain,
and really kind of pasta in general. Up to that point,
camp spaghetti was kind of the most common way of
family of of British aisles might encounter it, so maybe
they didn't know where it came from. Despite the whole
dust up around it, Sir Ian Jacob wrote to Diegger
to congratulate him, quote, The spaghetti Harvest was a splendid
(30:12):
idea beautifully shot and organized. This item has caused a
great deal of delight one way at another. Over the years,
the hoax has been revisited by the BBC as one
of the earliest examples of television pranking, and often coverage
of it has included interviews with some of the people involved,
some of which we've quoted here. In two thousand four,
(30:32):
when he was interviewed about the prank as Like a
Look Back, producer David Wheeler said quote We were criticized
for doing it, but I had no regrets about it
at all. I think it was a good idea for
people to be aware they couldn't believe everything they saw
on the television, and that they ought to adopt a
slightly critical attitude to it. And I chose that one
(30:53):
because it seemed germane to our lives today. Uh. And
having worked on the internet since what two thousand and
three or something like that, uh, and having seen the
long arc of companies writing fake April fools Day articles
(31:17):
and making fake April Fool's Day products, I feel like
that's fallen off a little bit, right in more recent years,
people got kind of tired of it. There's still some
places that have, like they're tried in true April Fool's
Day events that people seem to still enjoy. But this
is an example of that that's a little earlier then,
(31:37):
you know. I imagine it from my own time working
for a website. Yeah. I mean this is sometimes pointed
to you as being like the first televised prank. Not
everyone in Great Britain had TVs at the time. The
estimated viewership wasn't the millions though, so it was a
significant number of people. But yeah, it's um at that point,
(32:00):
maybe they had not come to that idea that like
we should question things that show up on television. And
I will say, you can find it online. It's really
easy to find this footage. If not for the absurd
subject matter, you had a percent believe that it was
a documentary. It's filmed so perfectly. Nothing about it reads
as campy as at all. It's definitely very much like
(32:21):
played as straight as convey. So I suppose if you
were not familiar with the production of pasta and uh,
you know, maybe had had only been watching that news
program for a bit and trusted it completely, maybe I
would be listen. If there were a Spighetti tree, I'd
buy it. Spaghetti squash is good, but not quite as delicious,
(32:44):
I'd be in. Uh, since I wanted to go with
silly things for this one, I I'm going to the
very lighthearted listener mail, which is brief from our listener.
I don't know if she pronounces it Andrea or Andrea,
but she writes high Holly and Tracy. I have been
a joyful listener of the podcast for a couple of
(33:05):
years now. A few episodes ago Holly mentioned that she
would love to stop the Haunted Mansion ride in the
ballroom scene. I have just returned from a visit to
Disney World, and believe it or not, the ride came
to a halt in the ballroom. I instantly leaned forward
to take in the whole room for several seconds before
the ride started to move again. I then told my spouse,
who was writing with me, that Holly from MS in
(33:25):
History would be so jealous. Thank you for the wonderful content.
Keep up the good work. Thanks Andrea Um. I'm so
happy for you because it has happened to me a
few times. It did happen recently. There's something so spectacular
about stopping right there. Also, if you are ever in
the one in Anaheim and you get stopped in the ballroom,
take a look at the giant glass that creates the
(33:46):
Peppers ghost illusion. On the left side of it, there
is a tiny spot where there's like a tarantula placed
over it. And I am not reporting this as fact
because I don't know for sure, but the lore is
that someone actually had managed to fire a weapon in
there at some point and put a tiny hole in
the glass which is covered with that Spider if anyone,
(34:06):
if anyone in the Disney family knows the truth and
wants to share it, please do. But that is the
lord that has always perked up around it. Um, and
it's over by the Duellists, So it gives me some
question marks about that. Perhaps it's all a setup so
that we'll believe the dualists can actually shoot real projectiles. Um.
I hope not because that would be terrifying. But in
any case, UM, yeah, I hope everyone has a magical
(34:30):
Haunt and Mansion ballroom moment, whether that's in the ball
room or not. And if you are the type of
person who plays practical jokes atleways be sensible and kind.
That's my finish for today. If you would like to
write to us, you can do so at History Podcast
at iHeart radio dot com. You can also find us
anywhere on social media as Missed in History And if
(34:50):
you would like to subscribe to our podcast, you can
do that and we would love it if you would.
You can do that on the iHeart radio app or
anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. M Stuff you
Missed in History Class is a production of i Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from I Heart radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
(35:13):
your favorite shows. H
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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