The 1957 “Spaghetti-Grows-on-Trees” Hoax: One of TV’s First April Fools’ Day Pranks

In 1957, the BBC program Panorama aired one of the first televised April Fools’ Day hoaxes. Above, you can watch a faux news report from Switzerland narrated by respected BBC journalist Richard Dimbleby. Here’s the basic premise: After a mild winter and the “virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil,” the residents of Ticoni (a Swiss canton on the Italian border) reap a record-breaking spaghetti harvest. Swiss farmers pluck strands of spaghetti from trees and lay them