We're Late for the April Fools' Episode

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for tuning in. We're running a little late on this one. Edit's my fault, you know. Shout out to our super producer, mister Max Williams the top.

When have we ever hit a tent pole topic on time? This is in classic Ridiculous History fashion that we're two days late for said holiday.

I am proud of myself, so I'm going to toot my own horn and talk about myself right now. Yet, on February twenty ninth last year, we had an episode about the leap year we did? Did I write a Thanksgiving grab bag esque episode? But I think that's about it. I think one time we might have gotten lucky. But look we did our was it Labor Day? Like either two months before or two months after Labor Day? And I'm like, this is marvelous.

I love us. I don't know why we're letting on that. It's not on purpose.

It's very oh, folks. That is Noel Brown recently returned from Philadelphia. So Noel aka Young Cheese Steak Brown.

Yeah, okak you sure you Young cheese steak is accurate. I had a couple of those from what is Angelo's and ish Caabibbeles, which are too you know, I think Angelo's is kind of hot right now. But a lot of people know about Ishkabibbles. And that's the funnest named place to get a sandwich in the history of sandwiches, if you ask me.

And we're accountabill of buddies, so I was. It is a true story, Noel, I they called me, Ben what I was bugging you the whole time you were in Philly and I just kept texting you on multiple threads to ask for cheese steak pictures.

It's the only reason I had the second steak, Ben, It's the only reason I went to Isshuabibbles.

It was just for you.

I only had about three bites and then I had to throw away the rest because man, those things are not meant to be consumed in their entirety by one human person. That's a heart attack waiting to happen.

I don't know if Philly does it, man, I don't know.

I guess he's got to walk a lot, which I did do. I had a great time. Thanks for mentioning it, but yeah, no, cheese steaks are delightful, as are nonsensical holidays that are designed to potentially hurt people's feelings or delights.

Results vary, so we're running late on our April Fool's Day episode. That's what this is, and you and I have talked about it in the past on and off air. I feel like it can be a mean and spirited holiday.

It certainly can be.

I have been the victim, not that big a deal, but of some not so nice April Fools pranks. But I guess it's all in how you play it. If you play it a little too straight about something a little too serious, you know, things could go wrong. But if it's something sort of like lighthearted and a little bit absurdist, I'm all about that, right.

Like, if, for instance, I gave I gave my dad a mug that said World's Best Grandfather and then said April Fools, that would be really extreme.

Yeah, but even that's on the lighter end of extreme.

If you ask me, I was punked quite successfully by my kid is sixteen. I was playing a piece of music that I've been working on when I was in Philadelphia, and to me and goes you know what, Dad, I gotta tell you, this isn't very good.

What I don't like it. It sounds like but I believe is the term that they use. And then I really my heart sunk. My heart sunk.

And then I very quickly saw the forlornness in my eyes and very quickly responded with a quick April fool.

Which I was wow, So that kids are mean, dude, kids are being dude. That's an in depth example of April fools, or those are two light examples from us. I think the worst one I got was ooh, it's not even fit for the air. It was pretty extreme, it was pretty mean. But if you want to learn more about famous examples of April Fool's day, you can check out our earlier episode on the epic spaghetti.

Trees prank, which I think is a perfect example of a lighthearted, absurdist one. Because the BBC created this thing to appear like a legitimate documentary about an absolutely Bezonker's topic, and like they had like these old Italian nonas, like harvesting spaghetti from the trees in the Italian countryside, and like, let's say you do believe it, what's the worst outcome there that you feel like a little bit of a dumb dumb you know. Okay, not the end of the world,

And thought the aliens were coming, and they.

Fled for shelter, called the police, you know, a repeatedly, you know, clogged up the lines and all of that good stuff, only for it to turn out to a bit of very well produced radio play.

Right and worth a listen. Still, both examples that you just named there, Noel. As April first approached, we asked ourselves, what is this holiday? Exactly? Where does it come from? How did it spread across the globe? And I think we were all startled to learn the answer is kind of ridiculous. So before we get into this fool's errand.

Yes, yes, which is the term.

That I've used plenty in my life, and I never really thought about the origins of it, but it certainly does date back to the early days of being an April fool.

So okay, okay, Noel, can you kick it for all of us historians in the crowd ridiculous variety. If you had to explain to an alien what April Fool's Day is, how would you explain it?

It is a day where it is acceptable to lie to the people that you love for comedic effect. Holy smokes, that is good, kind of dark though it starts, it's starting.

No, we're keeping it. We're keeping it man, because that is poetry. It's a celebration of pranks and practical jokes. In most countries today, it happens on the first day of the month we call April. You run into any number of jokes or in person practical like pranks, and usually when someone is lying to someone that they love, as you said at the end of the bit, the prankster will yell April Fools at their big reveal. And what I think we both found astonishing about this is

Like a kick me sign exactly, or you know, a pin the tail in the donkey situation, to quote Larry David, which is.

A cruel and violent game. Why would you do it?

A pinata that he was talking about, But pin the tail and a donkey similarly violent and a little bit cruel.

Yeah, it doesn't it? Maybe not? Well, how does that game work?

Doesn't you stick it on people and they spin around or something and maybe before they hit that's true, But I swear there's a variation of pin the tail.

All right, I'm here, I'm here. The youthful guy on the show will jump in. It's closer to my childhood than it's yours. So pin the tail and a donkey it's there's like a donkey like painting type of thing on a wall. You put a blindfold on, somebody, hand them the pin and they have a general idea where it is, but they go to see how close you can get it to getually get in the tail on the right spot.

You spin them around, don't you disorient them? Isn't the idea of.

The house rules? That's house rules?

Okay, fair enough, it's all kind of awful because the only way you're doing this off of your memory trying to figure out where it is. It gets fun around, you're gonna go put it in somebody's arm.

Uh.

But to your point, nol, I mean think about it like we have like basically intentionally removed a donkey's tail, and now we are trying to attach another one to it.

That is that's so twisted. I wonder twisted Max with the facts I've ever heard.

Okay, we'll do it. We'll do the sound cue, we'll do the sound cue.

That seeking in the phone and he's fallen knowledge. It's just for you right now here.

With the fact, I do wonder whether there has ever been a like an earlier version where was an actual tortured donkey, oh dear too Yeah, too dark, all right, so let's go to Scotland. In Scotland, it's hunt the glock or the golp goo w k. It's a symbol of the fool. And then, you know, it's.

Sure very similar to what we might have over here in like boy scout campouts, which is the old snipe hunt, snipe hunt, the idea of you know, taking a nube and sort of convincing them that it's a right of passage to hunt this mythical beast and sending them out after a thing that does not exist, which is very much the fool's errand of it all, you know, or very much a wild goose chase situation.

Sure, a version of that occurs in modern in modern production film and TV. Friends, you'll know this one of the hazing rituals for like a new kid or a pa in production a production assistant is to give them a super obscure, official sounding name for a thing, a piece of a and send them hunting for it. And it's a closed spin.

Yeah, it's called like an M four thirty two or some sort of like numerical kind of model number type thing. And now I'm totally forgetting what it was because they referred to them as that actually on on sets and in film situations. Another one that's interesting too is in construction sites. Gosh, I saw this on a TV show recently.

So to jump in here real quick, I'm just thinking about as you guys know, I I managed restaurants in the city of landas number.

What did you guys do? What'd you do?

Oh?

What was?

This gets more?

This gets more evil as story goes on because he because one of the best things about it is it's not me, but four different restaurant managers working with each other on this on this posture. And so there's a search of these restaurants and there's like four within like five minutes walking to each other. So basically what we would usually do when one of the places start. It was a new employee who seemed a pretty cool day and like wouldn't get offended if he did this to them.

Just go over to this place.

So they go over that place, and the manager who knows this is like, dude, oh, yes, you guys are out of steam too. Yeah, the delivery must not come in, but you gotta.

Go to the third guy.

The third but like, we get all over his stuff from us twos they get their stuff from Cisco, so they should be good. And then like the third person's like, yeah, no, we sorry, the owners cut it off. Well, you guys have been borrowing way too much steam from us.

You can't do it.

So the person's just walking around Grant Park neighborhood with a ice bucket, a big giant ice bucket, over and over again until one of the managers uh breaks their breaks, like you know, the joke and break are laughing and they're like, oh, I have been walking around for thirty minutes in the hot sun of Atlanta.

Well aventually it would turn to steam.

Yeah, so there you go take a while to take a while just goes to share that April fool can be every day in certain situations. I found a couple other examples of the job site stuff when would be a to your point max or similar to your straight A bucket of Olmes homes being a way of measuring electrical resistance, which is not a thing that can be held in a bucket, a wire stretcher, a flex bender, a pack of end joints, or a box of toenails.

I do have a box of toenails. We're not going to get into it.

Those around you just you just hang on to them for posterity.

I believe in magic. So there's there's a Uh there's another example. We used to do this thing where you would have like a new recruit, uh, you would you would have them dig a hole and then you would yell at them for digging the hole wrong, and you would ask them to move the hole, or you would send them to a different guy who would get mad that anyone like that you were there was very kill the messenger. It was just a way to make people do more push ups.

Sure, Penn.

Can you imagine if someone came up with a movable hole that would be a million dollar idea. So you know, this is all of these kinds of things. These had a Galki Day, another thing they referred to it as in Scotland hunt the galk, very similar to our snipe hunt that we know. Tally Day is a following day where people would pen oftentimes kick me signs on folks back,

But some of these are worthy of.

Getting that about, you know, if you get really done dirty, right.

And we were looking into this and we found that April Fool's Day is itself kind of a mixtape of much earlier festivals, things like Hilaria of ancient name that right.

But re fun festival.

Yes, it was on March twenty fifth, so not too far away. People would dress up in disguises, you could mock fellow citizens and back in Roman times. People genuinely believe this was inspired by it was like inspired by earlier Egyptian mythology. And then you could go to another Tomfoolery celebration that continues today in India, the Holly celebration Hli well.

And also, I mean it reminds me even of like the Carnival season like in Brazil, or the way that's been embraced and sort of changed around to.

Suit the New Orleans culture.

I mean, and even in Germany and in Europe they've got something called Fashing, which is very much around that carnival season, but it contains a lot of that same kind of stuff, little pranks, little jokes, merriment.

Hell, even Halloween has.

A certain prank quality to it, right, the trick or the treat right, I mean a lot of these things are cross pollinad and there are bits of it in various different holidays and seasons, even within a single culture.

Yeah. Absolutely, we see a larger trend here. And if we look at the ancient past. Staying with that for a moment, we also have to consider things like Saturnalia. It was the winter festival, you know that everybody's celebrated at the end of December, if you vibed the harrowing winter, you danced, you drank, you made mary, you made, you gave each other gifts. Slaves were allowed to pretend they were in charge for that one day, and for that one day.

Yeah, it's evil again, slavery is the most evil of all.

But I mean that is just kind of that's even worse.

That's very like, get out and thank you for bp me.

Max.

There was the there was a fake king, the guy called the In English, we'll call it Lord of Misrule. Eventually, yeah, yeah, in the Eventually, around the fourth century CE, what we call Saturnalia turned into celebration of the new year on January first, and a lot of the Saturnalia traditions and sort of ornaments or affectations are incorporated in the modern observance of Christmas. Please check out our episodes on Christmas.

That's interesting.

The idea of renewal by being a little silly Bailey, you know, renewing yourself. It's also you know, I wish that there were an official calendar day for opposite day. You know, people always talk about its opposite day, but it seems to only be used to kind of suit whatever little gag they're playing at that particularly moment. It's sort of like a momentary. Yeah, it's like a momentary April fools. Yeah, And I mean, just to reiterate, like,

And the idea that for.

That one day, you know, like the idea of being king for a day, but it doesn't really change anything, which is I think the part that gives it that sort of dark sort of twist.

Right, it's like an escape hatch. And I love I mentioned Whitest Kids. You know, do you remember that sketch?

Course I die, I do very much.

And the guy went on to the one of the members went on to make Barbarian, which is a film that I quite loved, and rip Trevor Moore, who was the kind of the leader of that sketch group and passed away well before his time. In the last handful of years.

They have a fantastic opposite day sketch. I don't know that one that address it, Please everyone look it up. It addresses the idea of scheduling and opposite day, or the sort of cognitive paradox, which is what these sorts of holidays or celebrations or festivals, whatever you want to call them, are ultimately celebrating. At its very best, the modern April Fool's Day can be pretty fun. But here's the thing, no one really knows where it came from.

Yeah, a lot of scholars believe that the modern equivalent of April Fools began back there in France with that whole find the fish situation or pin the tail in the fish or the young fish whatever it was. You will often hear this the idea of April fools originating because of some as often as the case been with calendar flip floppery, right like certain whims of certain kings and arguments over when actual facts.

Lauren vogelbam new year officially starts.

Oh man, yeah, this is the thing, all right, So it's Les, let's rewind if we can max perfect and thank you do Actually, yeah, I like the way you did it.

Combine our forces for the re Yeah.

Back in the fifteen hundreds, there's this guy, he's the king. His name is Charles nine I X if your fancy, and he said, look, the New Year is not going to begin on Easter anymore. For a lot of Christians at the time the New Year began on Easter. He said, instead, we're taking it to January first. And the idea, the theory that you'll often hear is that French people who didn't get the communication, they didn't get the memo.

They also sort of have a way of doing things, you know, they they like to do things a little.

Different there in France.

We say that you may well have gotten the memo and put it in the trash you know, like.

We're guys who are not Francophones, but we are frank of Fhiles. You know.

Oh, if I'm talking a little fun at the French, it's it's absolutely ingest.

I'm a huge The food is genuinely better.

And some of my favorite music in the entire world comes from France. But yeah, to your point, Ben, the the idea that they kind of stayed the course and kept things going as they were, so during the last week of March through April first, that became a time to kind of make fun of the French because they had not changed their calendars to join the rest of which the term you have in here, Ben, which I love, Christendom, it just seems very Robin Hood.

I don't know why Christendom. It's very very official Sunding.

Yeah, like the folks who didn't get the decree of the king and we're still celebrating the quote unquote wrong beginning of the year. They were called the April fools. That's a theory. That's the long story short, but that doesn't always give us the answer. So the long story long, the straight seahorse teeth, the hot cheese is is this you gotta like you were saying, No, we got to

You know, I've never really given much thought to whether or not Jesus was circumcised, but he was a Jew and that is a custom, and I guess I didn't realize that that was a thing. Wow, Okay, it's just.

Like it's a long walk as far as justifications go.

Yeah, yeah, right now I'm speculating as to the size of Jesus's circumcised.

Uh you're thinking about Defoe?

Yeah?

Oh god, no, when am I not Jesus massive?

So look what we're telling you, folks, is by the fifteen hundred CE, the European calendar was a real messy bullis spaghetti. The errors in the Julian calendar, like simple mathematical errors, had caused what we call the solar year to increasingly divide from the calendar year. And add to this,

So in the early sixteenth century, in French books, you'll find both forms of the dating system listed side by side. For titles published in January February or March, and then moving into the mid sixteenth century, you started to see a system of calendaring where everything started on January first, and that began to be widely adopted in France. So they finally either got the memo or decided to pull it out of the trash and you know, kind of the join the party.

Yeah, it was our buddy Charlie King Charles ninth of his name. He created this thing on December twenty second, fifteen sixty four, or that's when French Parliament approved of the move to make January first the official actual fact. Shout out, Lauren, first day of the year. This was in my mind, this is like the calindrical version of legalizing cannabis. He looked at it, he said, everybody's already doing it, so why are we going to make it illegal?

Wait, isn't that that's the name of an album. Everybody else is doing it, so what shouldn't we It's.

Like the Cranberries, I want to say.

Ayway, eighteen years later, in fifteen eighty two, we've got Pope Gregory issuing a papal powl, which sounds so intense, which is basically just a decree from the Pope that declared sweeping calendar reform across all of Christendom or Catholicism

So the Pope has no real power to make the governments of the time comply, right, but he does say, hey, you know, guys, if you're a Christian nation, I'm the pope and this is the time of really brutal monarchies. France accepts this reform, they had already changed it. A lot of people get this part wrong. Anyway, it becomes clear like the more you look into it, the calendar change hypothesis has a really convenient to it, right. It sounds like a light switch going on and off. This

Absolutely, this strange custom prevalent throughout this kingdom of people making fuels of one another upon the first of April.

I'm just sorry, I'm doing it like Kenna very talestu a ruse from the year, formally a beginning as to some purpose and in some respects on the twenty fifth of March, which was supposed to be the incarnation of our Lord.

It's been customary with the Romans as well as fit us Hole Day festival. It ended by an octave that the commencement of a new year, which festival lasted for it is where after first of the last was the principal. Therefore the first of April is the octave of the twenty fifth of March, and consequently the clothes or ending of the feast, which was both the festival of the annunciation and the beginning of the new year.

Broo and Telly ho good sir, h Yeah, we're gonna to unpack all that. I kind of got lost in the sauce of the voices.

There can I jump in real quick to talk about the voices, because believe it, this is gonna go full circle. But you guys, you both used your Canterbury Tales voices. I used remember from that episode. I used an accent that came up off the top of my head.

At least I thought, so, oh yeah, we forced you to play I.

Figured out later on I was editing it. The accent I was doing was the one of my friend named Jeff. He talks like this all the time, like this. The reason to bring this up is Jeff, who is a character. I love him to death, but he's a character. His birthday is April fools Day, and he's the type of guy who lie in day's birthday today.

So Jeff, Jeff, text him, text him now. So all right there there there's another part here. We had writers back then, we would have historical precedent. There's a whole thing, a whole discourse with chaucer scholars arguing about whether or not he actually references April Fools and when March happens versus May, versus April. We know that Chaucer wrote some pretty saucy stuff. He's a pretty smart guy. We're actually big fans of his work. Can't wait for him to

Think it's been in turnaround at Tony for a while. Hopefully it's a production. Lebo, Oh my god, I love you for that one.

Also, if the holiday was always around. Why doesn't Shakespeare mention it? Look, the United Kingdom only changed their calendar year to start on January first. They only did that in seventeen fifty two, just like a few decades before the United States became a country. By that time, April Fools is already well established, So confusion about a changing calendar could not have been logically responsible for the origin

No, it doesn't sound good. It sounds really gross.

It's British. It's obviously British.

Oh jeez, I just immediately got it.

I mean, it's probably my own fault for having a mine in the gutter, but gentleman's relish does not sound good.

To me, it does sound like a euphemism. It is not a euphemism. I'm I've got to buy some. We gotta try it out.

My mom used to make a thing called gentleman's salad that was like a gelatin salad, usually green of color, and with like shit in it that didn't belong, like horse radish and stuff and like lime jello bass and gentleman salad is what she always called it.

Never like it, No, I wouldn't even need it.

It was like she'd put it at everyone's place for like a holiday meals, and I was a hell.

No, Oh, it was a holiday thing, So everybody gets a pass. Gentleman's relish is a real thing. It's also called patum paperium. It has nothing to do with April Fool's Day. But if you have tried it, please let us know. On ridiculous his story.

Well, surely it could.

There's a place for it in our History of condiments ongoing series.

Oh yes, okay, another theory. Oh man, if I get it, are you guys gonna try it with me? No? You don't even read about it.

I don't care. I don't like it.

I don't like the way it sounds I want nothing to do with it. I resent its very existence.

I'm just say someone right here, and it's the only time in my entire life I've been able to say this for a good thing. Sorry, Ben, I can't try it.

Condition okay, alright, alright, Max. We respect the condition. So other people will tell you. Maybe the timing of April Fool's Day is related to what we call the vernal equinox March twenty first, because the weather would shift, and for previous civilizations that was a real plot twist. But the thing is, none of the theories about the origin of April Fool's Day have been proven to be correct. It was almost certainly a continuation of this ancient prankish tendency.

People, which I mean, to be fair, you know, you don't need a particular day to do that. A good natured prank is welcome or not unwelcome on any day of the calendar year. There are even TV shows devoted to this stuff. Remember punked Ashton Kutcher's seminal early two thousands, Reality where and he would yeah gentleman's relish indeed wherein he would punk folks celebs usually And now I think there's a show on TV called Practical Jokers. It's very very popular and the kids I love Nathan for You.

But I think you're you're spot on.

Them, which is what we're doing, right, Noel, I would like to think. So we're probably one thing, folks. We are foolish all year round. As Noel said, it doesn't have to be a day in April. You can be silly any any old time. We have a notable examples. That's the best way to end this in this episode that we are running late on, Noel, what are some notable examples of your favorite April fools Day's April Fool's Day breaks.

Well, it's also something that like you know, corporations get in on and get in on the phone, you know, especially in the age of social media. One that I saw that made me think of you, Ben was this article that seemed very you know, very well photoshopped. I guess that waffle House was removing waffles from its media. Yeah, and I think that I hop did a thing in April fools Day's Past where they said they were changing their name to the International House of Burgers.

Oh, that's right, I remember that one. That was a not too long ago, right, I hob.

Yeah.

You got another one that you found, Ben about another what is it a Young Brands products Taco Bell.

Yes, in nineteen ninety six, Taco Bell said, hey, we've purchased the Liberty Bell. We've renamed it the Taco Liberty Bell. Where doing this to help with the crushing debt of the United States.

Good on you, Taco Bell. Thanks for that.

Yeah this, Yeah, it upset a lot of people in PR reported it and then they had to have a press conference to just clear the air and let everybody know that the city of Philadelphia still owns the Liberty Bell.

Thank god for that. Another one that you found, Ben was nineteen ninety two.

And pr It did a fun little prank declaring that Richard Nixon, of course, the shamed or disgraced presidents who resigned in nineteen seventy four after the Watergate scander where he was doing all kinds of naughty, underhanded things, was entering that year's presidential race. And then he had a fun new slogan it he was rocking, you know not I mean no the voice. Well, of course I am not a crook, remember was some of that right? I had never heard of anything wrong? Then I won't do it again.

Love it. Thank you for doing that. We've got the uh so, we've got the skinny on this. There's an active mystery regarding the origins of April Fool's Day. We can't thank you enough for tuning in, fellow ridiculous historians, but we will endeavor to do so. This way, Max if I could get some fanfare thanks for tuning in. Uzzah, thanks to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Thanks to oh gosh, let's see aj Bahamas Jacobs, who else?

Who are yeah? Abja?

Jonathan Strickland, the quizz and also you know, pretty stand up guy when he's not in character. Uh and Chris Frosciota is an even Jeff Coates here in spirit.

Yeah, the rude dudes a ridiculous crime. Rachel Big Spinach Lance. I'd like to do a thing in the credits where we thank random people were people who have passed recently, So thanks to Val Kilmer Man.

Yeah, thanks to Val Kilmer indeed.

And I think I posted this before he passed, or maybe it was a portentous in some way, but I saw a post of a old tweet from Val Kilmer wherein he said I once tickled Lou Reid and at the time I really regretted it because he never spoke to me again.

But now I'm glad I did it because I think he needed it. Well.

Thanks to you Lou for your service, and thanks Ip Lou as well, Rip Lou as well. Thanks to you Neil and you as well.

Then we'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.