April Fool Gags Part 1

The Independent celebrates the day by offering us its top 10 favourites, which we shall put up over the next few posts.

The Swiss spaghetti harvest

 In 1957 the BBC news show Panorama broadcast a programme reporting that farmers in the Swiss canton of Ticino were enjoying a bumper spaghetti harvest. The clipped BBC voiceover states benevolently: "Spaghetti cultivation here in Switzerland isn't carried out on a scale similar to the huge spaghetti plantations of Italy, but is a more domestic industry". He goes on to describe the regions' struggle with the depredations of the dastardly spaghetti weavel and their recent triumph over it. The story was so convincing that hundreds phoned into the BBC either to query it or to ask how to grow their own spaghetti trees.

Click here to watch it (or see previous post)