THE PRODUCTION OF SPAGHETTI

COPYRIGHT BBC

You may recall the infamous April Fool's prank promulgated by the Daily Telegraph in London in 2008 which introduced the world to the Olympic sport of Poodle Grooming. However, this was not the first time that British media has tested the gullibility of its customers on April 1.

For another prime example, one only has to watch the BBC's broadcast of the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest of 1957. In this report, the BBC filmed pastoral clips of Swiss spaghetti farmers harvesting their crop from their orchards and preparing the freshly-picked noodles for the annual spaghetti festival. The viewers also learned that the dreaded spaghetti weevil posed a major threat and that Swiss production was of course eclipsed in volume by that of the major spaghetti farms of the Po Valley in Italy.

Approximately 8 million Brits watched the program on April 1, 1957. The relative novelty at that time of television in Britain, the lack of familiarity with pasta by most Brits in the 1950s, and the narration of the program by respected broadcaster Richard Dimbleby all contributed to many viewers believing the story to be true and calling the station for information on how to grow their own spaghetti trees. The BBC told them to "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."