The Nerdiest, Most Epically Awesome April Fools' Pranks

The Pranksters:  Nintendo Power Magazine

Many a weekend of my childhood was wasted in 1999 (and let's face it, people still occasionally look for clues) after Nintendo Power published screenshots advertising the ability to find the actual Triforce somewhere in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

I'm telling you, it's real!

The Pranksters:  ThinkGeek

Perhaps the most glorious pranks are rooted in base elements of truth.  In 2009, ThinkGeek jokingly advertised the above Tauntaun sleeping bag, complete with lightsaber zipper handle for a true re-enactment of The Empire Strikes Back.

Today, we live in a world where this dream has been achieved!

The Pranksters:  That rascally BBC

The BBC took to funny business once more in 2008 by showing a documentary of a newly-discovered colony of flying penguins who anually migrated to the Amazon rainforest, and even Monty Python's Terry Jones managed to get in on the gag.

The Pranksters:  The Drew Carey Show

Cleveland really does rock!  Drew Carey and his cohorts love embracing April Fools' day, as during the run of his sitcom they show usually aired a number of obvious and deliberate oddities to encourage viewers pointing them out.  In later re-runs, the mistakes would be pointed out in the style of Pop-Up Video.

Carey also continues pranking during his duties as host of The Price is Right.

The Pranksters:  Wookieepedia

Imagine our delight (and frustration) at the surprise that we could no longer spend hours of 2008 trolling Wookieepedia for countless obscure Star Wars details, given that the entire site was converted to Aurabesh for the day!

The Pranksters:  The Simpsons

One of the most famous in-universe examples, an escalating series of April Fools' pranks between Bart and Homer saw the latter being put in a coma by a Duff beer can put through a paint-shaker, while the episode itself utilized ran previous episode clips in the waiting aftermath.

The Pranksters:  Adult Swim

Those sneaky fellas at Adult Swim were all set to broadcast the feature-length presentation of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters before it actually hit movies screens in 2007, which they did!

In a small, muted box in the corner of the screen during their other programming.

The Pranksters:  Family Guy

2010's April Fool's episode of Family Guy, appropriately titled "April in Quahog" advertised that the American Dad! family would cross over with the Griffins, even joining Hank and Peggy Hill!

Fortunately, the cheap cartoon crossover was not to be, and the episode instead followed a massive, world-ending in-context April Fools' joke.

The Pranksters:  IGN

The amazing thing about IGN's 2010 trailer for a Bollywood-style Halo movie wasn't the fake-out, but rather the fake-out of a fake-out, as IGN knew viewers were expecting another "serious" videogame trailer like their Legend of Zelda effort.

The Pranksters:  Burger King

1998 proved a wonderful year for lefties, particularly the day Burger King ran an ad in USA Today advertising the "left-handed Whopper," which was assembled in such a way that the condiments would drip out of the burger's right side.

Not only did people fall for it by requesting the burger, but some made specific requests  for the "old, rightie" burger.

The Pranksters:  STV

Those rascally Swedes!  In 1962, Sveriges Television's technical expert Kjell Stennson appeared to announce the development of "instant color TV," in which the way light bends could be altered by draping a thin mesh layer over a television screen, the easiest option being a nylon stocking.

Thousands attempted the experiment, trying repeatedly to "angle themselves" so as to percieve the color bends properly.

The Pranksters:  Discover Magazine

1995 saw Discover magazine pulling an elaborate (and gross) stunt in which it claimed to discover the new Arctic species of the "hotheaded naked ice borer," seen above.

Several zookeepers reportedly went on quests to find the creature, and the magazine recieved its most fanmail to date.

The Pranksters:  Adult Swim

God bless Adult Swim, for their 2009 prank of airing The Room in its entirety has evolved over the last two years into not only an annual tradition, but a marathon viewing as well.

Lisa may have torn us apart, but Adult Swim gave a healing hand.

The Pranksters:  YouTube

YouTube and Google both have a long history of April Fools' pranks but perhaps none so complete or aggravating as when every video on the site linked directly to a Rick-Roll video of you guessed it, Rick Astley.

That day, we did give something up.  The internet.

The Pranksters:  GMTV

In 2004 British breakfast show GMTV ran a report about Yorkshire Water supposedly installing a third tap in people's homes that dispensed "diet tap water," which had already seen weight-loss results around the country.

Sadly, 10,000 people wrote the company believing it to be true.

The Pranksters:  Wizard Magazine

Wizard has (or had) an annual habit of announcing the latest absurd project from legendary comcis scribe Geoff Johns, such notable examples including a Watchmen-style re-imagining of Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew in 2005, and Vibe: Rebirth in 2008.

The Pranksters:  Matt Stone and Trey Parker of South Park

Rather than actually air the season two premiere answering the question of Eric Cartman's father, in 1998 South Park instead pulled a switcheroo on its viewers by running "Not Without My Anus," an in-show TV movie starring Terrence and Phillip. 

The reaction was so strong that the pair decided to quickly wrap up the cliffhanger by the second episode.

The Pranksters:  China and South Korea

In what was perhaps Steve Jobs near-happiest day, in 2003 numerous Chinese and South Korean websites began reporting that Microsoft mogul Bill Gates had apparently been assasinated!

It was all fun and games until the South Korean stock market dipped 1.5% in the resulting chaos.

The Pranksters:  46 different comic artists

In 1997, newspaper comic strip artists pulled one of the largest newspaper pranks to date, as forty-six artists all swapped writing and illustration duties for each others comics, seen above as Dilbert writer Scott Adams takes on Family Circus.

The Pranksters:  ScoringSessions

In 2008, Scoring Sessions pulled a dastardly prank announcing that Tim Burton staple Danny Elfman was being brought on to replace John Williams as composer for Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, complete with pictures.

The only thing more terrifying than the thought was when the film actually came out.

The Pranksters:  The BBC

Seen above in a Simpsons episode amazingly supposed to be set in 2010, The BBC aired a false report in 1980 about the famed London landmark Big Ben being switched over to a digital readout, which thousands wrote Parliament to protest.

The Pranksters:  BBC TV

Ah, the gullibility of mid-20th century England.  In 1965, the BBC aired a report of man who had reportedly perfected "Smell-O-Vision" and developed the ability to transmit odor over the airwaves.

Many even called in to report successfully smelling the chopped onions and coffee brewed on-air as a demonstration!

The Pranksters:  IGN

Ah, to dream a dream.  Six months in the making, IGN raised and dashed our hopes within the span of a single day by producing an epic, tantalizingly real trailer for a long-awaited Legend of Zelda movie.

We'd gladly seal ourselves away for seven years if it meant waking up to a world where Link's big-screen adventures turned reality.

The Pranksters:  Taco Bell

Where were you in 1996, when the New York Times announced in a full-page ad that Taco Bell had purchased the Liberty Bell in an effort to ease America's national debt?  What about when White House press secretary Mike McCurry announced the sale of the Lincol memorial, and re-branding into the Lincoln-Mercury Memorial?