The 1950s Spaghetti Tree Hoax That Bamboozled A Nation

On April Fool's Day in 1957, Switzerland played a prank so convincing it actually fooled people into thinking spaghetti grew on trees. Disguised as a Swiss tourism video, a BBC current affairs show called Panorama aired a three-minute hoax said to be the first broadcast of an April Fool's Day prank. It showed a Swiss family harvesting spaghetti growing from trees. The video looked exactly like an actual news story and even had a reputable narrator: Richard Dimbleby, a respected journalist. This resulted in a lot of people believing the broadcast was real and that spaghetti, in fact, grew on trees.

Spaghetti was not widely known in the U.K. at this time, and not many people ate it (or knew that it was made from flour). Viewers phoned the BBC by the hundreds, asking about the story and even wondering how to get their hands on their own spaghetti tree. Some people without a sense of humor were reportedly angered by the broadcast and criticized the network for not taking its news seriously. Regardless, CNN later dubbed the incident "the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled."

The hoax fooled people for a good reason — the video is very believable and looks just like a real documentary-style short. It's just that everything it's actually saying is completely ridiculous. It opens on an idyllic Swiss countryside in spring, where a mild winter has supposedly produced a bountiful spaghetti crop. Spaghetti hangs from trees like tinsel on Christmas branches, while "farmers" carefully harvest each noodle by hand.

According to the narrator, the harvest is plentiful this year, at last, as the dreaded "spaghetti weevil" that once wreaked havoc on the crops in years past has disappeared. The farmers collect their noodles into baskets, followed by gladly laying out the freshly picked noodles on a blanket to dry in the sun, before cooking a traditional spaghetti dinner to celebrate the successful harvest. And while the origins of the Italian pasta remain a mystery, this delightfully absurd April Fool's classic proves that a well-executed hoax can be a good thing — especially when it involves spaghetti growing on trees.