Radio and April Fool's Day: What Will Google Do?

« Home | Current TV and the Twouble With Twitters » | Did You Know? »

For decades, radio station morning shows have pulled pranks and stunts on April 1st designed to be fun, to get maximum attention in their communities, and enjoy a little springtime April foolery.

Sometimes they swap hosts with competing stations...or changes languages...or their entire format for a day.

Some become famous, some infamous. Some are just bad.

Why do they do it? Well, at its best, radio is mental theatre for listeners, painting imagines and pictures in our minds. With a station's normal format, it can get a little stale-feeling and repetitious, especially to the programmers and announcers. By stunting for a day, it can freshen things for everyone and have some fun.

Mostly harmless, although not always.

This link has a quick history of April Fool's Day.

I wonder what crazy pranks will happen when we wake up tomorrow and turn on the radio? At the time of this blog post, it's a Twittering Trend for social media chat today.

Then again, office pranksters are pretty good, too...maybe you'll walk into work and see a surprise there...

For a list of the Top 100 all-time best radio pranks, click here (MuseumOfHoaxes.com).

And a few more here and here.

Googleheads know that Google takes radio's April Fool's Day pranks to heart and does their own versions of them. Since 2000, they've done some excellent ones, including showing exactly how their search algorithms work (hint: pigeons at terminals).

Here's a rundown from the BusinessInsider detailing Google's annual pranks.

Just like on the radio, I wonder what Google has in store for us tomorrow...

Will Facebook or Twitter pranks us next?

Labels: April 1, April Fool's Day, Google, Hijinx, Pranks, Radio, Stunt, Top 100