The spaghetti-tree hoax was a three-minute

hoax A hoax (plural: hoaxes) is a widely publicised falsehood created to deceive its audience with false and often astonishing information, with the either malicious or humorous intent of causing shock and interest in as many people as possible. S ...

report broadcast on

April Fools' Day April Fools' Day or April Fool's Day (rarely called All Fools' Day) is an annual custom on the 1st of April consisting of practical jokes, hoaxes, and pranks. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting "April Fool " at the recipient. ...

1957 by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

current-affairs programme ''

Panorama A panorama (formed from Greek language, Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any Obtuse angle, wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography (panoramic photography), film, seismic image ...

'', purportedly showing a family in southern

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

harvesting

spaghetti Spaghetti () is a long, thin, solid, cylindrical pasta.spaghetti
Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Una ...

from a "spaghetti tree". At the time of the report's broadcast, spaghetti was relatively unknown in the United Kingdom, and a number of viewers contacted the BBC afterwards for advice on growing their own spaghetti trees. Decades later,

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

called this broadcast "the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled".

Broadcast

The news report was produced as an

joke in 1957, and presented a family in the canton of

Ticino Ticino ( ), sometimes Tessin (), officially the Republic and Canton of Ticino or less formally the Canton of Ticino, is one of the Canton of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. It is composed of eight districts ...

in southern Switzerland gathering a bumper spaghetti harvest after a mild winter and "virtual disappearance of the spaghetti

weevil Weevils are beetles belonging to the superfamily Curculionoidea, known for their elongated snouts. They are usually small – less than in length – and herbivorous. Approximately 97,000 species of weevils are known. They belong to several fa ...

". Footage of a traditional "Harvest Festival" was aired along with a discussion of the breeding necessary to develop a strain to produce the perfect length of spaghetti. Some scenes were filmed at the (now closed) Pasta Foods factory on London Road,

St Albans St Albans () is a cathedral city in Hertfordshire, England, east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Hatfield, north-west of London, south-west of Welwyn Garden City and south-east of Luton. St Albans was the first major ...

, in

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...

, and at a hotel in Castagnola,

. ''Panorama'' cameraman Charles de Jaeger dreamed up the story after remembering how teachers at his school in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

teased his classmates for being so stupid that if they were told that spaghetti grew on trees, they would believe it. The editor of ''Panorama'', Michael Peacock, told the BBC in 2014 how he gave de Jaeger a budget of £100 and sent him off. The report was made more believable through its

voice-over Voice-over (also known as off-camera or off-stage commentary) is a production technique used in radio, television, filmmaking, theatre, and other media in which a descriptive or expository voice that is not part of the narrative (i.e., non- ...

by respected broadcaster

Richard Dimbleby Frederick Richard Dimbleby (25 May 1913 – 22 December 1965) was an English journalist and broadcaster who became the BBC's first war correspondent and then its leading TV news commentator. As host of the long-running current affairs pro ...

. Peacock said Dimbleby knew they were using his authority to make the joke work, and that Dimbleby loved the idea and went at it eagerly. At the time, 7 million of the 15.8 million homes (about 44%) in Britain had television receivers. Pasta was not an everyday food in 1950s Britain, and it was known mainly from tinned spaghetti in tomato sauce and considered by many to be an exotic delicacy. An estimated eight million people watched the programme on 1 April 1957, and hundreds phoned in the following day to question the authenticity of the story or ask for more information about spaghetti cultivation and how they could 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".

References

External links

* * * Video link on that page is dead. * With transcript and background. * * * {{cite web , last=Elen , first=Richard G. , url=http://www.transdiffusion.org/emc/aspidistra/spaghetti_fool.php , title=Spaghetti Fool | Aspidistra , publisher=Transdiffusion.org , date=1 April 2007 , accessdate=29 December 2014 , url-status=dead , archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120613042901/http://www.transdiffusion.org/emc/aspidistra/spaghetti_fool.php , archivedate=13 June 2012 April Fools' Day jokes Performance hoaxes BBC controversies Fictional trees 1957 in the United Kingdom Mockumentaries 1957 in British television Hoaxes in the United Kingdom Journalistic hoaxes 1950s hoaxes Spaghetti Television episodes set in Switzerland Panorama (British TV programme)

Broadcast

See also

References

External links