5

A Fake Brothel For Dogs Sort Of Won An Emmy

You might've heard of Joey Skaggs, a man known for taunting the media and exposing their irresponsible reporting. Well, in 1976, he struck prank gold after advertising a "cat house for dogs," where people could bring their beloved pooches for some dog-on-dog frolicking.

The Village Voice"Featuring a savory selection of Hot Bitches" is great marketing.

4

The Anti-Gravity Prank (That Doesn't Want To Go Away)

On April 1, 1976, famous BBC Radio 2 astronomer Sir Patrick Moore told listeners that planet Earth would experience a temporary loss of gravity. At 9:47 a.m. precisely, Jupiter and Pluto would align and essentially suck up Earth's gravitational force. He also added that in order to feel the full effect, everyone should jump at the exact same time.

People today know the Earth is flat and all that is impossible, but in 1976 they weren't so savvy. And we don't mean that they believed it was going to happen -- people believed it did happen. By 9:48 a.m., the station's lines were flooded with callers sharing how they floated in zero gravity. Sir Moore called it the Jovian-Plutonian Gravitational Effect, because this was no random April Fool's joke. He staged the hoax as an answer to The Jupiter Effect, a book predicting that on March 10, 1982, a rare alignment of planets would occur, causing earthquakes along the San Andreas Fault, as well as other apocalyptic events around the world.

WalkerYou, of course, remember the great apocalypse of 1982.

3

The "Lexicon Of Grunge" Is Completely Absurd

In 1992, following the success of local bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden, everyone was talking about Seattle and the new genre of rock known as "grunge." That same year, Megan Jasper, a former employee of the record label Sub Pop (who was later rehired and became CEO), got a call from reporter Rick Marin at The New York Times. He wanted to talk about the recent boom of the so-called "grunge culture," and was putting together a list of "grunge slang" for his piece. There was only one problem: Grunge slang didn't exist, and assuming it did was hilariously out of touch.

So Jasper decided to have some fun with him. At first she kept to real things. "Rock on" was a type of happy goodbye, and "score" meant "great!" But when the reporter kept typing away, she started cranking up the absurdity, hoping that at some point he would catch on and share the joke. He did not, and the article detailing the "Lexicon of Grunge" was published:

The New York Times"Gonna be a cob nobbler all bound and hagged this weekend or you gonna be swingin' on the flippity-flop with this dish?" -- Kurt Cobain's dying words.

2

The History Of The Bathtub (Not Really)

On December 28, 1917, American journalist H.L. Mencken published an article in The New York Evening Mail titled "A Neglected Anniversary." The article was a tribute not only to the introduction of the bathtub to the U.S. in 1842, but also to Millard Fillmore, the first POTUS to have a bathtub with running water installed in the White House. The piece claimed that the first American bathtub was created and installed by one Adam Thompson, a Cincinnati merchant who frequently traveled to England. Wanting to improve on the inferior English bathtub, he built a modern one (and the rest of this sentence is just for the ladies) "large enough to admit the whole body of an adult man."

Mencken then hailed the true savior and pioneer of the bathtub, President Fillmore, who had one installed in the White House. It was the greatest moment in presidential restroom activities, until our 45th president mocked the size of a hostile nation's nuclear button while sitting on the toilet.

Jesse Harrison WhitehurstMillard Fillmore, or as he became known to history, "Dr. Rubadub-Tub, Esq."

Hopefully you've inferred by now that the article was a joke. Mencken wrote it during World War I, thinking his audience could do with some light reading between all the bombing and racism. All of his facts were made up. In reality, the earliest reference to a POTUS bathtub was during the James Madison administration in 1814. Unless that source was also kidding. We're starting to realize you should never believe a president when he says he took a bath.

Mencken thought it would be a harmless joke, but chiropractors and academics started referencing his fabricated facts to fuel their respective arguments. The citizens of Cincinnati boasted that their town started the $200 million bathtub industry, and even Congress adopted his writings as truth. The insane story remained in articles and academic journals, waiting for any non-bathtub expert to come along and believe them. In 2001, The Washington Post fell victim to the hoax.

The Washington Post

1

Alabama Never Wanted To Change Pi To Its "Biblical Value"

In 1998, an article was published by New Mexicans for Science and Reason. This obscure little article went viral, which was no small feat, considering it was published months before the advent of Google. For something to go viral in 1998, it had to be pretty significant.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- NASA engineers and mathematicians in this high-tech city are stunned and infuriated after the Alabama state legislature narrowly passed a law yesterday [March 30, 1998] redefining pi, a mathematical constant used in the aerospace industry. The bill to change the value of pi to exactly three was introduced without fanfare by Leonard Lee Lawson (R, Crossville), and rapidly gained support after a letter-writing campaign by members of the Solomon Society, a traditional values group. Governor Guy Hunt says he will sign it into law on Wednesday.

Yep, that'll do it.

The article goes on to report the opposing arguments, but Lawson's reasoning is the real kicker here. When mathematicians (and just anybody vaguely aware of what math is) tried explaining that pi is an irrational number, Lawson replied:

"I think that it is the mathematicians that are being irrational, and it is time for them to admit it. The Bible very clearly says in I Kings 7:23 that the altar font of Solomon's Temple was ten cubits across and thirty cubits in diameter, and that it was round in compass."

"Look, if you squint, it's basically a cross."

A state school board member welcomed the new legislation, but said that we should keep the old value as an alternative so that kids could decide for themselves.

"As far as I am concerned, the value of pi is only a theory, and we should be open to all interpretations."

While it's true that the state of Indiana proposed changing the value of pi to 3.2 back in 1897, this entire article was a parody. The people featured in it were modeled after real citizens, but there was no Leonard Lee Lawson, no bill was proposed or passed, and no school board member was interviewed. Written by physicist Mark Boslough, the article was meant as a satirical reaction to the pushback New Mexico schools were getting for teaching kids evolution.

Another big clue: The article was published on April 1, a day rendered useless for sharing information by "hilarious" pranksters long before the year 1998. Also, it was written under Boslough's pseudonym, "April Holiday." ALSO, he told everyone it was a hoax the very evening it was published. Little did he know what humans are capable of when outrage meets the internet.

Almost two months after the article was published, a version of it made its way back to the NMSR. They were stunned. When searching for "Alabama Pi," they got hundreds of hits. People all over the world were outraged about what they believed really came to pass. Protesters even started phoning in and yelling at Alabama legislators, no doubt certain the state's poorly measured circles would lead to disaster in both the radial tire and Moon Pie industries.

So the next time you see an obvious hoax circulating the internet, remember that this has all happened before, and it will all happen again. Or, to be sure, go ask Snopes. And to be double sure, ask a person claiming Snopes is a propaganda site paid for by a cabal of secret liberal billionaires. And to be triple sure, it's probably aliens.

Follow Zanandi on Twitter. Rock on.

Silly Alabama, pi is for dessert, right? Consumed on some delightfully punny circular plates.

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