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Varning för aprilskämt! Posted by on Mar 31, 2011 in Culture

The last day of  March means the first day of April tomorrow – and we all know what that day holds.  April fools’ day is upon us and you better beware of everything, everyone – especially the media.  There will be plenty of April fools’ (Aprilskämt) hidden away in the papers tomorrow, some very obviuos, some a bit more subtle. In preparation of tomorrow, here are three very successful April fools’ from the Swedish media throughout the years:

Year 2006: Alcohol sale!
A newspaper in Gothenburg claimed that Systembolaget (the government controlled store that sells alcohol) had dropped their prices to a German level, as in extremely cheap compared to Sweden. Iif you turned up at this one particular store and brought your tax declaration to prove that you paid Swedish taxes, you were entitled to buy cheap alcohol. This caused chaos, I tell you!

Year 1980: What time it it??
The biggest newspaper in Stockholm claimed that the clock had gone forward a week earlier than it was supposed to. This caused a right mess! Noone was sure of what time it was and the paper had several complaints afterwards from people missing appointments and turned up late for work.

Year 1962: Turn your black and white-TV into colour-TV!
Before colour-TV existed in Sweden, a news report claimed that this new and amazing equipment at the broadcasting station all of a sudden gave everyone access to colour-TV. All you had to do was to  cover the screen with a pair of  nylon pantyhose/tights…  It sounds ridiculous, but if you watch this video, I’m willing to cut the thousands of people who tried this some slack…

What April Fools’ have you come across in your country? Any particularly good/bad?

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Comments:

  1. Kenia:

    Fun! My teacher at SFI talked about this today, and she mentioned yet another funny story about the media fooling people.

    This one happened in Gothenburg some years ago, and it was some newspaper that wrote that the police station had no room for the bikes found in the streets and that they would start giving them out at the main square of the city, very early in the morning. Imagine how many people gathered just to find they had been fooled! =)