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We're Late for the April Fools' Episode · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
0:31
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. We're running a little late on
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Speaker 1: this one. Edit's my fault, you know. Shout out to
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Speaker 1: our super producer, mister Max Williams the top.
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Speaker 2: When have we ever hit a tent pole topic on time?
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Speaker 2: This is in classic Ridiculous History fashion that we're two
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Speaker 2: days late for said holiday.
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Speaker 3: I am proud of myself, so I'm going to toot
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Speaker 3: my own horn and talk about myself right now. Yet,
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Speaker 3: on February twenty ninth last year, we had an episode
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Speaker 3: about the leap year we did? Did I write a
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Speaker 3: Thanksgiving grab bag esque episode? But I think that's about it.
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Speaker 3: I think one time we might have gotten lucky. But
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Speaker 3: look we did our was it Labor Day? Like either
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Speaker 3: two months before or two months after Labor Day? And
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Speaker 3: I'm like, this is marvelous.
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Speaker 4: I love us. I don't know why we're letting on that.
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Speaker 4: It's not on purpose.
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Speaker 1: It's very oh, folks. That is Noel Brown recently returned
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Speaker 1: from Philadelphia. So Noel aka Young Cheese Steak Brown.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, okak you sure you Young cheese steak is accurate.
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Speaker 2: I had a couple of those from what is Angelo's
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Speaker 2: and ish Caabibbeles, which are too you know, I think
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Speaker 2: Angelo's is kind of hot right now. But a lot
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Speaker 2: of people know about Ishkabibbles. And that's the funnest named
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Speaker 2: place to get a sandwich in the history of sandwiches,
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Speaker 2: if you ask me.
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Speaker 1: And we're accountabill of buddies, so I was. It is
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Speaker 1: a true story, Noel, I they called me, Ben what
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Speaker 1: I was bugging you the whole time you were in
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Speaker 1: Philly and I just kept texting you on multiple threads
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Speaker 1: to ask for cheese steak pictures.
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Speaker 2: It's the only reason I had the second steak, Ben,
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Speaker 2: It's the only reason I went to Isshuabibbles.
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Speaker 4: It was just for you.
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Speaker 2: I only had about three bites and then I had
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Speaker 2: to throw away the rest because man, those things are
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Speaker 2: not meant to be consumed in their entirety by one
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Speaker 2: human person. That's a heart attack waiting to happen.
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Speaker 1: I don't know if Philly does it, man, I don't know.
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Speaker 2: I guess he's got to walk a lot, which I
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Speaker 2: did do. I had a great time. Thanks for mentioning it,
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Speaker 2: but yeah, no, cheese steaks are delightful, as are nonsensical
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Speaker 2: holidays that are designed to potentially hurt people's feelings or delights.
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Speaker 1: Results vary, so we're running late on our April Fool's
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Speaker 1: Day episode. That's what this is, and you and I
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Speaker 1: have talked about it in the past on and off air.
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Speaker 1: I feel like it can be a mean and spirited holiday.
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Speaker 4: It certainly can be.
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Speaker 2: I have been the victim, not that big a deal,
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Speaker 2: but of some not so nice April Fools pranks. But
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Speaker 2: I guess it's all in how you play it. If
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Speaker 2: you play it a little too straight about something a
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Speaker 2: little too serious, you know, things could go wrong. But
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Speaker 2: if it's something sort of like lighthearted and a little
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Speaker 2: bit absurdist, I'm all about that, right.
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Speaker 1: Like, if, for instance, I gave I gave my dad
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Speaker 1: a mug that said World's Best Grandfather and then said
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Speaker 1: April Fools, that would be really extreme.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, but even that's on the lighter end of extreme.
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Speaker 2: If you ask me, I was punked quite successfully by
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Speaker 2: my kid is sixteen. I was playing a piece of
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Speaker 2: music that I've been working on when I was in Philadelphia,
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Speaker 2: and to me and goes you know what, Dad, I
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Speaker 2: gotta tell you, this isn't very good.
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Speaker 4: What I don't like it. It sounds like but I
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Speaker 4: believe is the term that they use. And then I
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Speaker 4: really my heart sunk. My heart sunk.
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Speaker 2: And then I very quickly saw the forlornness in my
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Speaker 2: eyes and very quickly responded with a quick April fool.
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Speaker 1: Which I was wow, So that kids are mean, dude,
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Speaker 1: kids are being dude. That's an in depth example of
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Speaker 1: April fools, or those are two light examples from us.
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Speaker 1: I think the worst one I got was ooh, it's
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Speaker 1: not even fit for the air. It was pretty extreme,
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Speaker 1: it was pretty mean. But if you want to learn
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Speaker 1: more about famous examples of April Fool's day, you can
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Speaker 1: check out our earlier episode on the epic spaghetti.
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Speaker 2: Trees prank, which I think is a perfect example of
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Speaker 2: a lighthearted, absurdist one. Because the BBC created this thing
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Speaker 2: to appear like a legitimate documentary about an absolutely Bezonker's topic,
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Speaker 2: and like they had like these old Italian nonas, like
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Speaker 2: harvesting spaghetti from the trees in the Italian countryside, and like,
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Speaker 2: let's say you do believe it, what's the worst outcome
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Speaker 2: there that you feel like a little bit of a
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Speaker 2: dumb dumb you know. Okay, not the end of the world,
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Speaker 2: but just different. No, it's certainly not. Another example that
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Speaker 2: really did ruffle some feathers and potentially cost some harm,
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Speaker 2: but would not have been considered an April fool's joke
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Speaker 2: is orson Wells War of the World's broadcast, where a
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Speaker 2: lot of people took that very very seriously.
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Speaker 4: And thought the aliens were coming, and they.
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Speaker 2: Fled for shelter, called the police, you know, a repeatedly,
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Speaker 2: you know, clogged up the lines and all of that
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Speaker 2: good stuff, only for it to turn out to a
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Speaker 2: bit of very well produced radio play.
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Speaker 1: Right and worth a listen. Still, both examples that you
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Speaker 1: just named there, Noel. As April first approached, we asked ourselves,
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Speaker 1: what is this holiday? Exactly? Where does it come from?
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Speaker 1: How did it spread across the globe? And I think
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Speaker 1: we were all startled to learn the answer is kind
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Speaker 1: of ridiculous. So before we get into this fool's errand.
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Speaker 4: Yes, yes, which is the term.
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Speaker 2: That I've used plenty in my life, and I never
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Speaker 2: really thought about the origins of it, but it certainly
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Speaker 2: does date back to the early days of being an
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Speaker 2: April fool.
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Speaker 1: So okay, okay, Noel, can you kick it for all
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Speaker 1: of us historians in the crowd ridiculous variety. If you
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Speaker 1: had to explain to an alien what April Fool's Day is,
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Speaker 1: how would you explain it?
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Speaker 2: It is a day where it is acceptable to lie
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Speaker 2: to the people that you love for comedic effect. Holy smokes,
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Speaker 2: that is good, kind of dark though it starts, it's starting.
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Speaker 1: No, we're keeping it. We're keeping it man, because that
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Speaker 1: is poetry. It's a celebration of pranks and practical jokes.
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Speaker 1: In most countries today, it happens on the first day
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Speaker 1: of the month we call April. You run into any
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Speaker 1: number of jokes or in person practical like pranks, and
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Speaker 1: usually when someone is lying to someone that they love,
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Speaker 1: as you said at the end of the bit, the
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Speaker 1: prankster will yell April Fools at their big reveal. And
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Speaker 1: what I think we both found astonishing about this is
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Speaker 1: that multiple countries have their own variation. You could be
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Speaker 1: in April Fish. Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go to it. Ah, yes, yeah,
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Speaker 1: put the definitive on that. Yeah. The the idea I
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Speaker 1: love that you're bringing up the French. The idea here
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Speaker 1: is that what I've just we love the French, They're great,
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Speaker 1: I do, I do so. Uh, perhaps this is a
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Speaker 1: reference to a young fish that is easily caught. We're
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Speaker 1: pulling some of this straight up from our friends at Britannica. Uh,
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Speaker 1: we did not know, or I did not know that
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Speaker 1: it is common for French kids to pin paper fish
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Speaker 1: on the backs of folks they're pranking, kind of like
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Speaker 1: how we would put a kick me sign, just.
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Speaker 2: Like a kick me sign exactly, or you know, a
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Speaker 2: pin the tail in the donkey situation, to quote Larry David,
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Speaker 2: which is.
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Speaker 4: A cruel and violent game. Why would you do it?
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Speaker 2: A pinata that he was talking about, But pin the
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Speaker 2: tail and a donkey similarly violent and a little bit cruel.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, it doesn't it? Maybe not? Well, how does that
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Speaker 4: game work?
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Speaker 2: Doesn't you stick it on people and they spin around
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Speaker 2: or something and maybe before they hit that's true, But
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Speaker 2: I swear there's a variation of pin the tail.
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Speaker 3: All right, I'm here, I'm here. The youthful guy on
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Speaker 3: the show will jump in. It's closer to my childhood
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Speaker 3: than it's yours. So pin the tail and a donkey
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Speaker 3: it's there's like a donkey like painting type of thing
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Speaker 3: on a wall. You put a blindfold on, somebody, hand
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Speaker 3: them the pin and they have a general idea where
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Speaker 3: it is, but they go to see how close you
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Speaker 3: can get it to getually get in the tail on
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Speaker 3: the right spot.
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Speaker 4: You spin them around, don't you disorient them? Isn't the
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Speaker 4: idea of.
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Speaker 1: The house rules? That's house rules?
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Speaker 3: Okay, fair enough, it's all kind of awful because the
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Speaker 3: only way you're doing this off of your memory trying
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Speaker 3: to figure out where it is. It gets fun around,
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Speaker 3: you're gonna go put it in somebody's arm.
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Speaker 4: Uh.
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Speaker 3: But to your point, nol, I mean think about it
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Speaker 3: like we have like basically intentionally removed a donkey's tail,
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Speaker 3: and now we are trying to attach another one to it.
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Speaker 4: That is that's so twisted. I wonder twisted Max with
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Speaker 4: the facts I've ever heard.
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Speaker 1: Okay, we'll do it. We'll do the sound cue, we'll
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Speaker 1: do the sound cue.
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Speaker 5: That seeking in the phone and he's fallen knowledge. It's
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Speaker 5: just for you right now here.
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Speaker 1: With the fact, I do wonder whether there has ever
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Speaker 1: been a like an earlier version where was an actual
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Speaker 1: tortured donkey, oh dear too Yeah, too dark, all right,
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Speaker 1: so let's go to Scotland. In Scotland, it's hunt the
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Speaker 1: glock or the golp goo w k. It's a symbol
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Speaker 1: of the fool. And then, you know, it's.
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Speaker 2: Sure very similar to what we might have over here
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Speaker 2: in like boy scout campouts, which is the old snipe hunt,
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Speaker 2: snipe hunt, the idea of you know, taking a nube
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Speaker 2: and sort of convincing them that it's a right of
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Speaker 2: passage to hunt this mythical beast and sending them out
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Speaker 2: after a thing that does not exist, which is very
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Speaker 2: much the fool's errand of it all, you know, or
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Speaker 2: very much a wild goose chase situation.
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Speaker 1: Sure, a version of that occurs in modern in modern
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Speaker 1: production film and TV. Friends, you'll know this one of
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Speaker 1: the hazing rituals for like a new kid or a
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Speaker 1: pa in production a production assistant is to give them
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Speaker 1: a super obscure, official sounding name for a thing, a
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Speaker 1: piece of a and send them hunting for it. And
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Speaker 1: it's a closed spin.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's called like an M four thirty two or
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Speaker 2: some sort of like numerical kind of model number type thing.
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Speaker 2: And now I'm totally forgetting what it was because they
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Speaker 2: referred to them as that actually on on sets and
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Speaker 2: in film situations. Another one that's interesting too is in
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Speaker 2: construction sites. Gosh, I saw this on a TV show recently.
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Speaker 2: But they were sent a young newbie construction worker like
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Speaker 2: house framer looking for a like a window stretcher or
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Speaker 2: something like that, like some kind of like device that
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Speaker 2: is meant to do something that really the only way
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Speaker 2: to do it is manually.
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Speaker 3: So to jump in here real quick, I'm just thinking
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Speaker 3: about as you guys know, I I managed restaurants in
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Speaker 3: the city of landas number.
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Speaker 1: What did you guys do? What'd you do?
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Speaker 5: Oh?
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Speaker 1: What was?
12:46
Speaker 4: This gets more?
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Speaker 3: This gets more evil as story goes on because he
12:51
Speaker 3: because one of the best things about it is it's
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Speaker 3: not me, but four different restaurant managers working with each
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Speaker 3: other on this on this posture. And so there's a
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Speaker 3: search of these restaurants and there's like four within like
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Speaker 3: five minutes walking to each other. So basically what we
13:04
Speaker 3: would usually do when one of the places start. It
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Speaker 3: was a new employee who seemed a pretty cool day
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Speaker 3: and like wouldn't get offended if he did this to them.
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Speaker 3: They just understand some hazing is uh. One of us
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Speaker 3: would send a person with a bucket to go get
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Speaker 3: a bucket of steam in the steam you can put
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Speaker 3: steam in a bucket, like, oh, that's the name of
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Speaker 3: the product.
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Speaker 4: Just go over to this place.
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Speaker 3: So they go over that place, and the manager who
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Speaker 3: knows this is like, dude, oh, yes, you guys are
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Speaker 3: out of steam too. Yeah, the delivery must not come in,
13:27
Speaker 3: but you gotta.
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Speaker 1: Go to the third guy.
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Speaker 3: The third but like, we get all over his stuff
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Speaker 3: from us twos they get their stuff from Cisco, so
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Speaker 3: they should be good. And then like the third person's like, yeah, no,
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Speaker 3: we sorry, the owners cut it off. Well, you guys
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Speaker 3: have been borrowing way too much steam from us.
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Speaker 4: You can't do it.
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Speaker 3: So the person's just walking around Grant Park neighborhood with
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Speaker 3: a ice bucket, a big giant ice bucket, over and
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Speaker 3: over again until one of the managers uh breaks their breaks,
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Speaker 3: like you know, the joke and break are laughing and
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Speaker 3: they're like, oh, I have been walking around for thirty
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Speaker 3: minutes in the hot sun of Atlanta.
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Speaker 1: Well aventually it would turn to steam.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so there you go take a while to take
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Speaker 2: a while just goes to share that April fool can
14:06
Speaker 2: be every day in certain situations. I found a couple
14:08
Speaker 2: other examples of the job site stuff when would be
14:10
Speaker 2: a to your point max or similar to your straight
14:12
Speaker 2: A bucket of Olmes homes being a way of measuring
14:16
Speaker 2: electrical resistance, which is not a thing that can be
14:19
Speaker 2: held in a bucket, a wire stretcher, a flex bender,
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Speaker 2: a pack of end joints, or a box of toenails.
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Speaker 1: I do have a box of toenails. We're not going
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Speaker 1: to get into it.
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Speaker 4: Those around you just you just hang on to them
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Speaker 4: for posterity.
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Speaker 1: I believe in magic. So there's there's a Uh there's
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Speaker 1: another example. We used to do this thing where you
14:40
Speaker 1: would have like a new recruit, uh, you would you
14:45
Speaker 1: would have them dig a hole and then you would
14:48
Speaker 1: yell at them for digging the hole wrong, and you
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Speaker 1: would ask them to move the hole, or you would
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Speaker 1: send them to a different guy who would get mad
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Speaker 1: that anyone like that you were there was very kill
15:04
Speaker 1: the messenger. It was just a way to make people
15:07
Speaker 1: do more push ups.
15:08
Speaker 4: Sure, Penn.
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Speaker 2: Can you imagine if someone came up with a movable
15:12
Speaker 2: hole that would be a million dollar idea. So you know,
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Speaker 2: this is all of these kinds of things. These had
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Speaker 2: a Galki Day, another thing they referred to it as
15:22
Speaker 2: in Scotland hunt the galk, very similar to our snipe
15:25
Speaker 2: hunt that we know. Tally Day is a following day
15:27
Speaker 2: where people would pen oftentimes kick me signs on folks back,
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Speaker 2: similar to the fish situation over there in France. All
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Speaker 2: of these rituals are part of a relatively and surprisingly
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Speaker 2: ancient practice that spans cultures, continence, and of course time,
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Speaker 2: the custom of dedicating a single day to the embracing
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Speaker 2: of harmless pranks and merriments on one's friends, neighbors and
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Speaker 2: loved ones, with a sort of built in amnesty where
15:57
Speaker 2: you can't really get mad about it.
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Speaker 4: But some of these are worthy of.
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Speaker 2: Getting that about, you know, if you get really done dirty, right.
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Speaker 1: And we were looking into this and we found that
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Speaker 1: April Fool's Day is itself kind of a mixtape of
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Speaker 1: much earlier festivals, things like Hilaria of ancient name that right.
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Speaker 4: But re fun festival.
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Speaker 1: Yes, it was on March twenty fifth, so not too
16:31
Speaker 1: far away. People would dress up in disguises, you could
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Speaker 1: mock fellow citizens and back in Roman times. People genuinely
16:43
Speaker 1: believe this was inspired by it was like inspired by
16:49
Speaker 1: earlier Egyptian mythology. And then you could go to another
16:55
Speaker 1: Tomfoolery celebration that continues today in India, the Holly celebration
17:01
Speaker 1: Hli well.
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Speaker 2: And also, I mean it reminds me even of like
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Speaker 2: the Carnival season like in Brazil, or the way that's
17:08
Speaker 2: been embraced and sort of changed around to.
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Speaker 4: Suit the New Orleans culture.
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Speaker 2: I mean, and even in Germany and in Europe they've
17:15
Speaker 2: got something called Fashing, which is very much around that
17:17
Speaker 2: carnival season, but it contains a lot of that same
17:20
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, little pranks, little jokes, merriment.
17:23
Speaker 4: Hell, even Halloween has.
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Speaker 2: A certain prank quality to it, right, the trick or
17:28
Speaker 2: the treat right, I mean a lot of these things
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Speaker 2: are cross pollinad and there are bits of it in
17:33
Speaker 2: various different holidays and seasons, even within a single culture.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, we see a larger trend here. And if
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Speaker 1: we look at the ancient past. Staying with that for
17:46
Speaker 1: a moment, we also have to consider things like Saturnalia.
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Speaker 1: It was the winter festival, you know that everybody's celebrated
17:57
Speaker 1: at the end of December, if you vibed the harrowing winter,
18:02
Speaker 1: you danced, you drank, you made mary, you made, you
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Speaker 1: gave each other gifts. Slaves were allowed to pretend they
18:11
Speaker 1: were in charge for that one day, and for that
18:15
Speaker 1: one day.
18:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's evil again, slavery is the most evil of all.
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Speaker 4: But I mean that is just kind of that's even worse.
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Speaker 1: That's very like, get out and thank you for bp me.
18:28
Speaker 4: Max.
18:29
Speaker 1: There was the there was a fake king, the guy
18:33
Speaker 1: called the In English, we'll call it Lord of Misrule. Eventually, yeah, yeah,
18:41
Speaker 1: in the Eventually, around the fourth century CE, what we
18:49
Speaker 1: call Saturnalia turned into celebration of the new year on
18:55
Speaker 1: January first, and a lot of the Saturnalia traditions and
19:01
Speaker 1: sort of ornaments or affectations are incorporated in the modern
19:07
Speaker 1: observance of Christmas. Please check out our episodes on Christmas.
19:13
Speaker 1: I just love this point that almost every culture across
19:18
Speaker 1: the planet has some kind of festival in the first
19:22
Speaker 1: months of the year to celebrate the fact that spring
19:26
Speaker 1: is coming. And if you talk with our boffins, our
19:30
Speaker 1: anthropologist friends, they'll tell you these are called renewal festivals.
19:37
Speaker 4: That's interesting.
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Speaker 2: The idea of renewal by being a little silly Bailey,
19:41
Speaker 2: you know, renewing yourself. It's also you know, I wish
19:45
Speaker 2: that there were an official calendar day for opposite day.
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Speaker 2: You know, people always talk about its opposite day, but
19:51
Speaker 2: it seems to only be used to kind of suit
19:53
Speaker 2: whatever little gag they're playing at that particularly moment. It's
19:56
Speaker 2: sort of like a momentary. Yeah, it's like a momentary
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Speaker 2: April fools. Yeah, And I mean, just to reiterate, like,
20:03
Speaker 2: this is very much a day there. This is a
20:06
Speaker 2: day where up is down and down is up, and
20:08
Speaker 2: you know, the master becomes the servant and vice versa. Again,
20:13
Speaker 2: sort of an opposite day situation.
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Speaker 4: And the idea that for.
20:16
Speaker 2: That one day, you know, like the idea of being
20:18
Speaker 2: king for a day, but it doesn't really change anything,
20:21
Speaker 2: which is I think the part that gives it that
20:23
Speaker 2: sort of dark sort of twist.
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Speaker 1: Right, it's like an escape hatch. And I love I
20:28
Speaker 1: mentioned Whitest Kids. You know, do you remember that sketch?
20:32
Speaker 4: Course I die, I do very much.
20:34
Speaker 2: And the guy went on to the one of the
20:36
Speaker 2: members went on to make Barbarian, which is a film
20:39
Speaker 2: that I quite loved, and rip Trevor Moore, who was
20:42
Speaker 2: the kind of the leader of that sketch group and
20:44
Speaker 2: passed away well before his time. In the last handful
20:48
Speaker 2: of years.
20:49
Speaker 1: They have a fantastic opposite day sketch. I don't know
20:53
Speaker 1: that one that address it, Please everyone look it up.
20:57
Speaker 1: It addresses the idea of scheduling and opposite day, or
21:00
Speaker 1: the sort of cognitive paradox, which is what these sorts
21:05
Speaker 1: of holidays or celebrations or festivals, whatever you want to
21:10
Speaker 1: call them, are ultimately celebrating. At its very best, the
21:15
Speaker 1: modern April Fool's Day can be pretty fun. But here's
21:19
Speaker 1: the thing, no one really knows where it came from.
21:24
Speaker 1: People weren't even asking about the providence of April Fools
21:29
Speaker 1: until maybe seventeen oh eight. There's a guy who rode
21:34
Speaker 1: into a British magazine called Apollo and said, quince proceeds
21:40
Speaker 1: the custom of making April fools. So like, no one knows,
21:46
Speaker 1: but there are a ton of fascinating theories.
21:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of scholars believe that the modern equivalent
21:51
Speaker 2: of April Fools began back there in France with that
21:54
Speaker 2: whole find the fish situation or pin the tail in
21:57
Speaker 2: the fish or the young fish whatever it was. You
22:00
Speaker 2: will often hear this the idea of April fools originating
22:03
Speaker 2: because of some as often as the case been with
22:07
Speaker 2: calendar flip floppery, right like certain whims of certain kings
22:12
Speaker 2: and arguments over when actual facts.
22:15
Speaker 4: Lauren vogelbam new year officially starts.
22:19
Speaker 1: Oh man, yeah, this is the thing, all right, So
22:22
Speaker 1: it's Les, let's rewind if we can max perfect and
22:31
Speaker 1: thank you do Actually, yeah, I like the way you
22:34
Speaker 1: did it.
22:35
Speaker 4: Combine our forces for the re Yeah.
22:37
Speaker 1: Back in the fifteen hundreds, there's this guy, he's the king.
22:42
Speaker 1: His name is Charles nine I X if your fancy,
22:46
Speaker 1: and he said, look, the New Year is not going
22:49
Speaker 1: to begin on Easter anymore. For a lot of Christians
22:54
Speaker 1: at the time the New Year began on Easter. He said, instead,
22:58
Speaker 1: we're taking it to January first. And the idea, the
23:03
Speaker 1: theory that you'll often hear is that French people who
23:08
Speaker 1: didn't get the communication, they didn't get the memo.
23:11
Speaker 2: They also sort of have a way of doing things,
23:13
Speaker 2: you know, they they like to do things a little.
23:15
Speaker 4: Different there in France.
23:18
Speaker 2: We say that you may well have gotten the memo
23:20
Speaker 2: and put it in the trash you know, like.
23:23
Speaker 1: We're guys who are not Francophones, but we are frank
23:25
Speaker 1: of Fhiles. You know.
23:27
Speaker 2: Oh, if I'm talking a little fun at the French,
23:30
Speaker 2: it's it's absolutely ingest.
23:32
Speaker 4: I'm a huge The food is genuinely better.
23:35
Speaker 2: And some of my favorite music in the entire world
23:38
Speaker 2: comes from France. But yeah, to your point, Ben, the
23:42
Speaker 2: the idea that they kind of stayed the course and
23:44
Speaker 2: kept things going as they were, so during the last
23:48
Speaker 2: week of March through April first, that became a time
23:51
Speaker 2: to kind of make fun of the French because they
23:53
Speaker 2: had not changed their calendars to join the rest of
23:55
Speaker 2: which the term you have in here, Ben, which I love, Christendom,
23:58
Speaker 2: it just seems very Robin Hood.
24:00
Speaker 4: I don't know why Christendom. It's very very official Sunding.
24:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the folks who didn't get the decree of
24:07
Speaker 1: the king and we're still celebrating the quote unquote wrong
24:13
Speaker 1: beginning of the year. They were called the April fools.
24:16
Speaker 1: That's a theory. That's the long story short, but that
24:20
Speaker 1: doesn't always give us the answer. So the long story long,
24:24
Speaker 1: the straight seahorse teeth, the hot cheese is is this
24:31
Speaker 1: you gotta like you were saying, No, we got to
24:33
Speaker 1: look at the history of calendar reform. So the Julian
24:38
Speaker 1: calendar is named after Julius Caesar, right, and that that's
24:45
Speaker 1: the calendar that made January first the first day of
24:48
Speaker 1: the year. But as Christianity, you know, further expands, and
24:54
Speaker 1: I would argue franchises throughout Europe, people wanted to move
25:00
Speaker 1: New Year's Day to dates that were more important to Christianity,
25:06
Speaker 1: like why can't it start at Christmas? Why can't the
25:09
Speaker 1: year start it Easter? And so some countries kept using
25:14
Speaker 1: January first, and they justified it. This is so crazy.
25:20
Speaker 1: Fellow substitute teachers in the crowd, please recognize this may
25:26
Speaker 1: not be appropriate for your class. Some countries used to
25:31
Speaker 1: keep with January first, and they would justify it to
25:36
Speaker 1: Christendom as I don't know how else to say it.
25:42
Speaker 1: They would they would say that January first was the
25:46
Speaker 1: date that Jesus Christ was circumcised.
25:49
Speaker 4: You know, I've never really given much thought to whether
25:51
Speaker 4: or not Jesus was circumcised, but he was a Jew
25:54
Speaker 4: and that is a custom, and I guess I didn't
25:57
Speaker 4: realize that that was a thing. Wow, Okay, it's just.
26:01
Speaker 1: Like it's a long walk as far as justifications go.
26:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, right now I'm speculating as to the size
26:11
Speaker 2: of Jesus's circumcised.
26:14
Speaker 1: Uh you're thinking about Defoe?
26:16
Speaker 5: Yeah?
26:17
Speaker 2: Oh god, no, when am I not Jesus massive?
26:22
Speaker 1: So look what we're telling you, folks, is by the
26:26
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred CE, the European calendar was a real messy
26:31
Speaker 1: bullis spaghetti. The errors in the Julian calendar, like simple
26:37
Speaker 1: mathematical errors, had caused what we call the solar year
26:43
Speaker 1: to increasingly divide from the calendar year. And add to this,
26:49
Speaker 1: different countries are beginning the year on different dates. Uh.
26:54
Speaker 1: This is really confusing, especially because in France people are
27:00
Speaker 1: using Easter as the beginning of the year, primarily for
27:05
Speaker 1: bureaucratic purposes, but people on the ground are using January
27:11
Speaker 1: first as the traditional start of the year. This is
27:16
Speaker 1: when you celebrate, This is when you give each other gifts.
27:19
Speaker 1: You know, visit your relatives, have a hug. Starting the
27:23
Speaker 1: new year on Easter is stupid and convenient.
27:26
Speaker 2: So in the early sixteenth century, in French books, you'll
27:31
Speaker 2: find both forms of the dating system listed side by side.
27:35
Speaker 2: For titles published in January February or March, and then
27:38
Speaker 2: moving into the mid sixteenth century, you started to see
27:42
Speaker 2: a system of calendaring where everything started on January first,
27:46
Speaker 2: and that began to be widely adopted in France. So
27:50
Speaker 2: they finally either got the memo or decided to pull
27:53
Speaker 2: it out of the trash and you know, kind of
27:55
Speaker 2: the join the party.
27:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was our buddy Charlie King Charles ninth of
28:02
Speaker 1: his name. He created this thing on December twenty second,
28:09
Speaker 1: fifteen sixty four, or that's when French Parliament approved of
28:14
Speaker 1: the move to make January first the official actual fact.
28:18
Speaker 1: Shout out, Lauren, first day of the year. This was
28:21
Speaker 1: in my mind, this is like the calindrical version of
28:25
Speaker 1: legalizing cannabis. He looked at it, he said, everybody's already
28:29
Speaker 1: doing it, so why are we going to make it illegal?
28:33
Speaker 2: Wait, isn't that that's the name of an album. Everybody
28:35
Speaker 2: else is doing it, so what shouldn't we It's.
28:37
Speaker 4: Like the Cranberries, I want to say.
28:39
Speaker 2: Ayway, eighteen years later, in fifteen eighty two, we've got
28:42
Speaker 2: Pope Gregory issuing a papal powl, which sounds so intense,
28:45
Speaker 2: which is basically just a decree from the Pope that
28:49
Speaker 2: declared sweeping calendar reform across all of Christendom or Catholicism
28:55
Speaker 2: in them. The Gregorian reform included moving the start of
28:59
Speaker 2: the year to January first, and creating a Leapyer system
29:02
Speaker 2: that Max very definitely stuck to with our publishing schedule
29:05
Speaker 2: and whatever Leapier that was, which at the time eliminated
29:08
Speaker 2: ten days from the month of October of eighteen fifty
29:11
Speaker 2: two in order to correct that calendar drift, which is
29:14
Speaker 2: something that I still have a hard time wracking my
29:15
Speaker 2: head around. I think that was a big theme of
29:17
Speaker 2: the Leapier episode, was me banging my head against the
29:20
Speaker 2: wall about why what is this calendar drift?
29:24
Speaker 1: So the Pope has no real power to make the
29:28
Speaker 1: governments of the time comply, right, but he does say, hey,
29:34
Speaker 1: you know, guys, if you're a Christian nation, I'm the
29:37
Speaker 1: pope and this is the time of really brutal monarchies.
29:42
Speaker 1: France accepts this reform, they had already changed it. A
29:49
Speaker 1: lot of people get this part wrong. Anyway, it becomes
29:54
Speaker 1: clear like the more you look into it, the calendar
29:57
Speaker 1: change hypothesis has a really convenient to it, right. It
30:05
Speaker 1: sounds like a light switch going on and off. This
30:08
Speaker 1: is not quite the truth, you know. You can say that. Look,
30:14
Speaker 1: you can say that the calendar change hypothesis is plausible
30:18
Speaker 1: if it's applied to Britain, maybe because they did New
30:22
Speaker 1: Year's Day of March twenty fifth, because of the Feast
30:26
Speaker 1: of Annunciation, again trying to align the solar calendar, the
30:30
Speaker 1: passage of the actual planets with religious ideology. The earliest
30:38
Speaker 1: version of the calendar change hypothesis that we can find
30:42
Speaker 1: in print goes back to seventeen sixty six, and it's
30:47
Speaker 1: a response to a discourse that only started in seventeen
30:52
Speaker 1: Oh wait, people weren't really asking about April Fools until
30:56
Speaker 1: centuries after it was happening. We want to go to
31:07
Speaker 1: a quote from a correspondence to something called The Gentleman's Magazine.
31:15
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of a long quote. I think
31:18
Speaker 1: it's an opportunity to do a pretty cool voice. So Noel,
31:23
Speaker 1: if you can do the first part, I'll come in
31:26
Speaker 1: at the end.
31:27
Speaker 5: Absolutely, this strange custom prevalent throughout this kingdom of people
31:33
Speaker 5: making fuels of one another upon the first of April.
31:38
Speaker 2: I'm just sorry, I'm doing it like Kenna very talestu
31:41
Speaker 2: a ruse from the year, formally a beginning as to
31:44
Speaker 2: some purpose and in some respects on the twenty fifth
31:49
Speaker 2: of March, which was supposed to be the incarnation of
31:54
Speaker 2: our Lord.
31:54
Speaker 1: It's been customary with the Romans as well as fit
31:59
Speaker 1: us Hole Day festival. It ended by an octave that
32:04
Speaker 1: the commencement of a new year, which festival lasted for
32:07
Speaker 1: it is where after first of the last was the principal.
32:11
Speaker 1: Therefore the first of April is the octave of the
32:14
Speaker 1: twenty fifth of March, and consequently the clothes or ending
32:20
Speaker 1: of the feast, which was both the festival of the
32:24
Speaker 1: annunciation and the beginning of the new year.
32:28
Speaker 2: Broo and Telly ho good sir, h Yeah, we're gonna
32:31
Speaker 2: to unpack all that. I kind of got lost in
32:33
Speaker 2: the sauce of the voices.
32:34
Speaker 3: There can I jump in real quick to talk about
32:36
Speaker 3: the voices, because believe it, this is gonna go full circle.
32:39
Speaker 3: But you guys, you both used your Canterbury Tales voices.
32:42
Speaker 3: I used remember from that episode. I used an accent
32:45
Speaker 3: that came up off the top of my head.
32:46
Speaker 4: At least I thought, so, oh yeah, we forced you
32:49
Speaker 4: to play I.
32:50
Speaker 3: Figured out later on I was editing it. The accent
32:52
Speaker 3: I was doing was the one of my friend named Jeff.
32:54
Speaker 3: He talks like this all the time, like this. The
32:58
Speaker 3: reason to bring this up is Jeff, who is a character.
33:01
Speaker 3: I love him to death, but he's a character. His
33:03
Speaker 3: birthday is April fools Day, and he's the type of
33:06
Speaker 3: guy who lie in day's birthday today.
33:08
Speaker 1: So Jeff, Jeff, text him, text him now. So all
33:14
Speaker 1: right there there there's another part here. We had writers
33:19
Speaker 1: back then, we would have historical precedent. There's a whole thing,
33:23
Speaker 1: a whole discourse with chaucer scholars arguing about whether or
33:28
Speaker 1: not he actually references April Fools and when March happens
33:35
Speaker 1: versus May, versus April. We know that Chaucer wrote some
33:41
Speaker 1: pretty saucy stuff. He's a pretty smart guy. We're actually
33:45
Speaker 1: big fans of his work. Can't wait for him to
33:49
Speaker 1: conclude the Canterbury Tales. When do you think it's coming out?
33:52
Speaker 1: When do you think he'll finish in I.
33:54
Speaker 2: Think it's been in turnaround at Tony for a while.
33:56
Speaker 2: Hopefully it's a production. Lebo, Oh my god, I love
34:01
Speaker 2: you for that one.
34:02
Speaker 1: Also, if the holiday was always around. Why doesn't Shakespeare
34:06
Speaker 1: mention it? Look, the United Kingdom only changed their calendar
34:13
Speaker 1: year to start on January first. They only did that
34:16
Speaker 1: in seventeen fifty two, just like a few decades before
34:21
Speaker 1: the United States became a country. By that time, April
34:25
Speaker 1: Fools is already well established, So confusion about a changing
34:32
Speaker 1: calendar could not have been logically responsible for the origin
34:38
Speaker 1: of the celebration in Britain. Oh, also, we should mention
34:43
Speaker 1: it is possible, like our earlier guy noted that the
34:47
Speaker 1: festival held on April first in that correspondence with the
34:53
Speaker 1: with the Gentleman's magazine, it's posstering it for the art.
35:00
Speaker 1: I love it. Oh, I forgot to tell you, guys.
35:04
Speaker 1: One of my favorite you know, I'm into weird food.
35:07
Speaker 1: One of my favorite weird things that I found recently.
35:10
Speaker 1: It's an actual thing. Have you ever heard of gentleman's relish?
35:14
Speaker 4: No, it doesn't sound good. It sounds really gross.
35:16
Speaker 1: It's British. It's obviously British.
35:19
Speaker 4: Oh jeez, I just immediately got it.
35:21
Speaker 2: I mean, it's probably my own fault for having a
35:24
Speaker 2: mine in the gutter, but gentleman's relish does not sound good.
35:26
Speaker 1: To me, it does sound like a euphemism. It is
35:29
Speaker 1: not a euphemism. I'm I've got to buy some. We
35:33
Speaker 1: gotta try it out.
35:34
Speaker 2: My mom used to make a thing called gentleman's salad
35:37
Speaker 2: that was like a gelatin salad, usually green of color,
35:42
Speaker 2: and with like shit in it that didn't belong, like
35:45
Speaker 2: horse radish and stuff and like lime jello bass and
35:48
Speaker 2: gentleman salad is what she always called it.
35:49
Speaker 4: Never like it, No, I wouldn't even need it.
35:52
Speaker 2: It was like she'd put it at everyone's place for
35:54
Speaker 2: like a holiday meals, and I was a hell.
35:56
Speaker 1: No, Oh, it was a holiday thing, So everybody gets
36:00
Speaker 1: a pass. Gentleman's relish is a real thing. It's also
36:06
Speaker 1: called patum paperium. It has nothing to do with April
36:09
Speaker 1: Fool's Day. But if you have tried it, please let
36:12
Speaker 1: us know. On ridiculous his story.
36:14
Speaker 4: Well, surely it could.
36:15
Speaker 2: There's a place for it in our History of condiments
36:18
Speaker 2: ongoing series.
36:20
Speaker 1: Oh yes, okay, another theory. Oh man, if I get it,
36:26
Speaker 1: are you guys gonna try it with me? No? You
36:29
Speaker 1: don't even read about it.
36:30
Speaker 4: I don't care. I don't like it.
36:32
Speaker 2: I don't like the way it sounds I want nothing
36:34
Speaker 2: to do with it. I resent its very existence.
36:37
Speaker 3: I'm just say someone right here, and it's the only
36:39
Speaker 3: time in my entire life I've been able to say
36:41
Speaker 3: this for a good thing. Sorry, Ben, I can't try it.
36:44
Speaker 1: Condition okay, alright, alright, Max. We respect the condition. So
36:52
Speaker 1: other people will tell you. Maybe the timing of April
36:56
Speaker 1: Fool's Day is related to what we call the vernal
37:00
Speaker 1: equinox March twenty first, because the weather would shift, and
37:05
Speaker 1: for previous civilizations that was a real plot twist. But
37:10
Speaker 1: the thing is, none of the theories about the origin
37:15
Speaker 1: of April Fool's Day have been proven to be correct.
37:19
Speaker 1: It was almost certainly a continuation of this ancient prankish tendency.
37:25
Speaker 1: It spread throughout other countries. People genuinely did not ask
37:31
Speaker 1: about its providence until well after it was already established.
37:37
Speaker 1: The actual answer is that no one knows why it's
37:42
Speaker 1: a thing. It's ridiculous. It's not like a bank holiday.
37:46
Speaker 1: It's just this need to prank.
37:51
Speaker 2: People, which I mean, to be fair, you know, you
37:54
Speaker 2: don't need a particular day to do that. A good
37:56
Speaker 2: natured prank is welcome or not unwelcome on any day
38:01
Speaker 2: of the calendar year. There are even TV shows devoted
38:04
Speaker 2: to this stuff. Remember punked Ashton Kutcher's seminal early two thousands,
38:09
Speaker 2: Reality where and he would yeah gentleman's relish indeed wherein
38:13
Speaker 2: he would punk folks celebs usually And now I think
38:16
Speaker 2: there's a show on TV called Practical Jokers. It's very
38:19
Speaker 2: very popular and the kids I love Nathan for You.
38:22
Speaker 2: Nathan for You is Yeah, I guess you could call
38:24
Speaker 2: it a prank. I mean, it's like an earnest prank
38:26
Speaker 2: show where he's like pranking people by trying to help
38:29
Speaker 2: them in the most ridiculous ways possible.
38:31
Speaker 4: But I think you're you're spot on.
38:33
Speaker 1: Them, which is what we're doing, right, Noel, I would
38:35
Speaker 1: like to think. So we're probably one thing, folks. We
38:39
Speaker 1: are foolish all year round. As Noel said, it doesn't
38:44
Speaker 1: have to be a day in April. You can be
38:46
Speaker 1: silly any any old time. We have a notable examples.
38:52
Speaker 1: That's the best way to end this in this episode
38:57
Speaker 1: that we are running late on, Noel, what are some
39:01
Speaker 1: notable examples of your favorite April fools Day's April Fool's
39:07
Speaker 1: Day breaks.
39:07
Speaker 2: Well, it's also something that like you know, corporations get
39:10
Speaker 2: in on and get in on the phone, you know,
39:12
Speaker 2: especially in the age of social media. One that I
39:15
Speaker 2: saw that made me think of you, Ben was this
39:18
Speaker 2: article that seemed very you know, very well photoshopped. I
39:21
Speaker 2: guess that waffle House was removing waffles from its media. Yeah,
39:26
Speaker 2: and I think that I hop did a thing in
39:29
Speaker 2: April fools Day's Past where they said they were changing
39:32
Speaker 2: their name to the International House of Burgers.
39:35
Speaker 1: Oh, that's right, I remember that one. That was a
39:37
Speaker 1: not too long ago, right, I hob.
39:40
Speaker 4: Yeah.
39:41
Speaker 2: You got another one that you found, Ben about another
39:43
Speaker 2: what is it a Young Brands products Taco Bell.
39:48
Speaker 1: Yes, in nineteen ninety six, Taco Bell said, hey, we've
39:53
Speaker 1: purchased the Liberty Bell. We've renamed it the Taco Liberty Bell.
39:59
Speaker 1: Where doing this to help with the crushing debt of
40:04
Speaker 1: the United States.
40:05
Speaker 4: Good on you, Taco Bell. Thanks for that.
40:08
Speaker 1: Yeah this, Yeah, it upset a lot of people in
40:14
Speaker 1: PR reported it and then they had to have a
40:18
Speaker 1: press conference to just clear the air and let everybody
40:23
Speaker 1: know that the city of Philadelphia still owns the Liberty Bell.
40:29
Speaker 4: Thank god for that. Another one that you found, Ben
40:32
Speaker 4: was nineteen ninety two.
40:33
Speaker 2: And pr It did a fun little prank declaring that
40:36
Speaker 2: Richard Nixon, of course, the shamed or disgraced presidents who
40:42
Speaker 2: resigned in nineteen seventy four after the Watergate scander where
40:45
Speaker 2: he was doing all kinds of naughty, underhanded things, was
40:48
Speaker 2: entering that year's presidential race. And then he had a
40:51
Speaker 2: fun new slogan it he was rocking, you know not
40:54
Speaker 2: I mean no the voice. Well, of course I am
40:57
Speaker 2: not a crook, remember was some of that right? I
41:01
Speaker 2: had never heard of anything wrong? Then I won't do
41:04
Speaker 2: it again.
41:07
Speaker 1: Love it. Thank you for doing that. We've got the
41:10
Speaker 1: uh so, we've got the skinny on this. There's an
41:13
Speaker 1: active mystery regarding the origins of April Fool's Day. We
41:18
Speaker 1: can't thank you enough for tuning in, fellow ridiculous historians,
41:22
Speaker 1: but we will endeavor to do so. This way, Max
41:26
Speaker 1: if I could get some fanfare thanks for tuning in. Uzzah,
41:38
Speaker 1: thanks to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Thanks to
41:42
Speaker 1: oh gosh, let's see aj Bahamas Jacobs, who else?
41:46
Speaker 4: Who are yeah? Abja?
41:48
Speaker 2: Jonathan Strickland, the quizz and also you know, pretty stand
41:51
Speaker 2: up guy when he's not in character. Uh and Chris
41:54
Speaker 2: Frosciota is an even Jeff Coates here in spirit.
41:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, the rude dudes a ridiculous crime. Rachel Big Spinach Lance.
42:03
Speaker 1: I'd like to do a thing in the credits where
42:05
Speaker 1: we thank random people were people who have passed recently,
42:11
Speaker 1: So thanks to Val Kilmer Man.
42:14
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks to Val Kilmer indeed.
42:16
Speaker 2: And I think I posted this before he passed, or
42:18
Speaker 2: maybe it was a portentous in some way, but I
42:20
Speaker 2: saw a post of a old tweet from Val Kilmer
42:24
Speaker 2: wherein he said I once tickled Lou Reid and at
42:28
Speaker 2: the time I really regretted it because he never spoke
42:31
Speaker 2: to me again.
42:32
Speaker 4: But now I'm glad I did it because I think
42:34
Speaker 4: he needed it. Well.
42:35
Speaker 1: Thanks to you Lou for your service, and thanks Ip
42:38
Speaker 1: Lou as well, Rip Lou as well. Thanks to you
42:41
Speaker 1: Neil and you as well.
42:43
Speaker 2: Then we'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts
42:52
Speaker 2: from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
42:55
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.