The Best April Fools’ Day Gag Ever

Dateline: April 1, 1957.

The British Broadcasting Corporation’s flagship current affairs show, Panorama, takes the air.

The camara pans across a hilly, rural landscape to a flowering tree in the foreground. Bees buzz around the flowers. A dark-haired women snips one of the flowers from the tree, sniffs it, and smiles.

The narrator tells us this is Ticino, overlooking Lake Lugano on the border of Switzerland and Italy.

Spring has arrived early here after a mild winter. And this warm weather has led to…

“…an exceptionally heavy spaghetti crop.”

The camera pans to trees overloaded with long strands of spaghetti.

We see young women carefully pull strands from the trees and lay them in large baskets.

News anchor Richard Dimbleby (a well-known and respected correspondent) tells us late March is “an anxious time for the spaghetti farmer” because a late frost could ruin the crop.

Or worse yet, the Spaghetti Weevil could destroy it.

Thankfully, the weather has cooperated and the weevil has virtually disappeared from these Swiss hillsides.

He reminds us that spaghetti cultivation in Switzerland is a tiny family affair compared to the “tremendous scale” of the Italian industry.

“I’m sure will have seen pictures of the vast spaghetti plantations in the Po Valley,” he says.

And on it goes…

The best April Fools’ Day gag ever.

You can see the entire report here.

Retelling the story later, the show’s editor, Michael Peacock, said, “I learned that the Director General had said to his wife, ‘I didn’t know spaghetti grew on trees!’ He started to reach for his encyclopedia, and his wife said, ‘Don’t be a fool of course it doesn’t.’”

Here’s the 2014 interview with Peacock in which he describes how the hoax came to be.

I love this story.

If the stodgy, old BBC can have some fun, so can you. Your business success depends on it.

In the Story Power Profit Pack (Pointer #24), I say: “Weave humor into your content. Jokes. Funny anecdotes. Amusing wordplay. Make your audience smile and laugh. They’ll stay tuned in, feel more connected to you, and be more likely to act.”

The Profit Pack has 52 pointers to help you turn your content from boring (prospect-repelling) to brilliant (client-getting).

On most days, you’d pay $100+ to get the Profit Pack.

But today, in honor of the spaghetti harvest, you can get the Profit Pack for less than a you’d pay for a plate of Spaghetti Primavera and a side salad.

Here’s a partial list of what you’ll harvest from the Profit Pack:

✔️ The three most important principles to turn your stories from feeble prospect-repellers to powerful client-attractors (#8, 10 & 11)

✔️ A marketing master’s secret recipe to conquer writer’s block (#3)

✔️ How to generate more sales without becoming a pitchy pest (#16 & 18)

✔️ 18 places I turn to find story ideas (#36)

✔️ The business-crushing advice storytelling “experts” dish out that you must ignore (#7)

✔️ Why acting “unprofessional” might be the secret to professional success (#6)

✔️ How to add spice and drama to your stories — without “crossing the line” (#47)

✔️ The most powerful marketing medium to turn cold leads into engaged prospects and then loyal clients (#41)

✔️ Story Power’s “3E Framework” for simple content creation — so you don’t have to master 10-step formulas, understand archetypes, or rehash the hero’s journey (#13)

✔️ Why your most popular content may not be your most profitable — and how to tell the difference (#49)

✔️ The difference between a worthless anecdote and a powerful story (#51)

✔️ Steve Jobs’ best presentation practice that you can adopt for your content (#28)

✔️ How to talk about your prospects’ fears — without coming off as a manipulative, “fear-based” marketer (#14)

✔️ A simple tactic to open your stories to draw ’em in every time (#48)

✔️ The secret to “procrastinate” productively and spark creativity (#38)

✔️ The best way to get prospects’ attention — according to a copywriting legend (#35)

This is no joke. If you go here today, you can get the Profit Pack at its lowest price ever.

But don’t be a fool. You have to get it by 11:59 p.m. ET.