April (April 1): Origin of custom and jokes

It’s true that in April the weather often makes fun of us – and certainly not only the first. But that’s probably not the reason why this joking tradition came about. Anyway, who doesn’t catch at least one of their loved ones, friends or colleagues on April Fool’s Day, as if they weren’t there. And the tradition is really very historical.

No one knows for sure, but the very beginnings of April Fool’s Day probably go back to the Iranian holiday of Sidzah Bedar, which falls on April 1st or 2nd. It is a holiday that is also called Nature Day – people go outside on it picnicbut it also has a lot to do with fun and humor.

Another theory says that April Fool’s Day came to us from France, and there are essentially two versions. The first dates back to the 15th century, when the French amused themselves on April 1 by attaching a paper fish to someone’s back without their knowledge. The second speaks of the second half of the 16th century, when the then French king Charles IX. he adopted the Gregorian calendar, according to which the new year always begins on January 1, not at the end of March, as it had been until then. And whoever didn’t listen (or didn’t notice the change) was a fool – hence April Fool’s Day. But it’s actually quite possible that these two versions got mixed up and their combination created April Fools’ Day as we know it.

Of course, it doesn’t matter, Czechs didn’t invent April Fool’s Day, it’s not a traditional Czech custom or holiday, it came from abroad (probably really from France). The first mentions of April Fool’s pranks in our country date back to the end of the 17th century, when the most popular joke was to send someone close to you to buy something that doesn’t exist – like if you send your husband today to buy sweet salt, spinach sugar or maybe a chicken leg.

However, April fools became better and more sophisticated over time, and in modern times, journalists also joined in the pranks by “producing” senseless funny articles, which looked like regular and guaranteed news or reports.

In 1957, for example, the BBC got a kick out of the audience when it broadcast a report on the spaghetti harvest in its Panorama program. Today, you probably wouldn’t believe the footage of a family harvesting spaghetti from bushes and letting it dry, but in England at the time, this pasta was a relatively unknown, even exotic food, so many viewers really caught on. And that with everything, including finding information about where you can get the “spaghetti tree” bush. But we don’t have to go far, in the past, our editors also took shots at their readers on April Fool’s Day, for example with a “serious” article about the low-fat lard diet, men’s rental or o a new fashion trend called the potato sackin which we dressed Marta Jandová.