Spaghetti-tree hoax

The spaghetti-tree hoax was a hoax news report made by the BBC on April Fools' Day in 1957. The hoax showed a family in Ticino, Switzerland picking spaghetti from a "spaghetti tree".

About eight million people watched the hoax on April Fools' Day in 1957. At the time, spaghetti was rare in the United Kingdom. It was also sometimes considered a delicacy there. The next day, hundreds of people called the BBC to see if spaghetti trees were real and how to grow them. The BBC told callers to put some spaghetti in a can of tomato sauce and "hope for the best".

The BBC showed the hoax on a television programme called Panorama. A reporter named Charles de Jaeger made the hoax. He remembered how his teachers said his classmates would think spaghetti grew on trees. He got a budget of £100 to make the hoax. The hoax was reported by a trusted reporter named Richard Dimbleby. In 2010, CNN said it is the biggest hoax ever made by a trusted news organisation. It is also one of the first hoaxes on television.

 References 

 Other websites 
 Spaghetti-Harvest in Ticino at YouTube

Category:1957 in Europe
Category:1950s in the United Kingdom
Category:Hoaxes
Category:April events
Category:BBC
Category:Mockumentaries
Category:British television