April Fools Day used to be just a private affair, things like calling up your friends and family and telling them you won the $500,000,000 California Mega jackpot lottery- and then waiting until the gears spin and your mark realizes it's April 1st. Fun stuff.
But starting the past few years and escalating ever since, I've noticed that April Fools Day is big business, and a chance for big companies to score some style points for having a sense of humor. The pranks seem to be getting more elaborate, and bigger budget every year. The best of them really make you believe for about five seconds before you go "Wait a minute…!"
Being a technology geek, I usually get all the tech related ones. This year my favorites were:
I haven't found the comic strip Garfield all that interesting or funny for years, and up until recently I could never quite figure out why.
And then lo and behold, web-artist Dan Walsh noticed that something magical happened when he completely erased Garfield from the strip. Voila! The strips not only make you laugh, they make you realize there never really was a talking cat. It's really just a strip about a very troubled man.
Check it out at Walsh's site, Garfield minus Garfield. There's also a published book, and amazingly, the approval of creator Jim Davis.
I really have to give Subaru credit- I cracked up when I saw this.
This is pretty much exactly the booooooooooring experience that shopping for a car in the US often is, and a spot-on parody of the lacking imagination of many auto designers toiling away to appease a market that demands a redundant rollout of SnoozeMobiles.
I'll take mine in "Stale Biscuit" with the "Brown Gravel" interior. And sure, why not… let's spring for those optional cup holders! Funny stuff!
