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April Fool’s gag goes viral

Charlie Pickering thought he had been sacked. But plenty of media got into this year's April Fool's Day gag.

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PhotoafgYesterday’s annual April Fool’s Day gag generated quite a bit of buzz.

On The Project last night Charlie Pickering told the panel he thought he had been sacked.

“I was reading that article, and it actually said I’d been sacked. I was reading that at 7:00 this morning, and it genuinely got me,” he said.

“And then I thought surely someone would have called me?”

The story also made it onto ABC News Breakfast, Seven News, 3AW, ABC 720 Perth, ABC Darwin, ABC Online, Mumbrella, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, The Courier Mail, Gizmodo, Sunshine Coast Daily and more.

Thanks to all those who retweeted the yarn across the day. Too many to name here….

I thought long and hard about my subject for this year’s gag. I was very nearly going to run 2012’s “Kyle to host the Logies” prank. It’s almost believable now! But TEN management had been in the spotlight so much, it was a pretty obvious choice. That just left me with deciding on the best angle to take.

Photo1 afp2The story was certainly fun to write. Hands up who noticed the image had been photoshopped, with the TEN logo carefully inserted behind Gina Rinehart?

The post attracted the most comments so far this year, most of which I withheld until just before midday.

Many admitted, “You almost had me there, until the line about Charlie Pickering being axed from The Project.”

Of course, as long-term readers of this site know, I always kick off my pranks as quite believable which get more and more bizarre as they progress. The penny is supposed to drop.

For those who are wondering, I never heard from Channel TEN all day, but then it was a public holiday.

But let me publicly apologise to all those involved and thank them for being a good sport (I hope!).

Let’s do it all again next year.

24 Responses

  1. David, Of course you would not have heard from anyone at Ten.

    They were much to busy, frantically searching for whoever leaked secret Board Room discussions, especially when such disclosures suggested some directors had switched allegiances with “mega rich vested interests”, and were even seemingly at long last were prepared to bear the full brunt of a Rupert media attack in support of Locky.

    Could your excellent prank, but in part not that inconceivable( and on par with many other of Ten’s questionable decisions) have been the real reason for Daddy’s sudden appearance in our “Top End” simply because he only found out that it was a well planned April Fools Day Joke, but unfortunately his plane had already passed to point of no return.

    To Charlie and all those who supported him in his brief moments of surprise and disappointed, I ask just how do you think Andrew Bolt is now feeling right now?

    Thank you David if post this, thus proving you let others play similar pranks on your popular blog.

  4. Do you know something David??? This gag inspired me to come up with one of my own. I wrote on my Facebook page that I was changing schools and all my friends believed it.

  5. @ Gaz….you are spot on mate. I guess the only people that would have got sucked in by this on April Fools Day, would be….well…. err…..fools

  6. I knew as soon as I read the headline that it was an April Fools joke, and didn’t even bother clicking on the story. I find it hard to believe that anyone actually fell for it.

  7. I don’t want to be a party pooper here David but April Fool jokes are supposed to be good natured. Being sacked in this economic and political environment is a terrible worry, especially when the subject is working for a network which has had to sack people because of its poor ratings and revenues.

    I realise this is the 21st century and all that, but I still prefer things like A Current Affair’s “Instant spray-on colour TV” gag from 1973.

  9. well executed gag david. The fake April fools kickstarter movie campaigns for Wings, Sliders, Family matters and darkwing duck were pretty good too.

  14. David, you haven’t heard from Ten, because the board will probably meet this morning, and at your suggestion make Gina CEO and implement those changes.

    Please, stop giving Ten ideas.

  16. One was kept awake all night with the dreadful fear that TEN Board may actually think a few of those ideas are really great.
    It was also mentioned a bit on i98fm, the WIN-owned radio station in Wollongong NSW.
    It really is a gem.

  17. Is there footage available from ABC News Breakfast, Seven News and the Project of their reactions to the joke?
    As in the mornings I watch Sunrise and Toasted TV. Then in the evenings I look at Simpsons, then the current affair shows or Neighbours.

  18. Great joke! I thought the Project moving to 4pm was believable as all that’s on at that time now is Totally Wild and Scope. Some of the content would just have to be cleaned so to be suitable for the timeslot.

    Would didn’t fool me was Charlie Pickering’s sacking and the part of the Offspring as the show is very popular in the Logies.

  19. It was a ripper.

    A friend of mine was in a panic on FaceBook because she’d heard on 3AW that Offspring had been axed. I posted a link back to here along with a quote that pretty strongly indicated that it probably wasn’t a real story (and a winking smiley). But from her response I think she still didn’t get the joke :-/

  21. Yeah, it certainly was a good one. I’m new to this site, so haven’t seen your earlier jokes. It was believable till the Charlie Pickering bit then got more and more ridiculous. Just read a hilarious one on a US site about Survivor not taking any more new applications and will be using the pool of already played contestants and Jeff Probst doing just about everything. That’s the trouble with living in Australia, with social media and everything, April Fools goes for 2 days here.

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