Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. We're running a little late on
Speaker 1: this one. Edit's my fault, you know. Shout out to
Speaker 1: our super producer, mister Max Williams the top.
Speaker 2: When have we ever hit a tent pole topic on time?
Speaker 2: This is in classic Ridiculous History fashion that we're two
Speaker 2: days late for said holiday.
Speaker 3: I am proud of myself, so I'm going to toot
Speaker 3: my own horn and talk about myself right now. Yet,
Speaker 3: on February twenty ninth last year, we had an episode
Speaker 3: about the leap year we did? Did I write a
Speaker 3: Thanksgiving grab bag esque episode? But I think that's about it.
Speaker 3: I think one time we might have gotten lucky. But
Speaker 3: look we did our was it Labor Day? Like either
Speaker 3: two months before or two months after Labor Day? And
Speaker 3: I'm like, this is marvelous.
Speaker 4: I love us. I don't know why we're letting on that.
Speaker 4: It's not on purpose.
Speaker 1: It's very oh, folks. That is Noel Brown recently returned
Speaker 1: from Philadelphia. So Noel aka Young Cheese Steak Brown.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okak you sure you Young cheese steak is accurate.
Speaker 2: I had a couple of those from what is Angelo's
Speaker 2: and ish Caabibbeles, which are too you know, I think
Speaker 2: Angelo's is kind of hot right now. But a lot
Speaker 2: of people know about Ishkabibbles. And that's the funnest named
Speaker 2: place to get a sandwich in the history of sandwiches,
Speaker 2: if you ask me.
Speaker 1: And we're accountabill of buddies, so I was. It is
Speaker 1: a true story, Noel, I they called me, Ben what
Speaker 1: I was bugging you the whole time you were in
Speaker 1: Philly and I just kept texting you on multiple threads
Speaker 1: to ask for cheese steak pictures.
Speaker 2: It's the only reason I had the second steak, Ben,
Speaker 2: It's the only reason I went to Isshuabibbles.
Speaker 4: It was just for you.
Speaker 2: I only had about three bites and then I had
Speaker 2: to throw away the rest because man, those things are
Speaker 2: not meant to be consumed in their entirety by one
Speaker 2: human person. That's a heart attack waiting to happen.
Speaker 1: I don't know if Philly does it, man, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I guess he's got to walk a lot, which I
Speaker 2: did do. I had a great time. Thanks for mentioning it,
Speaker 2: but yeah, no, cheese steaks are delightful, as are nonsensical
Speaker 2: holidays that are designed to potentially hurt people's feelings or delights.
Speaker 1: Results vary, so we're running late on our April Fool's
Speaker 1: Day episode. That's what this is, and you and I
Speaker 1: have talked about it in the past on and off air.
Speaker 1: I feel like it can be a mean and spirited holiday.
Speaker 4: It certainly can be.
Speaker 2: I have been the victim, not that big a deal,
Speaker 2: but of some not so nice April Fools pranks. But
Speaker 2: I guess it's all in how you play it. If
Speaker 2: you play it a little too straight about something a
Speaker 2: little too serious, you know, things could go wrong. But
Speaker 2: if it's something sort of like lighthearted and a little
Speaker 2: bit absurdist, I'm all about that, right.
Speaker 1: Like, if, for instance, I gave I gave my dad
Speaker 1: a mug that said World's Best Grandfather and then said
Speaker 1: April Fools, that would be really extreme.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but even that's on the lighter end of extreme.
Speaker 2: If you ask me, I was punked quite successfully by
Speaker 2: my kid is sixteen. I was playing a piece of
Speaker 2: music that I've been working on when I was in Philadelphia,
Speaker 2: and to me and goes you know what, Dad, I
Speaker 2: gotta tell you, this isn't very good.
Speaker 4: What I don't like it. It sounds like but I
Speaker 4: believe is the term that they use. And then I
Speaker 4: really my heart sunk. My heart sunk.
Speaker 2: And then I very quickly saw the forlornness in my
Speaker 2: eyes and very quickly responded with a quick April fool.
Speaker 1: Which I was wow, So that kids are mean, dude,
Speaker 1: kids are being dude. That's an in depth example of
Speaker 1: April fools, or those are two light examples from us.
Speaker 1: I think the worst one I got was ooh, it's
Speaker 1: not even fit for the air. It was pretty extreme,
Speaker 1: it was pretty mean. But if you want to learn
Speaker 1: more about famous examples of April Fool's day, you can
Speaker 1: check out our earlier episode on the epic spaghetti.
Speaker 2: Trees prank, which I think is a perfect example of
Speaker 2: a lighthearted, absurdist one. Because the BBC created this thing
Speaker 2: to appear like a legitimate documentary about an absolutely Bezonker's topic,
Speaker 2: and like they had like these old Italian nonas, like
Speaker 2: harvesting spaghetti from the trees in the Italian countryside, and like,
Speaker 2: let's say you do believe it, what's the worst outcome
Speaker 2: there that you feel like a little bit of a
Speaker 2: dumb dumb you know. Okay, not the end of the world,
Speaker 2: but just different. No, it's certainly not. Another example that
Speaker 2: really did ruffle some feathers and potentially cost some harm,
Speaker 2: but would not have been considered an April fool's joke
Speaker 2: is orson Wells War of the World's broadcast, where a
Speaker 2: lot of people took that very very seriously.
Speaker 4: And thought the aliens were coming, and they.
Speaker 2: Fled for shelter, called the police, you know, a repeatedly,
Speaker 2: you know, clogged up the lines and all of that
Speaker 2: good stuff, only for it to turn out to a
Speaker 2: bit of very well produced radio play.
Speaker 1: Right and worth a listen. Still, both examples that you
Speaker 1: just named there, Noel. As April first approached, we asked ourselves,
Speaker 1: what is this holiday? Exactly? Where does it come from?
Speaker 1: How did it spread across the globe? And I think
Speaker 1: we were all startled to learn the answer is kind
Speaker 1: of ridiculous. So before we get into this fool's errand.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, which is the term.
Speaker 2: That I've used plenty in my life, and I never
Speaker 2: really thought about the origins of it, but it certainly
Speaker 2: does date back to the early days of being an
Speaker 2: April fool.
Speaker 1: So okay, okay, Noel, can you kick it for all
Speaker 1: of us historians in the crowd ridiculous variety. If you
Speaker 1: had to explain to an alien what April Fool's Day is,
Speaker 1: how would you explain it?
Speaker 2: It is a day where it is acceptable to lie
Speaker 2: to the people that you love for comedic effect. Holy smokes,
Speaker 2: that is good, kind of dark though it starts, it's starting.
Speaker 1: No, we're keeping it. We're keeping it man, because that
Speaker 1: is poetry. It's a celebration of pranks and practical jokes.
Speaker 1: In most countries today, it happens on the first day
Speaker 1: of the month we call April. You run into any
Speaker 1: number of jokes or in person practical like pranks, and
Speaker 1: usually when someone is lying to someone that they love,
Speaker 1: as you said at the end of the bit, the
Speaker 1: prankster will yell April Fools at their big reveal. And
Speaker 1: what I think we both found astonishing about this is
Speaker 1: that multiple countries have their own variation. You could be
Speaker 1: in April Fish. Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go to it. Ah, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: put the definitive on that. Yeah. The the idea I
Speaker 1: love that you're bringing up the French. The idea here
Speaker 1: is that what I've just we love the French, They're great,
Speaker 1: I do, I do so. Uh, perhaps this is a
Speaker 1: reference to a young fish that is easily caught. We're
Speaker 1: pulling some of this straight up from our friends at Britannica. Uh,
Speaker 1: we did not know, or I did not know that
Speaker 1: it is common for French kids to pin paper fish
Speaker 1: on the backs of folks they're pranking, kind of like
Speaker 1: how we would put a kick me sign, just.
Speaker 2: Like a kick me sign exactly, or you know, a
Speaker 2: pin the tail in the donkey situation, to quote Larry David,
Speaker 2: which is.
Speaker 4: A cruel and violent game. Why would you do it?
Speaker 2: A pinata that he was talking about, But pin the
Speaker 2: tail and a donkey similarly violent and a little bit cruel.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it doesn't it? Maybe not? Well, how does that
Speaker 4: game work?
Speaker 2: Doesn't you stick it on people and they spin around
Speaker 2: or something and maybe before they hit that's true, But
Speaker 2: I swear there's a variation of pin the tail.
Speaker 3: All right, I'm here, I'm here. The youthful guy on
Speaker 3: the show will jump in. It's closer to my childhood
Speaker 3: than it's yours. So pin the tail and a donkey
Speaker 3: it's there's like a donkey like painting type of thing
Speaker 3: on a wall. You put a blindfold on, somebody, hand
Speaker 3: them the pin and they have a general idea where
Speaker 3: it is, but they go to see how close you
Speaker 3: can get it to getually get in the tail on
Speaker 3: the right spot.
Speaker 4: You spin them around, don't you disorient them? Isn't the
Speaker 4: idea of.
Speaker 1: The house rules? That's house rules?
Speaker 3: Okay, fair enough, it's all kind of awful because the
Speaker 3: only way you're doing this off of your memory trying
Speaker 3: to figure out where it is. It gets fun around,
Speaker 3: you're gonna go put it in somebody's arm.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: But to your point, nol, I mean think about it
Speaker 3: like we have like basically intentionally removed a donkey's tail,
Speaker 3: and now we are trying to attach another one to it.
Speaker 4: That is that's so twisted. I wonder twisted Max with
Speaker 4: the facts I've ever heard.
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll do it. We'll do the sound cue, we'll
Speaker 1: do the sound cue.
Speaker 5: That seeking in the phone and he's fallen knowledge. It's
Speaker 5: just for you right now here.
Speaker 1: With the fact, I do wonder whether there has ever
Speaker 1: been a like an earlier version where was an actual
Speaker 1: tortured donkey, oh dear too Yeah, too dark, all right,
Speaker 1: so let's go to Scotland. In Scotland, it's hunt the
Speaker 1: glock or the golp goo w k. It's a symbol
Speaker 1: of the fool. And then, you know, it's.
Speaker 2: Sure very similar to what we might have over here
Speaker 2: in like boy scout campouts, which is the old snipe hunt,
Speaker 2: snipe hunt, the idea of you know, taking a nube
Speaker 2: and sort of convincing them that it's a right of
Speaker 2: passage to hunt this mythical beast and sending them out
Speaker 2: after a thing that does not exist, which is very
Speaker 2: much the fool's errand of it all, you know, or
Speaker 2: very much a wild goose chase situation.
Speaker 1: Sure, a version of that occurs in modern in modern
Speaker 1: production film and TV. Friends, you'll know this one of
Speaker 1: the hazing rituals for like a new kid or a
Speaker 1: pa in production a production assistant is to give them
Speaker 1: a super obscure, official sounding name for a thing, a
Speaker 1: piece of a and send them hunting for it. And
Speaker 1: it's a closed spin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's called like an M four thirty two or
Speaker 2: some sort of like numerical kind of model number type thing.
Speaker 2: And now I'm totally forgetting what it was because they
Speaker 2: referred to them as that actually on on sets and
Speaker 2: in film situations. Another one that's interesting too is in
Speaker 2: construction sites. Gosh, I saw this on a TV show recently.
Speaker 2: But they were sent a young newbie construction worker like
Speaker 2: house framer looking for a like a window stretcher or
Speaker 2: something like that, like some kind of like device that
Speaker 2: is meant to do something that really the only way
Speaker 2: to do it is manually.
Speaker 3: So to jump in here real quick, I'm just thinking
Speaker 3: about as you guys know, I I managed restaurants in
Speaker 3: the city of landas number.
Speaker 1: What did you guys do? What'd you do?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 1: What was?
Speaker 4: This gets more?
Speaker 3: This gets more evil as story goes on because he
Speaker 3: because one of the best things about it is it's
Speaker 3: not me, but four different restaurant managers working with each
Speaker 3: other on this on this posture. And so there's a
Speaker 3: search of these restaurants and there's like four within like
Speaker 3: five minutes walking to each other. So basically what we
Speaker 3: would usually do when one of the places start. It
Speaker 3: was a new employee who seemed a pretty cool day
Speaker 3: and like wouldn't get offended if he did this to them.
Speaker 3: They just understand some hazing is uh. One of us
Speaker 3: would send a person with a bucket to go get
Speaker 3: a bucket of steam in the steam you can put
Speaker 3: steam in a bucket, like, oh, that's the name of
Speaker 3: the product.
Speaker 4: Just go over to this place.
Speaker 3: So they go over that place, and the manager who
Speaker 3: knows this is like, dude, oh, yes, you guys are
Speaker 3: out of steam too. Yeah, the delivery must not come in,
Speaker 3: but you gotta.
Speaker 1: Go to the third guy.
Speaker 3: The third but like, we get all over his stuff
Speaker 3: from us twos they get their stuff from Cisco, so
Speaker 3: they should be good. And then like the third person's like, yeah, no,
Speaker 3: we sorry, the owners cut it off. Well, you guys
Speaker 3: have been borrowing way too much steam from us.
Speaker 4: You can't do it.
Speaker 3: So the person's just walking around Grant Park neighborhood with
Speaker 3: a ice bucket, a big giant ice bucket, over and
Speaker 3: over again until one of the managers uh breaks their breaks,
Speaker 3: like you know, the joke and break are laughing and
Speaker 3: they're like, oh, I have been walking around for thirty
Speaker 3: minutes in the hot sun of Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Well aventually it would turn to steam.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there you go take a while to take
Speaker 2: a while just goes to share that April fool can
Speaker 2: be every day in certain situations. I found a couple
Speaker 2: other examples of the job site stuff when would be
Speaker 2: a to your point max or similar to your straight
Speaker 2: A bucket of Olmes homes being a way of measuring
Speaker 2: electrical resistance, which is not a thing that can be
Speaker 2: held in a bucket, a wire stretcher, a flex bender,
Speaker 2: a pack of end joints, or a box of toenails.
Speaker 1: I do have a box of toenails. We're not going
Speaker 1: to get into it.
Speaker 4: Those around you just you just hang on to them
Speaker 4: for posterity.
Speaker 1: I believe in magic. So there's there's a Uh there's
Speaker 1: another example. We used to do this thing where you
Speaker 1: would have like a new recruit, uh, you would you
Speaker 1: would have them dig a hole and then you would
Speaker 1: yell at them for digging the hole wrong, and you
Speaker 1: would ask them to move the hole, or you would
Speaker 1: send them to a different guy who would get mad
Speaker 1: that anyone like that you were there was very kill
Speaker 1: the messenger. It was just a way to make people
Speaker 1: do more push ups.
Speaker 4: Sure, Penn.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine if someone came up with a movable
Speaker 2: hole that would be a million dollar idea. So you know,
Speaker 2: this is all of these kinds of things. These had
Speaker 2: a Galki Day, another thing they referred to it as
Speaker 2: in Scotland hunt the galk, very similar to our snipe
Speaker 2: hunt that we know. Tally Day is a following day
Speaker 2: where people would pen oftentimes kick me signs on folks back,
Speaker 2: similar to the fish situation over there in France. All
Speaker 2: of these rituals are part of a relatively and surprisingly
Speaker 2: ancient practice that spans cultures, continence, and of course time,
Speaker 2: the custom of dedicating a single day to the embracing
Speaker 2: of harmless pranks and merriments on one's friends, neighbors and
Speaker 2: loved ones, with a sort of built in amnesty where
Speaker 2: you can't really get mad about it.
Speaker 4: But some of these are worthy of.
Speaker 2: Getting that about, you know, if you get really done dirty, right.
Speaker 1: And we were looking into this and we found that
Speaker 1: April Fool's Day is itself kind of a mixtape of
Speaker 1: much earlier festivals, things like Hilaria of ancient name that right.
Speaker 4: But re fun festival.
Speaker 1: Yes, it was on March twenty fifth, so not too
Speaker 1: far away. People would dress up in disguises, you could
Speaker 1: mock fellow citizens and back in Roman times. People genuinely
Speaker 1: believe this was inspired by it was like inspired by
Speaker 1: earlier Egyptian mythology. And then you could go to another
Speaker 1: Tomfoolery celebration that continues today in India, the Holly celebration
Speaker 1: Hli well.
Speaker 2: And also, I mean it reminds me even of like
Speaker 2: the Carnival season like in Brazil, or the way that's
Speaker 2: been embraced and sort of changed around to.
Speaker 4: Suit the New Orleans culture.
Speaker 2: I mean, and even in Germany and in Europe they've
Speaker 2: got something called Fashing, which is very much around that
Speaker 2: carnival season, but it contains a lot of that same
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, little pranks, little jokes, merriment.
Speaker 4: Hell, even Halloween has.
Speaker 2: A certain prank quality to it, right, the trick or
Speaker 2: the treat right, I mean a lot of these things
Speaker 2: are cross pollinad and there are bits of it in
Speaker 2: various different holidays and seasons, even within a single culture.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, we see a larger trend here. And if
Speaker 1: we look at the ancient past. Staying with that for
Speaker 1: a moment, we also have to consider things like Saturnalia.
Speaker 1: It was the winter festival, you know that everybody's celebrated
Speaker 1: at the end of December, if you vibed the harrowing winter,
Speaker 1: you danced, you drank, you made mary, you made, you
Speaker 1: gave each other gifts. Slaves were allowed to pretend they
Speaker 1: were in charge for that one day, and for that
Speaker 1: one day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's evil again, slavery is the most evil of all.
Speaker 4: But I mean that is just kind of that's even worse.
Speaker 1: That's very like, get out and thank you for bp me.
Speaker 4: Max.
Speaker 1: There was the there was a fake king, the guy
Speaker 1: called the In English, we'll call it Lord of Misrule. Eventually, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: in the Eventually, around the fourth century CE, what we
Speaker 1: call Saturnalia turned into celebration of the new year on
Speaker 1: January first, and a lot of the Saturnalia traditions and
Speaker 1: sort of ornaments or affectations are incorporated in the modern
Speaker 1: observance of Christmas. Please check out our episodes on Christmas.
Speaker 1: I just love this point that almost every culture across
Speaker 1: the planet has some kind of festival in the first
Speaker 1: months of the year to celebrate the fact that spring
Speaker 1: is coming. And if you talk with our boffins, our
Speaker 1: anthropologist friends, they'll tell you these are called renewal festivals.
Speaker 4: That's interesting.
Speaker 2: The idea of renewal by being a little silly Bailey,
Speaker 2: you know, renewing yourself. It's also you know, I wish
Speaker 2: that there were an official calendar day for opposite day.
Speaker 2: You know, people always talk about its opposite day, but
Speaker 2: it seems to only be used to kind of suit
Speaker 2: whatever little gag they're playing at that particularly moment. It's
Speaker 2: sort of like a momentary. Yeah, it's like a momentary
Speaker 2: April fools. Yeah, And I mean, just to reiterate, like,
Speaker 2: this is very much a day there. This is a
Speaker 2: day where up is down and down is up, and
Speaker 2: you know, the master becomes the servant and vice versa. Again,
Speaker 2: sort of an opposite day situation.
Speaker 4: And the idea that for.
Speaker 2: That one day, you know, like the idea of being
Speaker 2: king for a day, but it doesn't really change anything,
Speaker 2: which is I think the part that gives it that
Speaker 2: sort of dark sort of twist.
Speaker 1: Right, it's like an escape hatch. And I love I
Speaker 1: mentioned Whitest Kids. You know, do you remember that sketch?
Speaker 4: Course I die, I do very much.
Speaker 2: And the guy went on to the one of the
Speaker 2: members went on to make Barbarian, which is a film
Speaker 2: that I quite loved, and rip Trevor Moore, who was
Speaker 2: the kind of the leader of that sketch group and
Speaker 2: passed away well before his time. In the last handful
Speaker 2: of years.
Speaker 1: They have a fantastic opposite day sketch. I don't know
Speaker 1: that one that address it, Please everyone look it up.
Speaker 1: It addresses the idea of scheduling and opposite day, or
Speaker 1: the sort of cognitive paradox, which is what these sorts
Speaker 1: of holidays or celebrations or festivals, whatever you want to
Speaker 1: call them, are ultimately celebrating. At its very best, the
Speaker 1: modern April Fool's Day can be pretty fun. But here's
Speaker 1: the thing, no one really knows where it came from.
Speaker 1: People weren't even asking about the providence of April Fools
Speaker 1: until maybe seventeen oh eight. There's a guy who rode
Speaker 1: into a British magazine called Apollo and said, quince proceeds
Speaker 1: the custom of making April fools. So like, no one knows,
Speaker 1: but there are a ton of fascinating theories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of scholars believe that the modern equivalent
Speaker 2: of April Fools began back there in France with that
Speaker 2: whole find the fish situation or pin the tail in
Speaker 2: the fish or the young fish whatever it was. You
Speaker 2: will often hear this the idea of April fools originating
Speaker 2: because of some as often as the case been with
Speaker 2: calendar flip floppery, right like certain whims of certain kings
Speaker 2: and arguments over when actual facts.
Speaker 4: Lauren vogelbam new year officially starts.
Speaker 1: Oh man, yeah, this is the thing, all right, So
Speaker 1: it's Les, let's rewind if we can max perfect and
Speaker 1: thank you do Actually, yeah, I like the way you
Speaker 1: did it.
Speaker 4: Combine our forces for the re Yeah.
Speaker 1: Back in the fifteen hundreds, there's this guy, he's the king.
Speaker 1: His name is Charles nine I X if your fancy,
Speaker 1: and he said, look, the New Year is not going
Speaker 1: to begin on Easter anymore. For a lot of Christians
Speaker 1: at the time the New Year began on Easter. He said, instead,
Speaker 1: we're taking it to January first. And the idea, the
Speaker 1: theory that you'll often hear is that French people who
Speaker 1: didn't get the communication, they didn't get the memo.
Speaker 2: They also sort of have a way of doing things,
Speaker 2: you know, they they like to do things a little.
Speaker 4: Different there in France.
Speaker 2: We say that you may well have gotten the memo
Speaker 2: and put it in the trash you know, like.
Speaker 1: We're guys who are not Francophones, but we are frank
Speaker 1: of Fhiles. You know.
Speaker 2: Oh, if I'm talking a little fun at the French,
Speaker 2: it's it's absolutely ingest.
Speaker 4: I'm a huge The food is genuinely better.
Speaker 2: And some of my favorite music in the entire world
Speaker 2: comes from France. But yeah, to your point, Ben, the
Speaker 2: the idea that they kind of stayed the course and
Speaker 2: kept things going as they were, so during the last
Speaker 2: week of March through April first, that became a time
Speaker 2: to kind of make fun of the French because they
Speaker 2: had not changed their calendars to join the rest of
Speaker 2: which the term you have in here, Ben, which I love, Christendom,
Speaker 2: it just seems very Robin Hood.
Speaker 4: I don't know why Christendom. It's very very official Sunding.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the folks who didn't get the decree of
Speaker 1: the king and we're still celebrating the quote unquote wrong
Speaker 1: beginning of the year. They were called the April fools.
Speaker 1: That's a theory. That's the long story short, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't always give us the answer. So the long story long,
Speaker 1: the straight seahorse teeth, the hot cheese is is this
Speaker 1: you gotta like you were saying, No, we got to
Speaker 1: look at the history of calendar reform. So the Julian
Speaker 1: calendar is named after Julius Caesar, right, and that that's
Speaker 1: the calendar that made January first the first day of
Speaker 1: the year. But as Christianity, you know, further expands, and
Speaker 1: I would argue franchises throughout Europe, people wanted to move
Speaker 1: New Year's Day to dates that were more important to Christianity,
Speaker 1: like why can't it start at Christmas? Why can't the
Speaker 1: year start it Easter? And so some countries kept using
Speaker 1: January first, and they justified it. This is so crazy.
Speaker 1: Fellow substitute teachers in the crowd, please recognize this may
Speaker 1: not be appropriate for your class. Some countries used to
Speaker 1: keep with January first, and they would justify it to
Speaker 1: Christendom as I don't know how else to say it.
Speaker 1: They would they would say that January first was the
Speaker 1: date that Jesus Christ was circumcised.
Speaker 4: You know, I've never really given much thought to whether
Speaker 4: or not Jesus was circumcised, but he was a Jew
Speaker 4: and that is a custom, and I guess I didn't
Speaker 4: realize that that was a thing. Wow, Okay, it's just.
Speaker 1: Like it's a long walk as far as justifications go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, right now I'm speculating as to the size
Speaker 2: of Jesus's circumcised.
Speaker 1: Uh you're thinking about Defoe?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Oh god, no, when am I not Jesus massive?
Speaker 1: So look what we're telling you, folks, is by the
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred CE, the European calendar was a real messy
Speaker 1: bullis spaghetti. The errors in the Julian calendar, like simple
Speaker 1: mathematical errors, had caused what we call the solar year
Speaker 1: to increasingly divide from the calendar year. And add to this,
Speaker 1: different countries are beginning the year on different dates. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is really confusing, especially because in France people are
Speaker 1: using Easter as the beginning of the year, primarily for
Speaker 1: bureaucratic purposes, but people on the ground are using January
Speaker 1: first as the traditional start of the year. This is
Speaker 1: when you celebrate, This is when you give each other gifts.
Speaker 1: You know, visit your relatives, have a hug. Starting the
Speaker 1: new year on Easter is stupid and convenient.
Speaker 2: So in the early sixteenth century, in French books, you'll
Speaker 2: find both forms of the dating system listed side by side.
Speaker 2: For titles published in January February or March, and then
Speaker 2: moving into the mid sixteenth century, you started to see
Speaker 2: a system of calendaring where everything started on January first,
Speaker 2: and that began to be widely adopted in France. So
Speaker 2: they finally either got the memo or decided to pull
Speaker 2: it out of the trash and you know, kind of
Speaker 2: the join the party.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was our buddy Charlie King Charles ninth of
Speaker 1: his name. He created this thing on December twenty second,
Speaker 1: fifteen sixty four, or that's when French Parliament approved of
Speaker 1: the move to make January first the official actual fact.
Speaker 1: Shout out, Lauren, first day of the year. This was
Speaker 1: in my mind, this is like the calindrical version of
Speaker 1: legalizing cannabis. He looked at it, he said, everybody's already
Speaker 1: doing it, so why are we going to make it illegal?
Speaker 2: Wait, isn't that that's the name of an album. Everybody
Speaker 2: else is doing it, so what shouldn't we It's.
Speaker 4: Like the Cranberries, I want to say.
Speaker 2: Ayway, eighteen years later, in fifteen eighty two, we've got
Speaker 2: Pope Gregory issuing a papal powl, which sounds so intense,
Speaker 2: which is basically just a decree from the Pope that
Speaker 2: declared sweeping calendar reform across all of Christendom or Catholicism
Speaker 2: in them. The Gregorian reform included moving the start of
Speaker 2: the year to January first, and creating a Leapyer system
Speaker 2: that Max very definitely stuck to with our publishing schedule
Speaker 2: and whatever Leapier that was, which at the time eliminated
Speaker 2: ten days from the month of October of eighteen fifty
Speaker 2: two in order to correct that calendar drift, which is
Speaker 2: something that I still have a hard time wracking my
Speaker 2: head around. I think that was a big theme of
Speaker 2: the Leapier episode, was me banging my head against the
Speaker 2: wall about why what is this calendar drift?
Speaker 1: So the Pope has no real power to make the
Speaker 1: governments of the time comply, right, but he does say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, guys, if you're a Christian nation, I'm the
Speaker 1: pope and this is the time of really brutal monarchies.
Speaker 1: France accepts this reform, they had already changed it. A
Speaker 1: lot of people get this part wrong. Anyway, it becomes
Speaker 1: clear like the more you look into it, the calendar
Speaker 1: change hypothesis has a really convenient to it, right. It
Speaker 1: sounds like a light switch going on and off. This
Speaker 1: is not quite the truth, you know. You can say that. Look,
Speaker 1: you can say that the calendar change hypothesis is plausible
Speaker 1: if it's applied to Britain, maybe because they did New
Speaker 1: Year's Day of March twenty fifth, because of the Feast
Speaker 1: of Annunciation, again trying to align the solar calendar, the
Speaker 1: passage of the actual planets with religious ideology. The earliest
Speaker 1: version of the calendar change hypothesis that we can find
Speaker 1: in print goes back to seventeen sixty six, and it's
Speaker 1: a response to a discourse that only started in seventeen
Speaker 1: Oh wait, people weren't really asking about April Fools until
Speaker 1: centuries after it was happening. We want to go to
Speaker 1: a quote from a correspondence to something called The Gentleman's Magazine.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of a long quote. I think
Speaker 1: it's an opportunity to do a pretty cool voice. So Noel,
Speaker 1: if you can do the first part, I'll come in
Speaker 1: at the end.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, this strange custom prevalent throughout this kingdom of people
Speaker 5: making fuels of one another upon the first of April.
Speaker 2: I'm just sorry, I'm doing it like Kenna very talestu
Speaker 2: a ruse from the year, formally a beginning as to
Speaker 2: some purpose and in some respects on the twenty fifth
Speaker 2: of March, which was supposed to be the incarnation of
Speaker 2: our Lord.
Speaker 1: It's been customary with the Romans as well as fit
Speaker 1: us Hole Day festival. It ended by an octave that
Speaker 1: the commencement of a new year, which festival lasted for
Speaker 1: it is where after first of the last was the principal.
Speaker 1: Therefore the first of April is the octave of the
Speaker 1: twenty fifth of March, and consequently the clothes or ending
Speaker 1: of the feast, which was both the festival of the
Speaker 1: annunciation and the beginning of the new year.
Speaker 2: Broo and Telly ho good sir, h Yeah, we're gonna
Speaker 2: to unpack all that. I kind of got lost in
Speaker 2: the sauce of the voices.
Speaker 3: There can I jump in real quick to talk about
Speaker 3: the voices, because believe it, this is gonna go full circle.
Speaker 3: But you guys, you both used your Canterbury Tales voices.
Speaker 3: I used remember from that episode. I used an accent
Speaker 3: that came up off the top of my head.
Speaker 4: At least I thought, so, oh yeah, we forced you
Speaker 4: to play I.
Speaker 3: Figured out later on I was editing it. The accent
Speaker 3: I was doing was the one of my friend named Jeff.
Speaker 3: He talks like this all the time, like this. The
Speaker 3: reason to bring this up is Jeff, who is a character.
Speaker 3: I love him to death, but he's a character. His
Speaker 3: birthday is April fools Day, and he's the type of
Speaker 3: guy who lie in day's birthday today.
Speaker 1: So Jeff, Jeff, text him, text him now. So all
Speaker 1: right there there there's another part here. We had writers
Speaker 1: back then, we would have historical precedent. There's a whole thing,
Speaker 1: a whole discourse with chaucer scholars arguing about whether or
Speaker 1: not he actually references April Fools and when March happens
Speaker 1: versus May, versus April. We know that Chaucer wrote some
Speaker 1: pretty saucy stuff. He's a pretty smart guy. We're actually
Speaker 1: big fans of his work. Can't wait for him to
Speaker 1: conclude the Canterbury Tales. When do you think it's coming out?
Speaker 1: When do you think he'll finish in I.
Speaker 2: Think it's been in turnaround at Tony for a while.
Speaker 2: Hopefully it's a production. Lebo, Oh my god, I love
Speaker 2: you for that one.
Speaker 1: Also, if the holiday was always around. Why doesn't Shakespeare
Speaker 1: mention it? Look, the United Kingdom only changed their calendar
Speaker 1: year to start on January first. They only did that
Speaker 1: in seventeen fifty two, just like a few decades before
Speaker 1: the United States became a country. By that time, April
Speaker 1: Fools is already well established, So confusion about a changing
Speaker 1: calendar could not have been logically responsible for the origin
Speaker 1: of the celebration in Britain. Oh, also, we should mention
Speaker 1: it is possible, like our earlier guy noted that the
Speaker 1: festival held on April first in that correspondence with the
Speaker 1: with the Gentleman's magazine, it's posstering it for the art.
Speaker 1: I love it. Oh, I forgot to tell you, guys.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite you know, I'm into weird food.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite weird things that I found recently.
Speaker 1: It's an actual thing. Have you ever heard of gentleman's relish?
Speaker 4: No, it doesn't sound good. It sounds really gross.
Speaker 1: It's British. It's obviously British.
Speaker 4: Oh jeez, I just immediately got it.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's probably my own fault for having a
Speaker 2: mine in the gutter, but gentleman's relish does not sound good.
Speaker 1: To me, it does sound like a euphemism. It is
Speaker 1: not a euphemism. I'm I've got to buy some. We
Speaker 1: gotta try it out.
Speaker 2: My mom used to make a thing called gentleman's salad
Speaker 2: that was like a gelatin salad, usually green of color,
Speaker 2: and with like shit in it that didn't belong, like
Speaker 2: horse radish and stuff and like lime jello bass and
Speaker 2: gentleman salad is what she always called it.
Speaker 4: Never like it, No, I wouldn't even need it.
Speaker 2: It was like she'd put it at everyone's place for
Speaker 2: like a holiday meals, and I was a hell.
Speaker 1: No, Oh, it was a holiday thing, So everybody gets
Speaker 1: a pass. Gentleman's relish is a real thing. It's also
Speaker 1: called patum paperium. It has nothing to do with April
Speaker 1: Fool's Day. But if you have tried it, please let
Speaker 1: us know. On ridiculous his story.
Speaker 4: Well, surely it could.
Speaker 2: There's a place for it in our History of condiments
Speaker 2: ongoing series.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, okay, another theory. Oh man, if I get it,
Speaker 1: are you guys gonna try it with me? No? You
Speaker 1: don't even read about it.
Speaker 4: I don't care. I don't like it.
Speaker 2: I don't like the way it sounds I want nothing
Speaker 2: to do with it. I resent its very existence.
Speaker 3: I'm just say someone right here, and it's the only
Speaker 3: time in my entire life I've been able to say
Speaker 3: this for a good thing. Sorry, Ben, I can't try it.
Speaker 1: Condition okay, alright, alright, Max. We respect the condition. So
Speaker 1: other people will tell you. Maybe the timing of April
Speaker 1: Fool's Day is related to what we call the vernal
Speaker 1: equinox March twenty first, because the weather would shift, and
Speaker 1: for previous civilizations that was a real plot twist. But
Speaker 1: the thing is, none of the theories about the origin
Speaker 1: of April Fool's Day have been proven to be correct.
Speaker 1: It was almost certainly a continuation of this ancient prankish tendency.
Speaker 1: It spread throughout other countries. People genuinely did not ask
Speaker 1: about its providence until well after it was already established.
Speaker 1: The actual answer is that no one knows why it's
Speaker 1: a thing. It's ridiculous. It's not like a bank holiday.
Speaker 1: It's just this need to prank.
Speaker 2: People, which I mean, to be fair, you know, you
Speaker 2: don't need a particular day to do that. A good
Speaker 2: natured prank is welcome or not unwelcome on any day
Speaker 2: of the calendar year. There are even TV shows devoted
Speaker 2: to this stuff. Remember punked Ashton Kutcher's seminal early two thousands,
Speaker 2: Reality where and he would yeah gentleman's relish indeed wherein
Speaker 2: he would punk folks celebs usually And now I think
Speaker 2: there's a show on TV called Practical Jokers. It's very
Speaker 2: very popular and the kids I love Nathan for You.
Speaker 2: Nathan for You is Yeah, I guess you could call
Speaker 2: it a prank. I mean, it's like an earnest prank
Speaker 2: show where he's like pranking people by trying to help
Speaker 2: them in the most ridiculous ways possible.
Speaker 4: But I think you're you're spot on.
Speaker 1: Them, which is what we're doing, right, Noel, I would
Speaker 1: like to think. So we're probably one thing, folks. We
Speaker 1: are foolish all year round. As Noel said, it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be a day in April. You can be
Speaker 1: silly any any old time. We have a notable examples.
Speaker 1: That's the best way to end this in this episode
Speaker 1: that we are running late on, Noel, what are some
Speaker 1: notable examples of your favorite April fools Day's April Fool's
Speaker 1: Day breaks.
Speaker 2: Well, it's also something that like you know, corporations get
Speaker 2: in on and get in on the phone, you know,
Speaker 2: especially in the age of social media. One that I
Speaker 2: saw that made me think of you, Ben was this
Speaker 2: article that seemed very you know, very well photoshopped. I
Speaker 2: guess that waffle House was removing waffles from its media. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I think that I hop did a thing in
Speaker 2: April fools Day's Past where they said they were changing
Speaker 2: their name to the International House of Burgers.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's right, I remember that one. That was a
Speaker 1: not too long ago, right, I hob.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You got another one that you found, Ben about another
Speaker 2: what is it a Young Brands products Taco Bell.
Speaker 1: Yes, in nineteen ninety six, Taco Bell said, hey, we've
Speaker 1: purchased the Liberty Bell. We've renamed it the Taco Liberty Bell.
Speaker 1: Where doing this to help with the crushing debt of
Speaker 1: the United States.
Speaker 4: Good on you, Taco Bell. Thanks for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah this, Yeah, it upset a lot of people in
Speaker 1: PR reported it and then they had to have a
Speaker 1: press conference to just clear the air and let everybody
Speaker 1: know that the city of Philadelphia still owns the Liberty Bell.
Speaker 4: Thank god for that. Another one that you found, Ben
Speaker 4: was nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 2: And pr It did a fun little prank declaring that
Speaker 2: Richard Nixon, of course, the shamed or disgraced presidents who
Speaker 2: resigned in nineteen seventy four after the Watergate scander where
Speaker 2: he was doing all kinds of naughty, underhanded things, was
Speaker 2: entering that year's presidential race. And then he had a
Speaker 2: fun new slogan it he was rocking, you know not
Speaker 2: I mean no the voice. Well, of course I am
Speaker 2: not a crook, remember was some of that right? I
Speaker 2: had never heard of anything wrong? Then I won't do
Speaker 2: it again.
Speaker 1: Love it. Thank you for doing that. We've got the
Speaker 1: uh so, we've got the skinny on this. There's an
Speaker 1: active mystery regarding the origins of April Fool's Day. We
Speaker 1: can't thank you enough for tuning in, fellow ridiculous historians,
Speaker 1: but we will endeavor to do so. This way, Max
Speaker 1: if I could get some fanfare thanks for tuning in. Uzzah,
Speaker 1: thanks to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Thanks to
Speaker 1: oh gosh, let's see aj Bahamas Jacobs, who else?
Speaker 4: Who are yeah? Abja?
Speaker 2: Jonathan Strickland, the quizz and also you know, pretty stand
Speaker 2: up guy when he's not in character. Uh and Chris
Speaker 2: Frosciota is an even Jeff Coates here in spirit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the rude dudes a ridiculous crime. Rachel Big Spinach Lance.
Speaker 1: I'd like to do a thing in the credits where
Speaker 1: we thank random people were people who have passed recently,
Speaker 1: So thanks to Val Kilmer Man.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks to Val Kilmer indeed.
Speaker 2: And I think I posted this before he passed, or
Speaker 2: maybe it was a portentous in some way, but I
Speaker 2: saw a post of a old tweet from Val Kilmer
Speaker 2: wherein he said I once tickled Lou Reid and at
Speaker 2: the time I really regretted it because he never spoke
Speaker 2: to me again.
Speaker 4: But now I'm glad I did it because I think
Speaker 4: he needed it. Well.
Speaker 1: Thanks to you Lou for your service, and thanks Ip
Speaker 1: Lou as well, Rip Lou as well. Thanks to you
Speaker 1: Neil and you as well.
Speaker 2: Then we'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts
Speaker 2: from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.