quote:

---

April Fools' Day joke doesn't hold water
By BETH IPSEN, Staff Writer

An April Fools' Day prank backfired on popular local radio personality Glenner after he warned listeners that dihydrogen monoxide had been found in Fairbanks schools and homes Thursday.

Glenner, whose real name is Glen Anderson, was pulled off the air after the Fairbanks mayor's office was inundated with calls from citizens concerned that the air they breathe was laced with dihydrogen monoxide.

It is, but they didn't recognize it by that name.

Dihydrogen monoxide's chemical equation is H2O.

That's right: water.

The morning radio host for classic rock station KXLR 95.9 thought he'd take the Internet hoax--which briefly fooled people in a California town last month--and use it as a joke when he went on the airwaves at 6 a.m.

"It wasn't even pre-planned," Anderson said. "We simply said that this dihydrogen monoxide, that there were traces in most homes across the area ... We didn't say there were any alerts or that anything was closed. Some people took that to the next level on their own."

People who picked up on the joke called in and Anderson included them on the show as they played along with commentary.

On the other hand, some listeners heard only portions of the broadcast, prompting phone calls to the city mayor's office.

Mayor Steve Thompson's executive secretary Jennifer Brabham said she received about 30 phone calls within two hours Thursday morning, including one from a crying woman who thought her child was dying because of toxic air in the child's school.

Pam Hallberg, Fairbanks North Star Borough School District secretary didn't field any calls from concerned parents, but instead had people on staff questioning the broadcast, prompting the school district to check for official emergency alerts.

Debby Hassel, the Homeland Security director for the Interior, was teaching a class when the joke rolled over the airwaves. City officials tracked her down to look into the report, which she discovered was an April Fool's Day joke.

"I think it was a very sick joke and I believe he needs to apologize on the air," Hassel said. "It disrupted the city and it caused psychological harm on people."

Meanwhile, when Perry Walley, general manager for New Northwest Broadcasting and its five radio stations in Fairbanks went to work about 8 a.m. he was unaware of the uproar. He soon found out.

At about 9 a.m., he went to Anderson and told him the joke was over and went on air to apologize. Anderson was sent home early. He won't be on the air today, but Walley said Anderson, who is also operations manager, hasn't been suspended.

Anderson was surprised at the reaction to his joke.

"Three hundred sixty-four days out of the year I'm never taken seriously and April 1st rolls around and everybody takes me seriously," Anderson said. "On one hand I'm flattered that we had so many listeners; on the other hand I feel bad people took it seriously."

He's been known to dupe people before with his on-air antics.

One year a few people took their children out of class to wait at Fairbanks International Airport after Glenner and then morning show co-host Jerry Evans told listeners the space shuttle was going to make an emergency landing at the airport.

Anderson, who is also known for his stand-up comedy act at local functions and traveling around the state with a comedy show, is even more baffled that some people were angry over his latest on-air prank.

"I failed to see the humor in that," said Dave Jacoby, director of city public works. "A lot of people were worried and scared ... Those kind of jokes aren't funny, especially in this day and age. We take everything fairly serious now when you hear threats."

One of the radio station's advertisers, ABC Inc., canceled its advertising.

The company's ads appeared right in the middle of the joke, then immediately after the on-air apology, said Sue Ellison, co-owner of the home-building company that among other things, does radon removal.

"I was livid that someone would take that kind of liberty to think that was acceptable in our community," Ellison said.

In hindsight, Anderson said he regrets pulling the April Fools' Day joke.

"I guess people took it too seriously," he said.

Reporter Beth Ipsen can be reached at bipsen@newsminer.com or 459-7545.

---

 

---

Posted by Chris Medley (Member # 2145) on 04-02-2004, 01:24 PM:
 
The joke was in poor taste....but come on...that hoax has been around forever. The people of the town should have had the common sense to put two and two togther April Fool's Day+Wacky never serious radio host=April Fool's Day prank
 

---

Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 04-02-2004, 01:47 PM:
 
Hmmm, Orson Welles pulled a little radio stunt/hoax, and is considered a genius.
 

---

Posted by Joshua Lott (Member # 240) on 04-02-2004, 02:20 PM:
 
I have worked personally with this DJ and this joke was not intended to cause harm. He just thought it was funny.

Too bad most people are super paranoid.
 

---

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 04-02-2004, 02:28 PM:
 
Haha. Welles also ran disclaimers during the show that said it was a radio play. The fact that some people didn't hear them, or chose to ignore them, wasn't his fault.

I agree, he was a prolific artiste .
 

---

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 04-02-2004, 02:34 PM:
 
The World has changed in the last few years. The smallest hoax could cause major problems with people now.
 

---

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 04-02-2004, 03:50 PM:
 
No mention of Howard Stern's prank?
 

---

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 04-02-2004, 06:45 PM:
 
Joshua wrote:

quote:

---

Too bad most people are super paranoid.

---

quote:

---

Station apologizes for scaring relatives


Associated Press

EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- Two disc jockeys apologized for an April Fool's prank that caused a scare for family members of New York Yankees hitting coach Don Mattingly.

When Mattingly's two younger sons arrived at school Thursday morning, concerned classmates told them that WSTO morning show hosts Brad Booker and Diane Douglas were extending their on-air thoughts and prayers to the Mattingly family.

The broadcast made the youngsters assume something bad had happened to their father, who was in Japan with his wife, Kim, for the Yankees' series with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

In reality, the on-air remarks were part of a prank.

"Our idea was to mention several times that our thoughts and prayers were with the friends and family of Don Mattingly. Later in the morning, we planned on stating that he had nicked himself shaving and we were concerned for him," Booker said in a news release posted on the Evansville station's Web site.

But Mattingly's family members -- including 12-year-old Jordon and 16-year old Preston, who had stayed behind in Evansville -- weren't in on the joke.

"It upset the youngest boy," Mattingly's father-in-law, Dennis Sexton, told Evansville television station WEHT. "He kind of shed some tears because he was worried about his mom, dad and brother."

Sexton said he "kind of panicked" because he knew his daughter and son-in-law were on their way home from Japan.

Sexton said the younger Mattingly boys reached Don, Kim and Taylor Mattingly by phone on Thursday afternoon.

Mattingly's oldest son Taylor was also in Japan. He was drafted by the Yankees last summer.

The radio station later posted a public apology on its Web site.

"Unfortunately, we did not realize the impact our statements would have on Don's friends and family members," Booker said.

Tim Huelsing, general manager of the radio station, said the disc jockeys "understand the severity of this mistake ... but they have assured me that it won't happen again. It won't happen again."

---

quote:

---

A practical joker deserves applause for his wit according to its quality. Bastinado is about right. For exceptional wit one might grant keelhauling. But staking out on an anthill should be reserved for the very wittiest.

---

 

---

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 04-03-2004, 02:38 AM:
 
Same thing happened here... but it was a Seattle station doing to another city (ours).

Link here

April 2, 2004

A Seattle radio station's April Fools' Day joke about Bremerton's water supply went too far Thursday morning, scrambling city and county officials to calm residents' concerns.
KIRO-FM radio, known as 100.7 The Buzz, reported that the Navy had contaminated the city's water supply with dihydrogen monoxide, the chemical name for water.

Bremerton and Kitsap officials asked the radio station several times to let listeners in on the hoax. Hosts Robin and Maynard resisted until 9:45 a.m., three hours later and more than an hour after a city official contacted the station.

"These idiots. I'm trying to figure out legally if I can send them my bill," said Phyllis Mann, director of Kitsap County Emergency Management.

"I've had at least an hour of staff time working on this and the city of Bremerton has had two hours. I'm all for a good April Fools' joke, but not when it affects public safety."

When told that city and county officials were far from amused, host John Maynard said: "No kidding? Just because we said you had water in your pipes? That's rough."

Maynard said he heard that officials had called the station to stop the joke, but he didn't feel their urgency.

"It's nothing new," he said. "I think every high school chemistry teacher played this prank on their students."

Earlier this year, the Southern California city of Aliso Viejo fell so completely for the joke that its city council nearly voted on a proposed law to ban the use of foam containers because they contain dihydrogen monoxide.

Kathleen Cahall, Bremerton's water resources manager, said she had to explain the joke to several people, and didn't find it remotely funny.

She said the prank put a great stress on her staff as well as other city and county agencies because they had to respond to it seriously. She said they received constant phone calls from concerned customers.

"We had to respond like we would with any other emergency to notify emergency responders and answer customer concerns," she said.

"We work very hard to ensure the quality of water. Bremerton has some of the best water in the country, so this is very discouraging. It was so inappropriate."

Mann talked to KIRO-FM station manager Dave Richards after 9 a.m. -- following a call from the city -- and asked him to stop the joke. It was another 25 minutes before the station notified listeners of the April Fools' Day prank, she said.

"If it sounds like I'm mad, I am," Mann said. "This is irresponsible. They have a right to be entertaining and do whatever they want, except when they cross the line."

Maynard said his show began picking on Bremerton last month when it was learned that the Navy didn't notify anyone of an incident in which the nose cone of a nuclear missile was punctured at Naval Submarine Base Bangor.

"I made a joke that if it (the missile) would've gone off, it would've been a part of their rebeautification program," Maynard said. "It would have leveled the place, and they could've just started from scratch."

Asked if it he regretted the three-hour water joke, Maynard said: "Do I feel badly? Well, I'm not really sure what happened, but if someone was genuinely put out by it, or something bad happened as a result of it."

He added that neither he nor his co-host "make a call to action, like don't drink the water, or drive like hell to get out of there.

"We were just saying they had water in their pipes. That was the goof."
 

---

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 04-03-2004, 02:44 AM:
 
Isn`t Kitsap County where "Walking Tall" is set? They could simply send Sheriff "Rock" to sort things out then.
 

---

Posted by Joshua Tefay (Member # 1722) on 04-03-2004, 03:19 AM:
 
I guess Glenner is unlucky... everyone seems to live in fear these days...
 

---

Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 04-03-2004, 09:09 AM:
 

quote:

---

Debby Hassel, the Homeland Security director for the Interior, was teaching a class when the joke rolled over the airwaves. City officials tracked her down to look into the report, which she discovered was an April Fool's Day joke.

---

quote:

---

They could simply send Sheriff "Rock" to sort things out then.

---

Nahh... we've got an emergency services coordinator that's on a mission!

The two morning hosts were "suspended" for a day. They've both been fixtures in the Seattle radio scene for the past 30 years, so this isn't likely to kill their careers. Still our local gendarmes are trying to find a way to bring those scurrilous knaves to their knees!... aarrrrrrrrrrrrggghh!
 

---

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 04-04-2004, 01:13 PM:
 
Here's some FOOLS FEST ideas folks posted on Adbusters:
http://adbusters.org/campaigns/foolsfest/best.html

My favourite:
Turn your town into a drive-in by staging some guerilla film screenings. Project Keystone Cops onto your local police station, Wallstreet onto a stock exchange, The Insider onto Phillip Morris HQ... The Three Stooges works almost anywhere. - "Boywonder in lalaland"

Oh, and "Take the Tour" too. It explains the TRUE meaning of April Fools. We are all fools to The Machine.

=TMP=
 

---

Posted by Michael Gonzalez (Member # 593) on 04-04-2004, 09:36 PM:
 
My favorite April Fools prank by a radio station happen about 2 years ago when a local radio station's morning show "reminded" their listeners that they were suppose to have set their clocks BACK an hour the night before. There were a lot of people late for their jobs that morning and a lot of angry calls to the radio station that day.
 

---

Posted by Daniel Fuentz (Member # 1684) on 04-04-2004, 10:02 PM:
 
A radio station morning show I worked with annoyed a local newspaper columnist becuase one April Fools Day they said an armored car had lost bags of money at the corner of Shaw and Barstow. Those streets run paralell to each other, so those who stopped to think for a second realized it was a joke right away...
 

---

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 04-07-2004, 01:11 PM:
 
College Papers Pay for April Fools' Issues
Link To Story (may expire)
By DAN NEPHIN, Associated Press Writer

PITTSBURGH - Being funny without being offensive is tough to do, which is why college newspapers that publish April Fools' Day editions often end up paying for it.



Three student publications that put out spoofs this year — those at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Scranton and the University of Nebraska at Omaha — know all too well.

Carnegie Mellon's paper, The Tartan, voluntarily shut down for the rest of the semester after publishing a racially charged cartoon in its 12-page spoof edition. The cartoonist lost his job, and the editor in chief — who blamed fatigue for clouding editors' judgment — is taking a leave of absence until fall.

University of Scranton officials closed The Aquinas for parodying Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," college administrators and Georgetown University, a fellow Jesuit institution.

The Gateway, the Nebraska paper, apologized for its four-page edition titled The Ghettoway. One story, with the headline "Gateway cameras stolen during weekend," was written by Ono Udidn. Another fake byline: Mindjo Bidness. The news editor, who is black, told The Gateway for a story Tuesday that she thought the content was representative of pop culture in general.

The NAACP, the Urban League and many community members filed complaints with Nebraska's chancellor. Nancy Belck told The Gateway: "I find it (The Ghettoway) offensive and we will not tolerate it on this campus."

About 75 readers protested Carnegie-Mellon's The Natrat — Tartan backward — which included a depiction of female genitalia and poems about rape and mutilation. The school is forming a committee to investigate.

"The horrible cartoon ... is a repudiation of our core values and it must not be tolerated," university President Jared L. Cohon wrote in a letter to the newspaper of the drawing, which shows a goat using a slur in describing how he hit a black person on a bicycle.

Besides apologizing, The Gateway is planning sensitivity training for its staff members and a forum on student relations. The Tartan has decided to hire an ethics manager to review future issues.

Many of the student publications that find themselves in hot water over spoof editions don't have a professional adviser on staff, said Mark Goodman, executive director Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va.

The law center discourages April Fool's editions, which Goodman said have been known to lead to lawsuits. Still, he said, the organization defends the rights of student editors to decide what to print.

"The suits are seldom successful, but the problem is, they can really cause a lot of headaches" in terms of cost and effort to fight, he said.

April Fools' issues are much less common than they were in the 1970s and '80s, Goodman said.

"I think what most newspaper staff have come to realize is, humor and satire are completely appropriate ... in the right place" such as a regular humor or satire column or separate publication, he said.

"The conflict, I think, for newspapers is when every other issue of the year they're covering straight news ... it creates problems."

Also, Goodman said, not everyone is good at being funny: "Anyone who's ever written satire knows it's not really easy."

People also have different senses of humor, said Aly Colon of the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla.



"When you engage in humor or satire, the challenge that a newspaper ... faces is one of interpretation. The general idea is that people who are doing an April Fool's joke expect that people on whom it's played will understand the prankster's position," Colon said. "That's where a disconnect can take place."

------

I thought college was the one safe haven left for free expression and press, and above all, sense of humor, or for that matter, sense at all.

People always want to be the victim these days. The kid who cries the loudest at the playground. Once their credit cards are maxed out and they're bored, they go looking for things to offend them so that people will feel compassionate. It's an April Fools edition, if you have no sense of humor, don't read it. I would always start my campus radio show with a two minute disclaimer of its potential content, and "...if you feel you may have a reason to file a complaint about this program, you are advised not to listen to this program."

That's the problem with this whole "diversity" trend. Everyone is so concerned with being recognized for their differences and being offended if they aren't, that they lack any point of view but their own. Here's a quarter. Go call someone who cares.

=TMP=
 

---

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 04-07-2004, 02:29 PM:
 
Thomas wrote:

quote:

---

I thought college was the one safe haven left for free expression and press, and above all, sense of humor, or for that matter, sense at all.

---

quote:

---

That's the problem with this whole "diversity" trend. Everyone is so concerned with being recognized for their differences and being offended if they aren't, that they lack any point of view but their own. Here's a quarter. Go call someone who cares.

---

quote:

---

Nancy Belck told The Gateway: "I find it (The Ghettoway) offensive and we will not tolerate it on this campus."

---

quote:

---

"The general idea is that people who are doing an April Fool's joke expect that people on whom it's played will understand the prankster's position," Colon said.

---