BBC: Spaghetti-Harvest in Ticino | Switzerland Tourism

Actual vid at [VIDEO] . Come for the legendary and perfectly executed hoax. Stay for the plummy accent. Then watch for bad news on the North Carolina marshmallow harvest, probably inspired by it: [LINK]

See the BBC's legendary spaghetti tree hoax from April Fool's Day, 1957. A lot of viewers really were taken in by the idea that spaghetti grew on trees. [LINK] [VIDEO]

Correct, the BBC has a long tradition of presenting a fake documentary clip on April Fool's day. Not sure if it was the first one, but you can find a very old BBC April 1st clip on the "traditional yearly harvesting of spaghetti", where you see villagers pick fresh and ripe spaghetti from the spaghetti trees, carefully laying them in the baskets they carry... Not sure if this is the best clip: [VIDEO]

> Everyone hates April Fools’ Day No they don't, they just hate harmful pranks. There have been some splendid April Fools. How about the BBC Spaghetti harvest from 1957, [VIDEO]

That's up there with the great spaghetti tree hoax: [VIDEO] "The last two weeks of March are an anxious time for the spaghetti farmer..."

Let us not forget the exceptional spaghetti harvest of 1957 [VIDEO] Thanks, in part, to an unusual lull in population numbers of the notorious Spaghetti Weevil.

I know we're talking about penguins here, but watching the BBC video made me remember a flat mate at uni who told me about the BCC covering the Spaghetti-Harvest in Ticino. (Yes that's right. Spagehtti-Harvest.) He was really disappointed to learn later in life that 'Spaghetti don't grow on trees'. [VIDEO]

That headline reminded me of the old BBC prank: [VIDEO] The spaghetti tree hoax is a famous 3-minute hoax report broadcast on April Fools' Day 1957 by the BBC current affairs programme Panorama. It told a tale of a family in southern Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from the fictitious spaghetti tree, broadcast at a time when this Italian dish was not widely eaten in the UK and some Britons were unaware that spaghetti is a pasta made from wheat flour and water. Hundreds of viewers phoned into the BBC, either to say the story was not true, or wondering about it, with some even asking how to grow their own spaghetti trees. Decades later CNN called this broadcast "the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled." Or the Pizza Farm from Funny or Die! [LINK]