Unlike pretty much every other celebration in the western calendar, I actually find I enjoy April Fools Day more and more each year. This owes a lot to the vast amount of respectable companies who can’t resist trolling us all. And man, these guys are pros…
Peter Dinklage Replaced in Game of Thrones
Coming from HBOWatch.com, fans were held on the end of the slightly-fraying elastic band of “Such a reputable source… but it’s April 1st! Gah!” before HBOWatch revealed their prank with the following epic image…
Andrew Lincoln Resigns from The Walking Dead
Seems that the way to a geek’s feels is to tell them a popular show will lose its main or most beloved character, as bloody-disgusting.com also used this tactic. Andrew Lincoln lives to shoot zombies in the head another day, which is just as well because when you have the chance to kill zombies -even if only for pretend- you grab it with both hands and do not let go.
Marvel Announce Dazzler Movie- with Miley Cyrus in the Lead Role
This was one that James Buckingham and I came up with right here on Geek Pride- I supplied the premise and the Miley quote, Bucky whipped up the logo and a pro-sounding news article. I’m impressed that a fair few people were fooled- if only until they spotted that the first tag on that piece was ‘April Fool’…
It wasn’t just us though, director Bryan Singer also floated the idea of Dazzler on the big screen, tweeting:
[quote]“I can finally announce @ladygaga is joining #XMen #DaysofFuturePast as Dazzler. One of my all-time favorite characters. Can’t wait!”[/quote]
If only, am I right?
Apple Introduces iPlay Game Console
Some April Fools excite fans, only to cruelly let them down. Most revolve around dishing out bad news that people will drop to their knees and pray to any deity who’ll listen to make it all go away.
Apple fucking nailed it.
Twitter announced that they would be charging users for vowels and instead forcing them to wrt lk ths ll th tm or shell out $5 per vowel- this sentence alone would cost $250, unless you count Y, then it’s $260. Brutal.
Virgin Atlantic Launches Glass-Bottomed Plane
I’m not sure if that would be amazing, or terrifying. Possibly both, definitely fake. To be fair, I can understand why people would fall for this- Virgin launched trips to space years ago, frankly there’s nothing they can announce that I wouldn’t believe. Except maybe “Virgin Atlantic Staffed Entirely by Virgins”. Maybe.
There were obviously countless more examples (Google Nose and Treasure Maps, the best video on YouTube, and of course the Play-Doh 3D printer) but these were my favourites. Til next year, guys!