Some of the best April Fools gags I've heard have been perpetrated by a local radio station here in LA. KROQ 106.7 has a morning show (Kevin and Bean) and these guys have managed to pull some pretty big whoopers...
1. One of the 1st and best gags, about 10 years ago when on Apr. 1 they broadcast "live" from Irvine in Orange County at the "grand opening" of the "Mall of America West" the largest mall west of the rockies, they were "interviewing" patrons "waiting in line" for the mall to open. "reporters" in helicopters reporting the cars in the vast acreage of parking and the traffic backing up waiting to get in, more "reporters" commenting on the vast cavernous interior of endless stores awaiting the opening of the mall and the opulant giveaways that were occuring for all the people waiting outside, all this despite the fact that they never said exactly where this "new" mall was, no one who lived down there had ever heard of such a vast complex under construction, traffic that morning was no giveaway in that it was completely normal - FUBAR. Yet literally 100s of people started clogging the stations phone lines, those that got thru were desperately driving around OC trying to find the place, no one they asked for directions had any clue what they were talking about and that local news stations phone lines were also being innudated by listeners demanding to know where the mall was and why it wasnt being covered on the TV news. Well the big moment came, the GRAND OPENING, including play by play of the upcoming ribbon cutting, then the moment they cut the ribbon, they spilled the beans ....needles to say they had a huge fallout of hate mail from all the dumbsters they dupt. I worked down in OC at the time and knew it was a gag. I was a good one.
2. About 2 years later. They called the Prime Ministers Office in FRance with a member of their crew impersonating Jerry Lewis and managed to GET ON THE PHONE with the Prime Minister of France ' which at the time was Mitterand, and talked with him for several minutes with the Lewis impersonator doing his most over the top impersonation I've ever heard about wanting the PM to appear on Lewis's MS telethone. Well needless to say once the French found out they were about as PO'ed as if the Germans had crossed the Rhine again!, and that pailed in comparision to the Holy Sh*t Storm that was unleashed on them when Jerry Lewis found out about it!!! You dont mess with Jerry, and you really really DONT mess with his charity! These guys almost lost there jobs, they kept them only by the thinnest of margins. Mostly due to the fact that while it was in bad taste, it WAS funny as ****.
3. This one was more recent, but this one wasnt so funny, they had a crew mamber call in during a show about really bad relationship breakups and pretend to be a boyfriend who when breaking up with his girlfriend had killed her, and had the body hidden and didnt know what he was going to do, I forget gow the bit ended, but listeners CALL THE POLICE to report it, leading to an investigation crew visiting the station! it was quickly determined it was an Apr 1 gag, but the LAPD has no sense of humor and again a Holy Sh*t Storm was unleashed against them, Again they almost got canned !
4. The last good gag was about 3 or so years ago, they had a live guest band in the studio, I cant remember the band name other than they were very popular at the time ( Korn?, Smashing Pumpkins? someone big at the time..) I DO remember that the lead member was known to have Lazy Eye condition, and before the interview they kept telling their less than PC host NOT to mention it, so of course all thru the interview one of this host kept commenting on the lazy eye and the lead singer at first joked along with him but got increasingly irritated then after the last song, the host comments " and with that eye he can read the music and still scope for cuties in the audience...at which point the lead singer just EXPLODES and attacks the host live on the air "YOU THINK THAT FUNNY!" screams and crashes are heard, the other hosts going "Oh my God!" and "Help him" then they went to break and then came back like something horrible had happened, let the audience hand for a while then dropped the bomb, it was all a set up planned and rehearsed, again they got tons of hate mail from a dupped audience! But this time they didnt get almost fired...[
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