April 1st, April 1st Pranks, Fun, Hoaxes, Jokers' day, Pranks, San Serriffe Hoax, San Serriffe, - Tags
On April 1, 1977 the British newspaper The Guardian published a seven-page "special report" about San Serriffe, a small republic located in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semi-colon-shaped islands. A series of articles described the geography and culture of this obscure nation.
The report generated a huge response. The Guardian's phones rang all day as readers sought more information about the idyllic holiday spot. However, San Serriffe did not actually exist. The report was an elaborate April Fool's Day joke — one with a typographical twist, since numerous details about the island (such as its name) alluded to printer's terminology.
The success of this hoax is widely credited with inspiring the British media's enthusiasm for April Foolery in subsequent years.
The seven-page San Serriffe supplement
Davies conceived of a special report about a fictitious island as a parody of the genre. He was later quoted as saying, "The Financial Times was always doing special reports on little countries I'd never heard of. I was thinking about April Fool's Day 1977 and I thought: why don't we just make a country up?"
Davies approached the other editors at The Guardian, and they enthusiastically embraced the concept. One of its great selling points was not only that it would be a funny joke, but also that it would be possible to get advertisers to play along. In other words, the spoof special report could make The Guardian a lot of money.
Davies had imagined a small, one-page feature, but the other editors, realizing the potential, decided to expand it into a seven-page supplement, making it the largest special report the Guardian had ever published.
Geoffrey Taylor was given the task of editing and designing the feature. He enlisted a crew of other writers, including Mark Arnold-Forster (writer of The World at War TV series), Tim Radford, and Stuart St. Clair-Legge. St. Clair-Legge came up with the idea for the name "San Serriffe," which then inspired further typographical allusions. St. Clair-Legge also wrote the synopsis from which the spoof was developed.
The Guardian turned to the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson to find companies willing to participate in the hoax. This proved to be an easy job.
The report generated a huge response. The Guardian's phones rang all day as readers sought more information about the idyllic holiday spot. However, San Serriffe did not actually exist. The report was an elaborate April Fool's Day joke — one with a typographical twist, since numerous details about the island (such as its name) alluded to printer's terminology.
The success of this hoax is widely credited with inspiring the British media's enthusiasm for April Foolery in subsequent years.
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The seven-page San Serriffe supplement
The Creation of San Serriffe
Philip Davies, who was in charge of the Guardian's Special Reports department, came up with the idea of an April Fool's Day feature about a fictitious island state. "Special Reports" were sections of the paper occasionally given over to exploring a subject (such as a country or a technology) in depth. Typically the subjects were quite dull, but lucrative from the newspaper's point-of-view since they were designed to attract related advertising.Davies conceived of a special report about a fictitious island as a parody of the genre. He was later quoted as saying, "The Financial Times was always doing special reports on little countries I'd never heard of. I was thinking about April Fool's Day 1977 and I thought: why don't we just make a country up?"
Davies approached the other editors at The Guardian, and they enthusiastically embraced the concept. One of its great selling points was not only that it would be a funny joke, but also that it would be possible to get advertisers to play along. In other words, the spoof special report could make The Guardian a lot of money.
Davies had imagined a small, one-page feature, but the other editors, realizing the potential, decided to expand it into a seven-page supplement, making it the largest special report the Guardian had ever published.
Geoffrey Taylor was given the task of editing and designing the feature. He enlisted a crew of other writers, including Mark Arnold-Forster (writer of The World at War TV series), Tim Radford, and Stuart St. Clair-Legge. St. Clair-Legge came up with the idea for the name "San Serriffe," which then inspired further typographical allusions. St. Clair-Legge also wrote the synopsis from which the spoof was developed.
The Guardian turned to the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson to find companies willing to participate in the hoax. This proved to be an easy job.
Source: http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/san_serriffe
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