April Fool's Day

However, modern Jews prefer to play pranks on April Fools' day. Users cannot link directly to a page with the flash file without the interstitial launch page. In Judaism, the traditional day of pranks, hoaxes and mockery is Purim. Clicking this button spawns a pop-up window showing the flash file. It is believed that people should go out on this date in order to escape the bad luck of number 13. Linking to an item on Newgrounds can only be made to a launch page, where the reader has to find and click on a Watch this movie button. This day is called "Sizdah bedar" (Out-door thirteen). These could be blocked using the browser or add-on software, except that to use the site, users would have to configure an exception for Newgrounds, exposing them to the advertising.

In Iran, people play jokes on each other on April 3, the 13th day of the Persian calendar new year (Norooz). Newgrounds uses pop-up advertising. The Flemish tradition is for children to lock out their parents or teachers, only letting them in if they promise to bring treats the same evening or the next day. Around 2004, people began to complain that Newgrounds.com had been adding spyware, such as 180 Solutions to certain webpages. This custom also exists in certain areas of Belgium, including the province of Antwerp. Astroseries 2 became the very first submission to be received by Newgrounds in 2006. In Spanish-speaking countries, similar pranks are practiced on December 28, the Day of the Holy Innocents. None have been made since spring of 2005, and it's unlikely that more will be made.

The April 1 tradition in France includes poisson d'avril (literally "April's fish"), attempting to attach a paper fish to the victim's back without being noticed. These collections have no theme, and seem to be primarily compilations of rejected or unused daily collection animations. They told the truth on the following week's show, where outtakes of Redknapp messing up his lines were also shown. Some daily collections were submitted simply under the name "DailyToon________" with the cartoon's submission date in the blank space.
. Certain collections are based after people, while others have been based on movies, cartoon characters, and video games. The advent of the Internet as a worldwide communications medium has also assisted the pranksters in their work. Most of them are based on TV shows, mainly sitcoms, anime productions, and kids' shows.

Even normally serious news media consider April Fools' Day hoaxes fair game, and spotting them has become an annual pastime. The daily collections are generally themed. Many media organizations have either unwittingly or deliberately propagated hoaxes on April Fools' Day. As such, various other "Clocks" have guested on daily collections, as well as members of the similar "Star Syndicate", who also produce their own type of daily cartoons. Children born on this day will experience good luck in most matters, except when it comes to gambling. These collections are masterminded by Newgrounds user "Coolboyman", better known as "Strawberry Clock", the self proclaimed "King of the Newgrounds Portal" and leader of the infamous Clock Crew. It is believed that marriage on April Fools' Day is inadvisable for a man, for he will be permanently ruled by his wife. Each collection features from four to five animations, typically with each cartoon produced by a single animator.

It is said that one fooled by a pretty girl will later marry, or at least become friends, with her. Due to the short timeframe, the majority of the included animations are of poor quality, featuring little (if any) animation and for the most part, speech to voice synthesis used for voices. Anyone who fails to respond with a sense of humor to the tricks played on them is also said to be liable to suffer bad luck. They were written, created, and submitted to Newgrounds within the course of one day. This stipulation may have been contrived by annoyed parents and school teachers wanting a respite from a full day of pranks. Daily collections are existed between 2004 and 2005. Those done afterwards are supposed to bring bad luck to the perpetrator. Currently there are a lot of collaborations based on songs, with each participating author animating one or more line each, because of the huge amount of collabs being started at the same time and spamming the Newgrounds Flash forum some members took it upon themselves to create the website NGCollabs where people with a batting average (average score of their Flash submissions) of lower than 3.00 could start collaborations.

Traditionally, pranks are to be performed before noon. They are also a great way for up-and-coming artists to get in the spotlight with the bigshots. A far more natural explanation would seem to be that the April fish would be a young fish and therefore easily caught. Collaborations are a great way for artists to work together and get to know each other. This has been explained from the association of ideas arising from the fact that in April the sun quits the zodiacal sign of the fish. It began with group works by the Clock Crew and flourished when the Newgrounds Time Trials sparked a more general interest among authors. In France the person befooled is known as poisson d'avril. Another popular activity on Newgrounds is the collab—various animators, artists and programmers collaborating on a single movie or game.

In Scotland the custom was known as "hunting the gowk," i.e. the cuckoo, and April-fools were "April-gowks," the cuckoo being there, as it is in most lands, a term of contempt. Various flash series submitted exclusively to Newgrounds. Though the 1st of April appears to have been anciently observed in Great Britain as a general festival, it was apparently not until the beginning of the 18th century that the making of April-fools was a common custom. His work includes:. Well before 1582 when King Charles IX of France brought in the new Gregorian calendar, French and Dutch references from respectively 1508 and 1539 describe April Fool's Day jokes and the custom of making them on the first of April. These are referred to as Newgrounds Originals. However, it is unlikely that this explanation of April Fool's Day’s origin is correct. Tom Fulp has submitted several movies and games to Newgrounds.

Thus the New Year's gifts and visits of felicitation which had been the feature of the 1st of April became associated with the first day of January, and those who disliked or did not hear about the change were fair butts for those wits who amused themselves by sending mock presents and paying calls of pretended ceremony on the 1st of April. The NG chat has spawned many spinoffs, such as #radiogrounds (The radiogrounds.com chat), #ngdrunks for the NGDr0kns (dr0kn.com), #blamclub for the blamclub (ADG/BlamClub Forums) and many other (smaller) user-made channels such as #ngpoker for the NG Late Night Poker Club, #nazigrounds.com, and #minimanjapan.com (minimanjapan.com). They were the first nation to adopt the reformed Gregorian calendar, Charles IX in 1564 decreeing that the year should begin with the 1st of January. The NG Chat is accessible via any IRC client by entering the java.webchat.org, area.webchat.org or irc.webmaster.com servers and joining the channel through the irc command: /join #newgrounds.com. It has been plausibly suggested that Europe derived its April-fooling from the French [1]. You go in, you get insulted and insult back. The festival of the spring equinox is there termed the feast of Huli, the last day of which is the 31st of March, upon which the chief amusement is the befooling of people by sending them on fruitless errands. The Insult room is somewhat self-explanatory.

This view gains support from the fact that the exact counterpart of April-fooling is found to have been an immemorial custom in India. The Hookup room is for any users who wish to "Chat intimately", trade pictures of one another, etc., to deter users from doing so in the main chat. What seems certain is that it is in some way or other a relic of those once universal festivities held at the vernal equinox, which, beginning on old New Year's day, the 25th of March, ended on the 1st of April. NG Chat also has two other smaller, less frequented channels: the Hookup room (#nglove) and the Insult room (#ngwar). The origin of this custom has been much disputed, and many theories have been suggested, e.g. that it is a farcical commemoration of Christ being sent from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, and from Herod back again to Pilate, the crucifixion having taken place about the 1st of April. If an AOL user enters the NG Chat, they are automatically kicked upon entry. . America Online (AOL) users on Java clients are not allowed into the NG Chat, because their IP Mask changes dynamically when the user begins a new dial-up session, so bans and akicks can't directly affect one person using that ISP (in any geographical region).

The day is marked by the commission of hoaxes and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends and neighbours, or sending them on fools' errands, the aim of which is to embarrass the gullible. Many people join and chat about whatever they deem fit. April Fool's Day or All Fools' Day, though not a holiday in its own right, is a notable day celebrated in many countries on April 1. It's accessible via the CHAT button on the navigation bar at Newgrounds.com, or via any IRC client, such as mIRC, IRCle, Firefox's IRC clients, Trillian, etc. There have been cases when a hoax in a newspaper caused many readers to send mail to a nonexistent address, causing problems at postal sorting offices. Newgrounds has its own chat, usually referred to as the NG Chat. That prank, repeated across many people, causes serious problems for zoos' telephone exchanges. The forums for regular members consist of the General section, the Politics section, the Programming section, the Flash section, the Clubs & Crews section, the Where Is/How To? section, the NG News section (for any and all news posts made by admins), the Network News section (For anything pertaining to the tech aspects of the BBS), the P-Bot's Posts section (for Portal updates from the automated Portal Bot, aka P-Bot), and the recently added Audio forum.

Fant (or various others) at a number that turns out to be a zoo. Next to the Flash Portal, the BBS seems to be the most popular part of the site. E. Site administrator, Wade Fulp, also clears the BBS of spam by deleting accounts that violate rules, a process which he calls 'terminating' or 'axing'. L. Thanks to the moderators, it is kept relatively free of spam. Lion or Mr. Other forums are private, for use by moderators.

C. Some are reply-only, where you can't start a new topic, but are welcome to read and reply to existing topics. One type of April Fool's Day hoax is to leave a message telling someone to telephone Mr. Some are all access, where all users are welcome to read, post and reply. 1 April, 2005. The BBS (Bulletin Board System) is a very popular forum on the site, which consists of multiple forums. 1 April, 2004.
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1 April, 2002. Note: You must have at least 30 reviews that week to win an award that involves calculating the review score as well, such as the Underdog or Review Crew Pick awards. Redknapp was being 'interviewed' on the training ground where his goalkeepers were getting to grips with bigger goals. When a movie or game is submitted to the Flash Portal, it has the chance to win any of the following awards:. Using West Ham United manager, Harry Redknapp, the report claimed that the size of the goals would increase by two feet in height and four feet in length. . The BBC's Saturday lunchtime show 'Football Focus' broadcast a piece centred on the upcoming change of the size of goals.
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Seattle area TV program Almost Live! set up a phony broadcast room and dressed actors as TV anchors to pull an April Fool's joke of legendary proportions. On July 6, 2005, Newgrounds celebrated its ten year anniversary. The Space Needle collapsed in a windstorm on April 1st, 1985. The site now has over 900,000 registered members and over 291,000 submissions. It was later announced at the Sea FM dance party that it was a hoax. This system of public voting creates a sense of community in Newgrounds and keeps visitors coming back for more. This left a huge number of under 21s angry and frustrated, and incited protests. A user-friendly system of voting and rating produces lists that directs visitors to the most popular flash movies and allows the Newgrounds site designers to easily locate any material that might be considered for deletion or promotion.

Change of drinking age: On the Gold Coast, Australia's biggest tourist destination (particularly amongst school leavers), radio station Sea FM announced the drinking age would be changed from 18 to 21. Visitors are encouraged to review the various submissions that they encounter on the site, as a means of providing other potential visitors with a vague idea of what they can expect from the many flash movies and games to choose from. The station played pop songs until 7:00 am, when Stern came back on. Over the years Newgrounds has grown to an incredible size, and with so much material to offer, it must rely on the willing cooperation and support of its many visitors in order to function properly. Cancellation of the Howard Stern Show: The April 1st, 2004 show started off with an announcement by the station manager stating that due to increased pressure from the FCC, Viacom had cancelled the Howard Stern Show. This site allows its users to submit their own Flash movies, games, and music, and view submissions from other users. Shuttle landing: In 1993, a San Diego radio station fooled many listeners into believing that the space shuttle had been diverted from Edwards Air Force Base and was about to make an emergency landing at a small local airport. Tim, Tom's former roommate, also assists in running the site.

He invited his audience to jump in the air and experience "a strange floating sensation." Dozens of listeners phoned in to say the experiment had worked. It was created and is currently owned by Tom Fulp, who is assisted by his brother Wade Fulp, and is also helped by liljim, an administrator living in England. that day. Newgrounds is a website that hosts Macromedia Flash animations and games. Defy Gravity: In 1976 British astronomer Patrick Moore told listeners of BBC2 that unique alignment of two planets would result in an upward gravitational pull making people lighter at precisely 9:47 a.m. Ben Edelman on 180 Solutions. Mainstream media (including Channel 9's Today Show) picked up the story. "Newgrounds and Me".

New South Wales Premier Bob Carr was also in on the joke. "180 Solutions: Kill The Sleaze Ads". Sydney Olympics: Australian radio station Triple J breakfast show co-host Adam Spencer announced in 1999 that he had a journalist on the line at the site of a secret IOC meeting and that Sydney had lost the 2000 Summer Olympics. Shroud. This hoax can also be considered a parody of late 1990s media consolidations.). Dr. New Format: Radio station KFOG in San Francisco, claiming new corporate ownership, switched to a new format - the best 15 seconds of every song! All morning they mixed in bogus calls from perky listeners calling with compliments. Burnt Face Man.

Both DJs were later jailed for creating a public nuisance. Madness Combat. Several police were needed to deal with traffic gridlock and enraged listeners who threatened to harm the DJs responsible. Miss Dynamite. Free Concert: Radio station 98.1 KISS in Chattanooga, Tennessee falsely announced in 2003 that rapper Eminem would be doing a free show in a discount store parking lot. YAAFM. The pair were fired shortly thereafter. Retarded Animal Babies.

The rumor spread quickly across the city, eventually causing news stations to issue alerts denying the hoax. Waterman. Menino happened to be on a flight at the time, lending truth to the prank as he could not be reached. College University. Death of a Mayor: In 1998, local shock jocks Opie and Anthony reported that Boston mayor Thomas Menino had been killed in a car accident. Salad Fingers. Google's hoaxes. Neurotically Yours.

April 1st RFC. Broken Saints. "Uninventing the wheel" to counter the "EU ban" on right-hand drive cars. Xombie. Marque-Wiper - mini-wipers for each exterior "BMW" logo coming as standard on all future models ,. Pico's School. SHEF ("Satellite Hypersensitive Electromagnetic Foodration") Technology, which sees the car's GPS systems synchronise with home appliances to perfectly cook a meal for the instant you return home ,. House Hunting.

IDS ("Insect Deflector Screen") Technology - using elastic solutions to bounce insects off the windscreen as you drive. Harry Pothead. MINI cars being used in upcoming space missions to Mars,. Domo Kun Angry Smash Fest!. The "Toot and Calm Horn", which calms rather than aggravates other drivers, so reducing the risk of road rage,. Dad 'n Me. Annual BMW Innovations see a new "cutting-edge invention" by BMW advertised across British newspapers every year , examples including: