BBC: Spaghetti-Harvest in Ticino | Switzerland Tourism

Switzerland1 HN recommenders · 2016–2023
4M views · comedy · evergreen · Uploaded 2013-03-27

The 1957 BBC Panorama April Fools' hoax report showing a Swiss family harvesting spaghetti from trees, republished by Switzerland Tourism. It is a short deadpan newsreel clip with a plummy narrator that famously fooled viewers who knew little about pasta.

HN uses it mostly as a joke reference whenever pasta, harvests or April Fools pranks come up, and a few recommend it as a perfectly executed hoax.

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11 comments from Hacker News

@Graham242016 · in “Lenin was a mushroom”

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..."

@radiorental2016 · in “Lenin was a mushroom”

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.

@jdietrich2018 · in “Who the Hell Uses Onion Juice?”

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]

@DoctorOetker2019 · in “Penguin travels every year to visit man who rescued him (2016)”

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]

@sritrisna2019 · in “Penguin travels every year to visit man who rescued him (2016)”

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]

@kwhitefoot2019 · in “Microsoft bans April's fools pranks”

> 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]

@blakesterz2021 · in “The wild pizzas of southern Italy”

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]

@beebeepka2021 · in “Italy Braces for Pasta Inflation Amid Soaring Durum Wheat Prices”

And just in time for the annual spaghetti harvest [VIDEO] Seriously though, every single thing has been going up in price lately. The inflation is real. Over 50% here, another 50% there and there went our savings

@agarren2023 · in “Spaghetti-Tree Hoax”

BBC reporting on the spaghetti harvest. [VIDEO] It’s a family affair in Switzerland, unlike “large spaghetti plantations” in Italy.

@tomcam2023 · in “Spaghetti-Tree Hoax”

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]

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@_joel2023 · in “IP over Spaghetti (2019)”

It's a bad situation with over farming in some areas since the 50's[1], I'm glad to see the spaghetti reserves are returning. [VIDEO]