By detective cats at customs to auditioning as an extra for gangster series and an archeology department that “listens to the call of society” and still investigates dinosaurs. Where April 1 was long a day to play a quick trick on your neighbor or classmate, the tradition is now increasingly filled with long-prepared jokes from companies and institutions that use the international joke day to increase their reach. And of course to honor an age-old tradition.
For example, streaming service Videoland published on Monday a call for performers. Not for the usual shopping passer-by, metro passenger on the phone or clubber going crazy. No, for corpses. The fact that those TV characters who died are always played by the same C-actors was disturbing sleepersstar Robert de Hoog after all. And so he and Videoland were looking for new (still) talent.
The call led throughout the week to media attention and a storm of applications; the chance – albeit with closed eyes – to get close to the actors of hit series like Macro Mafia fans apparently didn’t want to pass up. On Saturday, Videoland announced that it was an April 1 joke, adding that the enthusiasm was so overwhelming that it still wants to use the arts of some of the aspiring extras.
No more crockery breakdown on the plane
KLM also opted for an early launch and announced Friday a “revolutionary” technical gadget. From now on, the folding back of the seat of the passenger in front of you would be preceded by the sound of a truck reversing into a parking space. The so-called Recline Alert System had to be taken into use in all aircraft on April 1 and make falling drinking cups a thing of the past.
The Efteling was there even earlier. On Tuesday, the fairytale park spread by video the message that his famous 39 year old Carnival Festival attraction got a musical update. DJ duo Lucas & Steve composed a dance track with quite a few beats per minute to replace the time-honored horn composition (“ta-da-ta-ta, ta-da-da-ta-daaa!”). And the carts would now spin the children past the dolls at a matching (undoubtedly nauseating) speed. Faster music, the Belgian musicologist and composer Jeroen D’hoe told the viewer, “generates a faster heartbeat”. And that in turn creates excitement.
Paleontology or Archaeology?
But the very first must have been Leiden University. A week and a half ago, the knowledge institute announced that it would be researching dinosaurs after all at the Faculty of Archaeology. Although it normally deals with human history, there is confusion about this and many archaeologists “are asked at some point in their career what type of dinosaur they found,” it was time for an adjustment.
“Instead of patiently explaining again that we don’t do dinosaurs” – after all, they died out about 65 million years before the first humans – “the faculty board has now decided to listen to the call from society” , the press release said. “It is clear that the general public finds dinosaurs relevant and important. As a faculty, we can no longer ignore this.”
For April 1 lovers, there was also plenty of ad hoc jokes on Saturday. So wrote the Rijksmuseum on Twitter that it was time for a new family-friendly museum experience. Because small children are sometimes not very susceptible to the great masters, a ball pit with slide (right in front of the most famous work of the Amsterdam museum, The Night Watch) from now on solace for the art-loving parent.