Games People Play: Laughs at The Expense of Others

In 1935 the Museum of Modern Art in New York City held a major exhibition of works by Vincent van Gogh. Assuming that some visitors to the show were more interested in the sensational aspects of Van Gogh’s life than in his paintings, American artist Hugh Troy contrived a simple practical joke.

Image Credit

He molded a piece of beef and placed it in a velvet-lined box with a label that read: “This is the ear which Vincent van Gogh cut off and sent to his mistress, a French prostitute, Dec. 24, 1888.” Troy smuggled his supplementary exhibit into the museum and placed it on a table. Until authorities were alerted, the ear stole the show.

Small Talk

Image Credit

Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was the 32nd president of the United States, was a notorious practical joker. Since he had to attend many functions at which he was inevitably introduced to hundreds of strangers, Roosevelt came to realized that most of those he greeted paid little attention to the brief pleasantries that were exchanged.

Image Credit

Roosevelt once put his theory to the test at a party in the White House. As he shook hands with each guest he muttered. “I murdered my grand-mother this morning.” Only one person responded to this confession: an eminent Wall Street banker. His reply: “She certainly had it coming!”

Swift End

Image Credit

In his book Predictions for the Year 1708, a soothsayer who used the name Isaac Bickerstaff made an unusually precise pronouncement: John Partridge, a cobbler turned astrologer and editor of a rival almanac. Merlinus Liberatus would “infallibly die upon the 29th of March next, about 11 at night, of a raging fever.”

Image Credit

On March 30 Bickerstaff published a pamphlet claiming that his prediction had come true and that Partridge had died within four hours of the time given by Bickerstaff; on his deathbed he had even confessed that he was a charlatan.

Image Credit

Still very much alive, Partridge protested that the report was entirely false; he even advertised the fact in newspapers. But Bickerstaff, together with other writers, continued to insist that partridge had died and that the man who claimed to be Partridge was an impostor.

Image Credit

Partridge lived another seven years but spent most of them struggling to prove his existence and discover the identity of Bickerstaff. The latter, it turned out, was none other than Jonathan Swift, the author who would later write Gulliver’s Travels. But Partridge died before knowing the truth.

Nothing but Hot Air

Image Credit

In April 1844 the New York Sun carried a detailed account of the first transatlantic balloon trip that had just been undertaken by eight men, including Monck Mason, a balloonist; William Samuel Henson, the inventor of the unsuccessful “aerial stream carriage,” who in 1843 had attempted to launch the Aerial Transit Company: and William Harrison Ainsworth, a British novelist. The newspaper story told how the men set out from Penstruthal in North Wales in a gigantic 40,000-cubic-foot gas balloon named Victoria. Less than 75 hours later they had landed on Sullivan Island, near Charleston, South Carolina.

Image Credit

Filled with technical detail, the description of the voyage was said to have been derived from Mason’s journal, with footnotes by Ainsworth; the participation of such well-known figures added authenticity to the story. It was, however, a total fabrication – a hoax perpetrated by American novelist Edgar Allan Poe.

Despite a number of genuine attempts to cross the Atlantic after 1873, it was not until 1978 that three intrepid U.S. balloonists succeeded.

Image Credit

Flight of Fancy: A report in the New York Sun in 1844 – that the first lighter-than-air balloon had crossed the Atlantis – was greeted with great acclaim. However, the account was soon discovered to be fraudulent. The Double Eagle made the first official balloon trip – 134 years later.

Spaghetti Harvest

Image Credit

On April Fools’ Day, 1957, Panorama, a highly regarded BBC Television current affairs program, carried unusual news item. Narrated by a distinguished broadcaster, Richard Dimbleby, the report told of the annual spaghetti harvest in Ticino, on the border of Italy and Switzerland. Women were seen picking strands of spaghetti from tees and laying them in the sun to fry. Dimbleby assured viewers that “there is nothing like real, homegrown spaghetti.”

Image Credit

Many responded favorably to the humor of the spoof; others complained that a serious program such as Panorama should not employ absurd jokes. But many viewers wrote to ask details so that they, too, could attend the harvest festival.

Family Affair

Image Credit

In the 1860’s philanthropist Horace Norton, founder of Norton College, was given a cigar by Ulysses Simpson Grant, the 18th president of the United States. It is said that Norton decided not to smoke the cigar but to keep it as a memento of the meeting. In his death the cigar passed to his son and then, in turn, to his son’s son, Winstead.

Image Credit

In 1932 Winstead attended a Norton College reunion in Chicago. As he delivered a speech to the audience, he lit Grant’s cigar, remarking: “As I light this cigar with trembling hand, it is not alone a tribute to him whom you call founder, but also to that titan among statesmen who was never too exalted to be a friend. Who was – “Bang! The cigar exploded. It had taken some 70 years, but Grant had finally played his joke.