Yes, this was my thought as well. A time-based joke is perfect on a calendar-based joke day.
Ditto. Maybe we need a poll.
April Fool’s Day pranks ending at noon:
- This is the first time I’ve heard about this
- I’ve heard of this, but it’s never been a rule anywhere I’ve lived
- This is/was the rule some places I’ve lived, but nowadays many people don’t know about it or observe it
- Of course this is the rule, and I and everyone else where I live are fully aware of it
- Other? Have a missed a possibility?
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voters
Yeah, this was the rule when I was growing up (mum from north east of England, Dad from central south) - in particular, if you try to fool someone after noon, you are the April fool.
However, institutions such as the BBC did not observe the noon cutoff and we didn’t expect that they should - and thus they were able to broadcast such documentaries as the Spaghetti Harvest and the conversion to Decimal Time and such with impunity.
*I recall one about Alaskan Ice Cream Farms too (where ice cream was harvested by shovel from huge open-air trenches), but I can’t find any trace of it.
Have a mod turn this post into its own OP in a thread in IMHO.
Back when National Public Radio still produced hoax news stories for April 1st, they’d routinely air them well into the evening.
Of relevance, most of the characters on Ghosts are rather out of touch with current customs, some of them by centuries. So it might be an old tradition, not a current one.
Also of relevance, one of the characters in the conversation was a living woman who I’m guessing is 35ish. Further, a character who died in the 80’s was also hip to the time limit.
Mostly of relevance is that none of the writers probably give a whole lot of thought about something like that. I don’t think they were unaware of the tradition until they stumbled upon it in their research of what an old ghost would know or wouldn’t know. The writers assumed (wrongly) that everybody knew April Fools ends at noon.
Not necessarily. Ask the question of yourself but change am to pm.
As an American who never heard of the “end at noon” rule, I’d also not consider a “just before midnight” prank to be something you couldn’t retaliate for. It would depend on what it was.
If it was something harmless, silly, and funny, then a response a day later isn’t funny anymore.
If it was just plain mean, revenge is coming no matter what day it is.
Our family had the song:
April Fools is past
You’re the biggest fool at last.
Up the ladder, up the tree,
You’re the biggest fool I see!
We only sang it on April 2nd (in Minnesota), and only after someone would play a joke on April 2nd, often just to hear someone sing that song.
Another vote for this was the rule where I grew up.
I don’t know of this figures into it, but if your prank is particularly convincing and the victims haven’t figured it out yet, noon is a good time to own up, before they start calling the police, or forever believing something that’s fake.
Not only did I never hear of this noon deadline, but also to us, the April Fool was the target of the prank.