April Fool's!

[pzarquon]

Looks like someone is hoping to enter himself into the annal's of infamous local April Fool's stories alongside Aku's 1983 parade that never was. But rather than joking about an event that didn't exist, he decided to take aim at an annual event with a great deal of community and cultural value.

KUMU's Frank B. Shaner announced this morning that the Merrie Monarch Hula Festival was going to be canceled this year, citing the very real, tragic recent losses of hula leaders. Suffice it to say, the joke was not received with the mirth with which it was supposedly intended.

Howard Dicus' take here.

Is it 'anything goes' when it comes to April Fool's pranks? Should media personalities or people with a built in audience (and some degree of credibility) held to a higher standard? And are there any other favorite (or least favorite) local April Fool's pranks that come to mind on this treacherous day?

[LikaNui]

Frank Shaner is the fool

It was just the lead story on the 9pm news, including interviews with Merrie Monarch officials who are furious about it. Here they are just a week from the opening of MM and they had to spend all day answering phone calls from folks wanting to know if MM was really cancelled. And it was especially inappropriate given the very recent deaths of the two founders of MM (Auntie Dottie and George Naope) and kumu hula Ray Fonseca.
Shaner has been desperate for publicity for a long time, and he finally got it. But contrary to the theory of "any publicity is good publicity," this stunt is gonna put Shaner in the doghouse. Where he deserves to be.

[Walkoff Balk]

Re: April Fool's!

Joe Moore used news time to try and do a lame green haze April Fool's joke.

[mel]

Re: April Fool's!

Several decades ago "Aku" on KSSK radio did a play by play account of an Easter parade that was going down Ala Moana Blvd. and into Waikiki. People came to watch the parade. There was no parade.

Aku survived that and stayed with KSSK until nearly to the day he died.

Shaner will hang on and outlive this stunt. Radio is theater of the mind. It is supposed to be fun. Don't take everything you hear on the radio seriously especially on April 1.

BTW, Rick Hamada had his own April Fool's joke on KHVH yesterday morning, but since many people here despise him and KHVH, I won't tell you folks what it was.

[sophielynette]

Re: April Fool's!

Several decades ago "Aku" on KSSK radio did a play by play account of an Easter parade that was going down Ala Moana Blvd. and into Waikiki. People came to watch the parade. There was no parade.

One of the local radio stations in Cincinnati has done a "live report" of the (non-existent) April Fools Day parade for as long as I can remember. They even go so far as to announce the parade a few days beforehand.

Last year my mother (who does my taxes for me) called me up on April Fools Day to tell me that I owed thousands of dollars to the government. I was not amused.

A news website ran a story saying Canada had purchased part of Hawaii. I thought that was a pretty good one, but I can't find the link anymore.

[Nords]

Re: April Fool's!

The U.S. Navy's Facebook page posted this chestnut yesterday and sucked in anyone who didn't closely examine the photo, including our kid. I guess the staff felt Facebook gave them the right to be a little silly, but if a command or a ship had tried this stunt on their Facebook page there'd be stern warnings from the flag officers.

Today the Navy announced a new and unprecedented partnership with the U.S. Air Force on the next Aircraft Carrier. The next Ford class aircraft carrier will be jointly crewed by both Navy and Air Force personnel becoming the first fully joint warship. In the spirit of this partnership the ship will be named the "James Doolittle" after Lt Col. James Doolittle that famously led a raid on Tokyo in April 1942. In the spirit of environmental efforts in the Navy, the ship will include a new 'Green Flight Deck' designed to Air Force specifications. Naval aviators have never been so excited about an upcoming deployment.

[dyasu]

Re: April Fool's!

Not sure the April's Fools joke about the cancelling of the festival was in good taste. I guess people forgive/forget a little easier since it's April Fool's day but still... a little better taste in jokes would be appreciated.

[Ron Whitfield]

ala Lex Brodie...

BTW, Rick Hamada had his own April Fool's joke on KHVH yesterday morning, but since many people here despise him and KHVH, I won't tell you folks what it was.

Thank you, very much!

[mel]

Re: April Fool's!

And you can find Lex Brodie's at 701 Queen Street in Honolulu.

Thank you very much.

[Frankie's Market]

Re: April Fool's!

Several decades ago "Aku" on KSSK radio did a play by play account of an Easter parade that was going down Ala Moana Blvd. and into Waikiki. People came to watch the parade. There was no parade.

Aku survived that and stayed with KSSK until nearly to the day he died.

Shaner will hang on and outlive this stunt. Radio is theater of the mind. It is supposed to be fun. Don't take everything you hear on the radio seriously especially on April 1.

The thing with a good April Fool's joke is.... it's something that has to be, at first glance, surprising. Maybe even shocking. But at the same time, conceivable enough that it can fool people. (Duh, what good is an April's Fools joke that fools nobody.)

Aku's joke about the Easter parade was exquisitely timed. In 1983, April 1st fell on a Friday, thus making it a Good Friday holiday, with all the state offices and public schools closed. And of course, Easter would come 2 days later. So it made Aku's April Fool's joke perfectly conceivable. And it did actually fool a lot of people who came to Waikiki..... only to discover that there was no parade and traffic was flowing normally on Kalakaua Ave. Did everybody find that joke funny? Not for the folks who drove all the way down there. Yeah, there were more than a few people who were royally pissed off at Aku at the time. But that particular April Fool's joke became the stuff of legend and something that no other media personality has ever been able to top. Not even Joe Moore, who has tried his hand at attempting a few April Fool's jokes on the KHON newscast over the years.

By nature, some people don't like being fooled. And the folks who's normal routine is disrupted by an April Fool's joke also tend to get upset, which is to be expected. And so it is with Frank B. Shaner's joke about the Merrie Monarch Festival. It may very well make him persona non grata at the festival. But it was a joke that fooled a lot of people and created quite a stir. And like Aku's joke from 27 years ago, it definitely drew a reaction from people, both positive and negative.

Howard Dicus can say whatever he wants. But the fact that he sees no humor in April Fool's jokes shows that he has no clue about the concept. That, and because Howard doesn't appear (at least to me) to have the creativity, savvy, and panache to pull off an April Fool's joke of his own that would be worth a darn.

I agree with Mel on this one. This is something that most people will eventually get over with and move on from. Shaner's been a part of local radio/music scene for well over 30 years, even hosting a falsetto singing contest at the Aloha Festival for a number of years. Some people may be gnashing their teeth to the nub now, but I have the feeling that somewhere up there, Aku is having a good laugh.