When I asked Klinger what kind of feedback the company has received about the announcement, she said, "We've gotten largely positive reactions so far. The Verge ranked us third-best April Fools' joke and said we 'fall on the right side of cheeky word play.'"
In Oakland on the eve of April Fools' Day, Andre Iguodala and some of his Golden State Warriors teammates pulled a joke on Festus Ezeli that was every bit as intricate as any of their game moves. They made it appear that he'd suddenly been cut from the team.
Check it out on YouTube:
Here's ESPN'S take: "Of course, this stunt by Andre Iguodala -- with the apparent help of Golden State Warriors teammates, a driver and radio hosts Brian Murphy and Paul McCaffrey of the "Murph & Mac" show -- brings up an important question: Could the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls have pulled this prank off?"
Later, Ezeli told a gaggle of reporters, "It was a very well put together prank. I thought it was good. Everybody everywhere saw it."
But another April Fools' joke, vastly more sweeping in scale, was not received quite as well. In fact, most people were furious. On Thursday, Google introduced a supposed new feature this way: "Today, Gmail is making it easier to have the last word on any email with Mic Drop. Simply reply to any email using the new 'Send + Mic Drop' button. Everyone will get your message, but that's the last you'll ever hear about it. Yes, even if folks try to respond, you won't see it."
On Friday, after the joke was widely acknowledged as a disaster, Google issued an apology: "Well, it looks like we pranked ourselves this year. ? Due to a bug, the Mic Drop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We’re truly sorry. The feature has been turned off. If you are still seeing it, please reload your Gmail page."
Meanwhile, one of Yahoo's content partners published a story saying that all of Trader Joe’s grocery stores -- more than 450 -- were closing in 2017. But fans of the ubiquitous chain weren't laughing.
The Washington Post described April Fools' Day as "the worst day of the entire year for anyone trying to cover news on the Internet." The website has been running an exhaustive list, updated throughout the day, of brand pranks, fake dating-site launches and fake news, such as reports that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is resigning to become commissioner of the National Football League and Hillary Clinton will find her running mate through a job app called WayUp.
April Fools' Day, of course, is nothing new. "Its true origins are unknown and effectively unknowable," according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which said the day has been observed for centuries and that it bears a resemblance to such festivals as the Hilaria of ancient Rome and the Holi celebration in India.
Despite being marked in various parts of the world, it's not universally popular. In China, for example, April Fools' Day has been banned as un-Chinese. The country's official news agency, according to an Agence France-Presse story, said the occasion "does not conform with our nation's cultural traditions, nor does it conform with the core values of socialism."
