The BBC's "Spaghetti Tree" Hoax for April Fools' 1957: On April Fools' Day 1957, the BBC aired a short TV segment about the harvesting of spaghetti trees in Switzerland. At the time, not everybody knew how pasta was made, so to them, a spaghetti orchard seemed just as plausible as anything else.About 8 million people watched the broadcast, which CNN later called "the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled."