BBC: Spaghetti-Harvest in Ticino | Switzerland Tourism
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN uses it mostly as a joke reference whenever pasta, harvests or April Fools pranks come up, and a few recommend it as a perfectly executed hoax.
Recommended by 1 people across 1 different months, 2016 to 2023.
Why the open web links it
A classic April Fools' Day BBC hoax showing a fake report on harvesting spaghetti from trees in Switzerland.
Linked by 120 independent sites, 23 of them widely read in the 2026-10 crawl of the open web, including uol.com.br, jstor.org, vice.com, ycombinator.com, theregister.com.
What it is
The 1957 BBC Panorama April Fools' hoax report showing a Swiss family harvesting spaghetti from trees, republished by Switzerland Tourism. It is a short deadpan newsreel clip with a plummy narrator that famously fooled viewers who knew little about pasta.
Cited in 1 Wikipedia article, including Spaghetti-tree hoax.
What people said
Recommends tomcam · 2023-01 · Hacker News · on “Spaghetti-Tree Hoax”
Actual vid at [this video] . Come for the legendary and perfectly executed hoax. Stay for the plummy accent. Then watch for bad news on the North Carolina marshmallow harvest, probably inspired by it: [LINK]
Cites jdietrich · 2018-01 · Hacker News · on “Who the Hell Uses Onion Juice?”
See the BBC's legendary spaghetti tree hoax from April Fool's Day, 1957. A lot of viewers really were taken in by the idea that spaghetti grew on trees. [LINK] [this video]
Cites DoctorOetker · 2019-01 · Hacker News · on “Penguin travels every year to visit man who rescued him (2016)”
Correct, the BBC has a long tradition of presenting a fake documentary clip on April Fool's day. Not sure if it was the first one, but you can find a very old BBC April 1st clip on the "traditional yearly harvesting of spaghetti", where you see villagers pick fresh and ripe spaghetti from the spaghetti trees, carefully laying them in the baskets they carry... Not sure if this is the best clip: [this video]
Cites kwhitefoot · 2019-03 · Hacker News · on “Microsoft bans April's fools pranks”
> Everyone hates April Fools’ Day No they don't, they just hate harmful pranks. There have been some splendid April Fools. How about the BBC Spaghetti harvest from 1957, [this video]