Beware April Fool's Day!

Every year, erstwhilely reliable and trustworthy media outlets succumb to the childish impulse to publish "fake" stories for April Fool's Day. Just as George Orwell's infamous War of the Worlds radio play triggered race riots in New Jersey, so too do these purportedly "harmless" joke stories run the risk of doing damage that is only too real: not only to the safety of the American public, but also to their sacred trust in the Fourth Estate. (The first three estates being Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.)

Here at Very Little Known Facts, we have taken the liberty of pre-emptively exposing three of the most egregious farces on the internet this April Fool's Day. Hopefully these false, fake, and dangerously misleading stories won't fool anyone now that we have debunked them.


1. Chocolate Jesus



CNN.com runs a wildly inappropriate piece today--on Palm Sunday, no less--fabricating a story about a New York art gallery that supposed "pulled" a controversial statue of naked Jesus on the cross with exposed genatalia. And here's the joke--we are supposed to believe that the entire statue was made of chocolate.

First of all, the photo they run is obviously photoshopped. What is holding the chocolate Jesus up? I don't see a chocolate cross. In fact, Chocolate Jesus doesn't seem to be crucified at all. He looks more like he's about to deliver one of those freeze-frame Matrix karate kicks.



Then there's the absurd historical inaccuracies. Where is Jesus's beard? Where is his loincloth? And why is Jesus not made of white chocolate? Is this some kind of Black Power statement? Really, cnn.com, we expected more from such a stalwart of journalistic integrity.


2. Baghdad Burger King



Today's L.A. Times features a story about how the greatest worry of American troops stationed in Iraq is what to buy with all their combat pay. This is exactly the kind of yellow journalistic, flag-waving patriotic boilerplate I have come to expect from such a conservative rag as the Times.

But I must take exception to the fake photo of U.S. troops chowing down on fast food in the war zone. Do they really expect us to believe that the United States military is so culturally insensitive as to open a Burger King franchise in a nation where the cow is worshiped as a god? That, my friend, is taking the idea of the Ugly American too far.

Not funny, L.A. Times. Not funny.


3. The Flaming Lips on Broadway



A standard April Fool's Day standby is to take two groups of people who have nothing to do with each other and to pair them up in a ridiculous situation.

For example, an implausible yarn involving alt-psych-indie rockers The Flaming Lips and Aaron Sorkin, creator of television's The West Wing, teaming up to create a Broadway musical based on the album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.

Seriously, guys, I don't think this one is fooling anybody.