Swiss Spaghetti Harvest

I’ve decided to make my podcast on one of BBC’s most famous April fool’s hoaxes of  all time: The 1957 Swiss Spaghetti Harvest. In this hoax, BBC successfully fooled the nation in releasing footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees after announcing that Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop due to the mild winter. As a result, hundreds of viewers called BBC that day wanting to buy spaghetti bushes. Like the other podcasts we’ve watched, I plan to take advantage of background music circa 1950. It will be subtle but not overbearing, matching the informal tone I plan to use. I will probably mimick the War of the Worlds podcast in having some guest appearances from Spaghetti “experts” and maybe even a Swiss farmer (hopefully I can find a Swiss international student at Emory so that listeners don’t get too distracted laughing at my horrible accent). Altogether, I hope that in finding a balance between humor and analysis, I will be able to entertain and educate the audience.

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One Response to Swiss Spaghetti Harvest

  1. Lindsey Grubbs says:

    This sounds great, Kristin! Looking forward to hearing some ol’ timey music (and your best effort at a Swiss accent if you can’t find anyone!).

    It sounds like you’re going to be aiming for a mockumentary tone–more like the War of the Worlds broadcast than like the Radiolab podcast talking about it. One thing you’ll want to think through is how you’ll be able to include analysis within that format–it’s definitely something that’s easier in Radiolab style, but I think there are probably ways to make this work in mockumentaries as well!

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