April Fools: Politicians, the press, and more

Pranks are a staple of April Fools' Day - even when it comes to politics and the press. On this special edition of Civics 101, Senior Producer Christina Phillips tests our April Fools knowledge with some surprising trivia, and a whole lot more! CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more! To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro. Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:11Speaker 00

  This is Civics 101, April Fools trivia special. I am Christina Phillips, the senior producer, and I am here today with-- do you want to introduce yourselves? We'll start with Hannah.

• 0:21Hannah McCarthy?

  Yes, I am Hannah McCarthy, co-host of Civics 101.

• 0:24Nick Capodice?

  I'm Nick Capodice, also co-host of Civics 101.

• 0:27Speaker 03

  I'm Rebecca Lavoy, and I work with this team at NHPR.

• 0:30Speaker 00

  Okay, so this is the day, April Fools, where people come together and play pranks on each other. And by that I mean, there are the people who are good at a poker face, and they thrive on this day. And then there are the rest of us, like me, who feel constantly on edge. Which one are you?

• 0:46Speaker 03

  On edge.

• 0:47Nick Capodice?

  I love this day. I have a great many pranks that I've played in the years. Not as many as NHPR, because it's kind of like, I get nervous, I'm going to get in trouble. But I used to, at my old workplace, I would do an April Fools prank every single year, a big one.

• 1:01Speaker 00

  Wow. Give us your best, your most successful.

• 1:03Nick Capodice?

  Oh, god. Well, the thing is, they're all contextual, Christina. It was always about, like, fake tour content for this museum I worked at. And I'd always say, there's this massive discovery, this huge mystery was solved. And I would Photoshop very strange photos of people who currently worked at the museum onto old photographs to make them think I had discovered it. Another classic is the cheddar cheese in the shower. Never gets old. Just carve a piece of cheddar cheese, like a bar of soap, and carve dial into it. It's a joy.

• 1:30Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 1:31Nick Capodice?

  Oh, the other one, my other favorite one is the saying that the photocopier is voice-controlled now. You write, like, a thing on the photocopier, and it's like, "They copy," and say the number of copies you want. Completely voice-controlled. And you pull the next one, and you're like, "Copy! Seven! Copy!"

• 1:47Speaker 00

  I've never heard that. I love that.

• 1:49Hannah McCarthy?

  You are quite the pranker.

• 1:50Nick Capodice?

  I'm a little bit of a Mary prankster.

• 1:52Hannah McCarthy?

  As someone who chronically forgets what day it is, I don't do April Fools. I have a lot of disdain for it, which is not earned.

• 2:01Speaker 03

  Back in the day, public radio itself used to do pranks. There was a famous NPR story about an inland whale nursery.

• 2:08Speaker 04

  Hundreds of acres of wide pools, as far as the eye can see, spread over the landscape. It is here that the nation's first farm-raised whales are being grown and harvested.

• 2:23Hannah McCarthy?

  That's so funny.

• 2:24Nick Capodice?

  Fantastic.

• 2:25Speaker 00

  Yep. Well, I'm so glad you mentioned that, Rebecca, because we have a whole section dedicated to media hoaxes. Perhaps you will do really well in that section.

• 2:39Speaker 00

  Today, I have gathered you here and compiled some political April Fools jokes. They are from politicians, they are from government agencies, and some from the media. Is everybody ready? Yes. For our first set of questions?

• 2:52Nick Capodice?

  Absolutely ready.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  Okay, so this is called "Come Visit the Walmart Supercenter Statue of Liberty." Corporations doing business with the federal government is a grand tradition in the United States. But there's something different about a company claiming they've bought an iconic historic monument to help with the national debt. I'm going to read you this question. You get two points if you're right. One point if you're wrong, but you make a good argument for your choice. Oh. Okay? So, here's your question. In 1996, this company took out a full-page ad in major newspapers that said the following: "In an effort to help the national debt,

• 3:34Speaker 00

  [blank] is pleased to announce that we have agreed to purchase the Liberty Bell, one of our country's most historic treasures." We will start with Hannah. What is your guess for the company that pretended to buy the Liberty Bell?

• 3:50Hannah McCarthy?

  Mutual Liberty.

• 3:51Speaker 00

  So, give us your argument.

• 3:53Hannah McCarthy?

  Because liberty is in the name.

• 3:55Speaker 00

  Okay. So, the Mutual Liberty Bell, if you will.

• 3:57Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah. And it's a mutual helping, right? They get something, the country gets something, help them out of debt. They're all about helping people.

• 4:04Speaker 00

  All right, I like it. I'm not going to tell you guys the answer until I've heard everyone. So, Nick, go ahead and give me your guess.

• 4:11Nick Capodice?

  I guess Taco Bell.

• 4:13Hannah McCarthy?

  Oh, that's good.

• 4:15Speaker 00

  That's a good guess. And give us your argument for Taco Bell.

• 4:18Nick Capodice?

  The bell ringing is like their copyright, the dong.

• 4:21Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah.

• 4:21Nick Capodice?

  And they're also, they're always kind of jokesters at Taco Bell. They have like a pretty, a pretty fire-like Twitter account, stuff like that. So, I think that's the sort of thing they would do in the 90s. That's around the time of the Gordita and the Chalupes. Like, it was like, there was like their shining moment.

• 4:35Speaker 00

  Okay, so, so the Liberty Taco Bell, or the Taco Liberty Bell, if you will?

• 4:39Nick Capodice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:40Hannah McCarthy?

  There's a bell in their logo.

• 4:41Nick Capodice?

  That's right. It's the Taco Bell.

• 4:43Hannah McCarthy?

  But don't count that toward Nick's argument. I, I give.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  That's mean.

• 4:47Speaker 00

  Got it.

• 4:48Nick Capodice?

  It's also because the bell's ringing for dinner. It's like the dinner bell. It's just that, the whole thing.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  We got it. We think you're right. Go ahead.

• 4:55Speaker 00

  Okay, Rebecca, what is your guess?

• 4:57Speaker 03

  I guessed Velveeta because Velveeta is the iconic topping for the street side Philly cheesesteak. And I, and this is like what you put on a Philly cheesesteak. Everyone says a properly made Philly cheesesteak is made with Velveeta. And it is sort of an iconic cheese-like condiment in, uh, in Philadelphia.

• 5:16Nick Capodice?

  I would say Rebecca, you didn't just make a strong case, you made a strong queso.

• 5:20Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 5:21Speaker 00

  Rebecca, I do have to fact check you. In fact, the Philly cheesesteak is Cheez Whiz.

• 5:27Speaker 03

  Oh. Sorry.

• 5:31Speaker 00

  But I really liked your argument, so you got a point. Yes. Hannah, I really liked your argument, so you got a point. Yay. Nick, you got two points because you were correct.

• 5:42Speaker 03

  You knew it instantly.

• 5:43Speaker 00

  Also, that's additional free marketing for them on top of the estimated $25 million in free publicity they got for this stunt. But they spent about $300,000 to run the ad and they estimated it earned about 25 million in free publicity. One other thing I just wanted to point out, so in 1996, the entire budget for the National Park Service was around 1.1 billion. And that's money that's divided among over 400 parks and monuments. And the national debt in 1996 was over $5 trillion. So, you know, really digging into that national debt by buying the Liberty Bell. And there were a lot of people who were very upset about it, understandably, imagining a company buying a monument.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  They did change their logo that day for that ad, so it had the little crack in the bell.

• 6:33Speaker 00

  So continuing with this theme, the rest of this round is questions about corporate food partnerships with the US military.

• 6:40Nick Capodice?

  Ooh.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  So I have questions for each of you, starting with Rebecca.

• 6:43Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 6:45Speaker 00

  During World War II, Hormel Foods shipped 133 million cans of what meat product to US troops overseas? Ingredients include chopped pork shoulder meat with ham meat added.

• 6:58Speaker 03

  It's Spam.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  It is Spam.

• 7:01Speaker 03

  I don't want to hear any more of the ingredients of Spam, okay?

• 7:04Speaker 00

  Oh, they're not so bad.

• 7:05Nick Capodice?

  Doesn't one of them have mechanically separated chicken? I always thought about the pork.

• 7:13Nick Capodice?

  Mechanically separated.

• 7:14Speaker 00

  Well, the meat does not, there's no chicken meat. There's pork shoulder meat, ham meat, salt, sugar, sodium, nitrate, water, and flavoring.

• 7:22Hannah McCarthy?

  Flavoring.

• 7:23Speaker 00

  At least in the 40s.

• 7:24Nick Capodice?

  It's a fun little side note, but do you guys know why spam, we say spam email? Or like, I'm getting spammed on my phone, text messages? It's all from the Monty Python sketch where the waiter is going spam, spam, spam, spam, and baked beans and more spam. Egg, sausage, and bacon? Egg and spam? Egg, bacon, and spam? Egg, bacon, sausage, and spam? So it's like, they're like, something that you get all the time, even though you don't want it.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  It's extremely popular in Hawaii, which was not a state at the time. It was still a territory, but it continues to be a staple of Hawaiian culinary history and cuisine.

• 8:07Speaker 00

  Hannah. Also during World War II, this food company created something known as Field Ration D, which was described as being 600 calories, virtually indestructible, and deliberately bad tasting. So it wouldn't have a high value as currency to trade for non-food items like cigarettes because it was supposed to be used in emergencies or nutrition. Name the company.

• 8:37Hannah McCarthy?

  Name the company?

• 8:38Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, who makes really bad food?

• 8:40Hannah McCarthy?

  600 calories, it's a single item.

• 8:43Speaker 00

  Do you want a hint?

• 8:44Hannah McCarthy?

  I do, I didn't know that was allowed, yeah.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  So the headquarters of this company are in Pennsylvania.

• 8:49Hannah McCarthy?

  Oh, Hershey.

• 8:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:52Hannah McCarthy?

  You would know that if you watched The Foods That Built America on the History Channel, by the way.

• 8:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, so they, they really wanted it to not be traded for anything else. And so they made it taste really, really bad. And it was also so dense that soldiers would sometimes chip their teeth trying to eat it, and they would shave, like, use their knives, which I just imagine the, the hygiene of that doesn't matter, World War II, they would have to shave it down. And then they created, when they were really, like, heavy military presence in the Pacific, they created an alternative that I think is called, like, Tropical Ration D, which was like, extra unmelty, so that it wouldn't melt in the hot weather.

• 9:32Speaker 00

  All right, so you got a point for that, Hannah.

• 9:33Hannah McCarthy?

  Yay.

• 9:34Speaker 00

  Nick, this last question is for you, but I've got a little bit of an open. It's a kind of bleak. So after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the United States' subsequent entry into World War II, Germany lost access to the ingredients that make Coca-Cola, even though the company was still operating in Germany through the war. So in order to make up for the fact that they couldn't actually make Coca-Cola, what beverage did Germany start producing that was flavored with apple pulp, whey byproduct from cheese, and beet sugar?

• 10:13Speaker 00

  It still exists today in a different form.

• 10:17Nick Capodice?

  Oh, I need the brand name or the kind of drink?

• 10:20Speaker 00

  So it's a Coca-Cola soda.

• 10:22Nick Capodice?

  Okay, and it's made with apple pulp?

• 10:25Speaker 00

  It was made with apple pulp, whey byproduct from cheese, and beet sugar.

• 10:29Nick Capodice?

  You know, when you go to a restaurant and you're like, what do you have? And they're like, we have Pepsi products. I'm like, I don't know what that means. Oh, man.

• 10:35Speaker 00

  Think of commercials, like old school commercials for a certain kind of drink.

• 10:39Nick Capodice?

  It's like I'm trying to decide if it's gonna be like Sprite or 7-Up or like Fanta. I'm gonna say 7-Up.

• 10:45Speaker 00

  It's Fanta.

• 10:47Speaker 03

  I think the fact that he even thought Fanta gets him a point.

• 10:50Speaker 00

  Okay, all right, fair enough.

• 10:52Nick Capodice?

  That's very fantastic of you. Thank you.

• 10:54Speaker 00

  So it's actually a shortening of the word fantastisch. Germans, correct me, which it is the German word for fantastic, in case you didn't know. And the color originally was murky brown and slightly cheese-flavored. And it became a global smash anyway, so they still make Fanta. But it started as a drink for the Germans during World War II. All righty, the scores are as follows. Nick, you have three points. Hannah, you have two points. Rebecca, you have two points. Ready?

• 11:27Nick Capodice?

  Yeah.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  Next category is media pranks. As we've already heard, NPR, the BBC and other publications tend to have fun with April Fool's Day by releasing faux stories that are supposed to be obvious enough to be pranks, but believable enough to make you stop and think. Sometimes they succeed and sometimes they don't. For example, the BBC once ran a story in 1957 about a family in Switzerland that was harvesting spaghetti from spaghetti trees. And they said that the reason it was so populous was because the spaghetti weevil had been eradicated. And it became really popular. A lot of people called in asking if they could get spaghetti trees because spaghetti was still considered a delicacy in Britain at that time.

• 12:15Speaker 03

  There's an incredible video for that story, by the way. I recommend looking it up.

• 12:22Speaker 05

  After picking, the spaghetti is laid out to dry in the warm Alpine sun. Many people are often puzzled by the fact that spaghetti is produced at such uniform length. But this is the result of many years of patient endeavor by plant breeders who've succeeded in producing the perfect spaghetti.

• 12:41Speaker 03

  You can see trees covered with spaghetti and these women are up in the trees like taking the spaghetti gently down from the tree.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  Is it cooked or is it raw?

• 12:50Speaker 03

  Cooked.

• 13:01Speaker 00

  Nick.

• 13:01Nick Capodice?

  Hello.

• 13:02Speaker 00

  One NPR April Fool's story announced the creation of a surgical procedure that would allow people to more deeply enjoy a new kind of media technology. I'm not telling you the year because I would probably give it away. Was it? A, a Bluetooth chip installed behind the ear that allowed you to have your own portable Bluetooth that could connect to devices around you? B, finger extensions to give your fingers more reach on a computer keyboard? C, 3D eye surgery to allow you to enjoy 3D movies without the glasses? Or D, under the skin battery magnets that use your own energy to charge your electronic devices?

• 13:47Nick Capodice?

  All right, this is really tricky. You said it's NPR.

• 13:50Speaker 00

  Yes, and none of these are real, for what it's worth. But one of them was a real fake story.

• 13:54Nick Capodice?

  Well, I know people do get magnets put under their skin a lot of times. It's a thing. It's like a whole movement of people who get technology implanted in there.

• 14:02Speaker 00

  But does it charge your phone with your own metabolism?

• 14:05Nick Capodice?

  It doesn't charge your phone, but there probably is somebody out there with a phone-charging magnet.

• 14:09Speaker 03

  Is that transhumanism that you're referring to? I believe that's what it's called.

• 14:12Nick Capodice?

  It's gently tied to the transhumanists. Yeah. Oh, man. If it was like the third, like a finger extension so you can type easier. Sounds so NPR. I'm gonna go with the Bluetooth chip in your ear.

• 14:26Speaker 00

  No, unfortunately, it was 3D eye surgery to allow you to enjoy 3D movies without the glasses. But thank you for believing the three other ones I made up.

• 14:35Speaker 03

  Nicely done.

• 14:36Speaker 00

  Yes, okay. Hannah.

• 14:38Hannah McCarthy?

  Yes.

• 14:39Speaker 00

  In 2008, the IRS sent tax rebate checks to the American people for anywhere from $600 to $1,200 to help stimulate the economy. That was real. However, according to an April Fool's Marketplace story, the IRS was worried that people wouldn't actually spend that money. So they decided to do what instead? The IRS decided to do what instead? Send people Visa gift cards that expired in two months to make sure they spent them? Send people all of their rebate in $1 bills to help encourage people to spend them in small-dollar amounts that would spread the stimulus more widely? Send people their rebate checks worth of National Park visitor passes

• 15:22Speaker 00

  so they could trade like currency to get to the parks they wanted? Or D, send people toasters, air conditioners, and snow blowers that equaled the amount of their checks based on their regions and what the IRS thought they might want?

• 15:34Hannah McCarthy?

  These are all good.

• 15:35Speaker 00

  Well, thank you.

• 15:36Hannah McCarthy?

  So the Visa gift card is not as funny as the dollar bills. And then, of course, like the appliances is very funny. I'm gonna go with A, just because of how much people get weird about gift cards.

• 15:51Speaker 00

  Unfortunately, no, it was not the Visa gift cards. So the story said that the IRS was going to send people toasters, air conditioners, and snow blowers, and they would decide based on where they lived and what they thought they might like. And they had like fake interviews with people who were like, I mean, I didn't really need a toaster, I kind of wanted a snow blower.

• 16:10Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 16:11Speaker 00

  Rebecca.

• 16:12Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  In 2016, National Geographic announced on April Fools that they would no longer publish photographs of what? A, naked animals? B, domesticated animals? C, cars, trains, planes, or any modern transportation equipment? Or D, anything indoors?

• 16:36Speaker 03

  Okay, so when I was a kid, National Geographic was sort of like known for publishing pictures of naked people, like that was a whole thing. Yeah. And like, you know, let's just say kids were stealing their parents' National Geographic sometimes. So for that reason, I'm going to pick A, naked animals.

• 16:57Speaker 00

  You are correct. This is the hardest one for me to come up with alternatives because it was just really good. So this is a quote from them. "The media group says it will no longer degrade animals by showing photos of them without clothes." And so they actually published a series of photos with animals that have like clothes on to demonstrate how they would do this.

• 17:15Speaker 03

  A zebra in a bikini.

• 17:24Speaker 00

  We'll be right back after a quick break.

• 17:28Nick Capodice?

  There is nothing quite like having stuff in your closet that you love and you know you can count on for any occasion, except maybe giving someone else that feeling. And this holiday season, Quince is where I'm finding those pieces. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, and it is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories that cut out the middleman, so you get luxury quality pieces without the luxury price tag. As this lovely fall is winding to a close and we slouch into winter. I wish more than anything, someone had gifted me a yak wool hoodie.

• 18:13Nick Capodice?

  I'm dead serious. It's good enough for the yak. I mean, it works really well for the yak, right? It would work for me. And it looks hot. So give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK as well. And last thing, when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Civics 101. It's the best way to support the show. All right.

• 18:48Nick Capodice?

  Haven't you out there ever Googled your own name? Like actually done it? You'll find your address, your phone number, maybe even that police report from the time you went to see Rain Man in the movie theater, but you were underage? Maybe that one's just me. But here's the thing. There are companies called data brokers whose entire business model is collecting your personal information and selling it to advertisers, to strangers, sometimes to people running scams. And once your data is out there, it just keeps circulating. That is where Incogni comes in. Incogni contacts data brokers on your behalf and sends them removal requests over and over. So your info doesn't just pop right back up. You set it up once and they keep working in the background.

• 19:33Nick Capodice?

  You can even track the progress on a dashboard. And for our listeners, we have an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan. Just go to incogni.com/civics or use the code civics at checkout. There's a link in the episode description. Remember, they can't harm you if they can't find you.

• 19:59Speaker 00

  Our next set of questions are about the ZIP code because NPR once aired a story on All Things Considered that announced that the US Postal Service was starting a program called Portable ZIP Codes, which allowed people to keep their current ZIP code even if they moved into a new one.

• 20:17Speaker 00

  I'm pleased to announce this afternoon, a new feature.

• 20:20Speaker 06

  Of our Go Postal Campaign. Starting next month, the National Portable Zip Codes Program will commence. With it, American citizens can keep their present zip codes wherever they choose to live, across the country or across town.

• 20:37Speaker 00

  Crandall said that while the plan would at first- So the next couple of questions are about zip codes, but first, does anyone know what Z I P stands for?

• 20:44Nick Capodice?

  Oh.

• 20:45Hannah McCarthy?

  Zone.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  So zone is correct. It's Zone Improvement Plan. Hmm. That's what zip stands for. And of course, it's also like helpful because zip, zippy, you know, makes the mail zippier, essentially. So here are a couple of facts about zip codes before we start. The first number of the standard five-number code determines a large region, so mail sorting systems look at that first. From east to west, east coast New England starts at zero. And then as you move south and west to California, Washington and Oregon, those all start with nine, and Alaska, and Hawaii. And some states have just one, like, set of first couple of numbers, like Utah is only 84, and then the three after. The remaining numbers further break down by county or region.

• 21:27Speaker 00

  And then in 1983, they introduced the zip plus four, which is four extra numbers that further divide mail locally. So I have a question for each of you. Hannah, there are three individuals who have their own zip codes.

• 21:40Speaker 03

  Hey Christina, I know the President and the First Lady are the first two, but I have no idea who else has their own zip code.

• 21:47Speaker 00

  The third is an animal mascot created in 1944 and is part of the longest-running public service campaign in US history to date.

• 21:55Hannah McCarthy?

  Smokey the Bear.

• 21:57Speaker 00

  It is Smokey the Bear.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  It's actually just Smokey Bear, guys.

• 22:01Nick Capodice?

  I'm glad you did ever back out, because if I did it, it would have been a disaster. Vote that I still get the point. Oh, you do. It's just the most, but actually, I've ever heard from everybody, like, it's actually Smokey Bear. Smokey Bear was my father.

• 22:19Speaker 05

  Don't let forest fires be your fault. Make sure your fire is dead out. Remember, only you can prevent forest fires.

• 22:30Speaker 00

  So his zip code is 20252. Santa Claus, many people think he should have his own zip code or would. He doesn't, but he does have his own Canadian postal code, which is H0H0H0.

• 22:53Speaker 00

  Nick, this question is for you.

• 22:55Nick Capodice?

  Hello, okay.

• 22:56Speaker 00

  Before Smokey Bear, the US Forest Service partnered with Disney, who agreed to let them use animated creatures from what 1942 movie for just a year as mascots for forest fire prevention?

• 23:10Nick Capodice?

  Huh, well, you know, maybe Bambi.

• 23:13Speaker 00

  Bambi is correct.

• 23:14Nick Capodice?

  Oh, hooray. Never seen Bambi.

• 23:16Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 23:16Nick Capodice?

  Yeah.

• 23:16Speaker 03

  Don't. It's so sad.

• 23:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's absolutely devastating. But also Disney only let them do it for a year. And then they were like, we're taking Bambi and all of his friends back. And so they were like, we must create a new mascot. So they came up with Smokey Bear. And there's various origin stories as to Smokey Bear, whether it was named after a bear or named after a man. You know, there's a whole Wikipedia page on it. Rebecca, the next question is for you. Several corporate headquarters also have their own individual zip codes, including the headquarters for Walmart and General Electric. And for two weeks a year, Black Rock City, Nevada, gets its own zip code in order to accommodate which festival, which began as a summer solstice festival in the 1980s and in 2023 was the site of major flooding?

• 24:01Speaker 03

  Well, I believe what you're talking about is the biggest gathering annually of like jerks in the United States. And that would be Burning Man.

• 24:12Speaker 00

  Hot take from Rebecca, you are correct.

• 24:15Nick Capodice?

  So canceled.

• 24:15Speaker 03

  People say it's just all jerks now, right? That's why I was here. It's like tech bro kind of situation, right?

• 24:20Nick Capodice?

  Yeah.

• 24:21Hannah McCarthy?

  I could see that.

• 24:21Nick Capodice?

  It used to be like a really kind of holistic, beautiful artist thing. And now it's like Fire Festival, basically. So all felt good when the flesh eating crabs crawled out of the ground.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  That was 2023. That was, I think, one of those, yeah, it did make it obvious which celebrities who were not smart enough to stream on their phones getting rescued by helicopters and then everyone else is just stuck in the mud. Burning Man, you are correct. Okay, we've reached the end of this round. Currently, the scores stand at Nick, four points. Hannah, three points. Rebecca, four points.

• 25:00Speaker 00

  The next category is called bogus policy. So elected and appointed officials love to introduce fake policies or bills on April Fools. For example, in 1985, Congressman Thomas Downey put forth a proposal to lower the minimum age you could be elected to Congress to 15 to get, quote, "new blood in Congress." For what it's worth, the median age in the House in 1985 was 49 and the median age in the Senate was 53.7. Do you want to guess the median ages in 2023?

• 25:30Speaker 03

  The median, not the average, right?

• 25:32Speaker 00

  Median.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  For the Senate, I'm going to say 60.

• 25:34Speaker 00

  Higher.

• 25:35Hannah McCarthy?

  What?

• 25:37Speaker 03

  65.

• 25:38Speaker 00

  65 is right. You're right on that.

• 25:40Nick Capodice?

  But the House is maybe lower. So I'm going to guess the House is 46.

• 25:44Speaker 00

  It hasn't gone down. It's gone up.

• 25:46Nick Capodice?

  Oh, it's gone up?

• 25:47Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 25:47Hannah McCarthy?

  Nick, they don't leave.

• 25:49Speaker 03

  55.

• 25:50Speaker 00

  Up.

• 25:51Speaker 03

  Oh, my gosh.

• 25:52Speaker 00

  Just a little bit higher than 55.

• 25:53Speaker 03

  57?

• 25:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, 57.8. So technically 58, almost 58. I also am fairly certain that a lot of the people who were in the House in 1985 are still in the House today, so they probably remember that bill. I want to use another joke policy as our jumping off point for this round, which is about font, also known as typeface, okay? In 2015, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, son of Jeb Bush, announced that there was an agency-wide ban on which font?

• 26:22Speaker 03

  My guess is Comic Sans.

• 26:25Speaker 00

  Okay, what's your guess, Nick?

• 26:27Nick Capodice?

  My guess is Comic Sans.

• 26:30Speaker 00

  Okay. Hannah, what's your guess?

• 26:32Hannah McCarthy?

  Okay, I have a reason. Can I tell my reason?

• 26:36Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 26:36Hannah McCarthy?

  We're talking about a political family and like a, what do you call it? A dynasty, right? Family, like known to be God-fearing Christians, right? Appealing to other God-fearing Christians, I think. So I picked Helvetica.

• 26:52Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 26:53Speaker 00

  Okay, so the answer is Comic Sans, Hannah.

• 26:58Speaker 00

  Do we give Hannah a point for effort?

• 27:01Speaker 03

  Heck, yeah.

• 27:02Nick Capodice?

  Really fast Comic Sans story. It was my first week at NHPR. I wrote a funny thing for the newsletter, extra credit for our show, and I made a joke about how I hated Comic Sans. And I got a scathing email from a listener saying that I was being ableist because Comic Sans, she said it was quite useful for people who have dyslexia. And she was like, so you should never make fun of Comic Sans and you should be ashamed of yourself. And I was like heartbroken for a month. And then I found out a month later that that's actually been disproven.

• 27:35Speaker 00

  Yes. Dear listener, I'm actually...

• 27:38Nick Capodice?

  I'm actually, you're wrong.

• 27:40Speaker 00

  You're totally right that there have been studies that have shown that Comic Sans is actually harder to read. And so sometimes in school, it'll be used to increase retention because you have to work harder to understand the words. But there are still plenty of people who say that it is easier to read.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  I thought it was just ugly and that's why we don't like it.

• 27:56Speaker 00

  I mean, that's why I don't like it.

• 28:03Speaker 00

  These questions are all going to be about fonts.

• 28:05Nick Capodice?

  I love fonts.

• 28:06Speaker 03

  I'm ready.

• 28:07Speaker 00

  All right. In 2023, the State Department announced it was moving away from using Times New Roman as its default font on websites, on publications, et cetera, and would instead use this Sans Serif font with a name that derives from a word for instrument of measurement.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  I know this isn't right, but I'm gonna say it anyway. It's the only sans font I could think of right now, and that's Arial.

• 28:32Speaker 00

  No, it's Calibri.

• 28:34Nick Capodice?

  For calibrate.

• 28:35Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 28:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, caliber, caliber.

• 28:37Nick Capodice?

  This is also an access issue. So serif fonts are more difficult for people with various learning disabilities to read than sans serif. So they're like, we can't have Times New Roman as our default anymore. So that's why schools suddenly are like, no more Times New Roman. And for your term paper, it's gotta be Calibri.

• 28:56Speaker 00

  Do you wanna explain what a serif is?

• 28:57Nick Capodice?

  So interestingly, they're called serifs, I believe, and I could be wrong. Because serifs in cherubim were often used to, the angels in illuminations were used to decorate words in old medieval manuscripts. So I don't know if that's true or not, but I've heard that before. But so serifs are the sort of chunky lines at the ends of all the lines of a letter. So the R has two serifs on its bottom feet. So sans serif eliminates those entirely, and it's a little bit easier to read.

• 29:26Speaker 03

  The I is just a stick.

• 29:28Nick Capodice?

  Yeah. An I is a stick instead of an I, which I love the serif. I.

• 29:42Speaker 00

  Nick, this question is for you.

• 29:44Nick Capodice?

  Hello.

• 29:45Speaker 00

  So the US Web Design System, which is part of the US Digital Service, which is a thing I learned about. They create standards for designing and maintaining government websites, recommends several typefaces for digital publications, including this font, which shares its name with the first name of one of our famous Western expansionists.

• 30:06Nick Capodice?

  Oh, my God. And by a famous westward expansionist?

• 30:09Speaker 00

  The first name of a westward expansionist, a famous westward expansionist.

• 30:13Nick Capodice?

  The first name. So who's the guy who said, let me give me a second. The guy who said, go west, young man, was that guy?

• 30:19Speaker 00

  I think you're a little niche here. I don't know who this is.

• 30:22Nick Capodice?

  Go West, young man. It's probably not even him.

• 30:26Speaker 03

  Can I give you a clue?

• 30:27Nick Capodice?

  Yes.

• 30:27Speaker 03

  This is a pair of westward expansionists that we talked a lot about in grade school.

• 30:32Nick Capodice?

  Good. Thank you, Rebecca.

• 30:34Hannah McCarthy?

  I would not.

• 30:34Nick Capodice?

  Merryweather.

• 30:35Hannah McCarthy?

  It is Merryweather.

• 30:37Nick Capodice?

  Thank you for the clue. Did you know that Lewis and Clark, they had to, because they had such horrible constipation from being on the trail, they did not eat the food, they were eating bad rations, that they had to take this mercury pill as a laxative, which they called thunderclappers? Give me a couple more thunderclapper?

• 30:56Hannah McCarthy?

  Good.

• 30:56Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, and you can track their trail because of mercury in the ground.

• 31:01Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 31:03Nick Capodice?

  How much do you not believe? The second part? All of it.

• 31:06Hannah McCarthy?

  I don't believe that their excrement, first of all, I don't believe that we know exactly where they poop. And I don't believe that it then leached into the soil. Also, it would be about this big, right?

• 31:19Nick Capodice?

  Yeah. Not from a thunderclapper.

• 31:21Hannah McCarthy?

  It's not real.

• 31:21Nick Capodice?

  Well, we're gonna look it up after this. Listeners out there, you decide if the thunderclappers are real.

• 31:26Speaker 03

  I'm just gonna say, the historical significance of thunderclappers is the high mercury content has been used by archaeologists to help verify locations.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  Oh. Hannah.

• 31:37Speaker 03

  Thunderclappers.

• 31:38Nick Capodice?

  Notice I'm not in anybody's graces any better after being right about the thunderclapper. I'm in more trouble.

• 31:46Hannah McCarthy?

  Okay, 97% of the time when I ask you to please fact check that, you're like, oh, it's not true.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  Gotta give me that. But actually.

• 31:56Speaker 00

  Hannah, this question is for you.

• 31:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:59Speaker 00

  Times New Roman was created for which newspaper in 1931?

• 32:04Speaker 03

  I'm gonna guess the New York Times.

• 32:06Speaker 00

  No.

• 32:09Speaker 00

  Times New Roman was used by the New York Times, for sure.

• 32:11Speaker 03

  But who was it created for?

• 32:12Speaker 00

  It was created for the Times of Britain.

• 32:14Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 32:16Hannah McCarthy?

  Okay.

• 32:16Speaker 00

  But the New York Times used it until 2007, when they switched to a little font called Georgia.

• 32:23Speaker 03

  The fat one.

• 32:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. Okay, so at the end of this round, Nick, you have six, Hannah, you've got four, Rebecca, you've got five.

• 32:31Speaker 03

  Yay, not last.

• 32:42Nick Capodice?

  Have any of you out there ever Googled your own name? Like, actually done it? You'll find your address, your phone number, maybe even that police report from the time you went to see Rain Man in the movie theater, but you were underage? Maybe that one's just me. But here's the thing. There are companies called data brokers whose entire business model is collecting your personal information and selling it to advertisers, to strangers, sometimes to people running scams. And once your data's out there, it just keeps circulating. That is where incogni comes in. Incogni contacts data brokers on your behalf and sends them removal requests over and over, so your info doesn't just pop right back up. You set it up once, and they keep working in the background.

• 33:27Nick Capodice?

  You can even track the progress on a dashboard. And for our listeners, we have an exclusive 60% off an annual incogni plan. Just go to incogni.com/civics, or use the code civics at checkout. There's a link in the episode description. Remember, they can't harm you if they can't find you.

• 33:55Speaker 00

  This last and final round is called What's in a Name? Oh, What's in a Name? In 2015, Representative Mike Honda, a Democrat from California, introduced a fake bill for April Fools. He did not actually introduce it into Congress, but he wrote a press release about it. And that bill was against verbose legislation names. It was called the Accountability and Congressional Responsibility on Naming Your Motions Act, aka the Acronyms Act. Here's a quote from his press release, which again, was fake. "The last straw was the pension and social security measuring equivalence, permanent linking of everyone's actual savings environment, Please Pass Me Act,

• 34:37Speaker 00

  which only corrected a typo on page 346 of the tax code."

• 34:43Speaker 00

  So the reason I said so many times that this was fake was because so many news sources referenced this as if it were a real bill that was introduced. The Hill, The Atlantic, votsmart.org, The New Republic, they all refer to it as though it's a real piece of legislation and use it as a jumping off point to talk about ridiculous acronym legislation. I just want to say, this is like when a teacher gives out a quiz that it says at the top, "Read every question before you begin this quiz," and at the bottom it says, "Just write your name and turn it in." The bottom of the HuffPost article that covered this piece of legislation says, "This is an April Fool's joke. This is not real." It's literally right there.

• 35:23Speaker 00

  So, anyway, I thought that this would be a good excuse to create trivia questions about times legislators really did try their hardest to create an acronym out of the title of their legislation. So I'm going to give you actual pieces of legislation that were introduced. I will tell you how many letters there are in the acronym, and then I will start reading the title of the bill. When you think you have a guess, say, "Stop." If you get it right, you get a point, and then you get to answer a couple of follow-up questions about the legislation. Oh, also, I feel like I should say, just because it's an acronym doesn't mean they follow the rules of acronyms.

• 36:05Speaker 00

  So sometimes the actual title is like 12 letters long, but the acronym is only seven. So, first question. This piece of legislation was proposed by Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado. The acronym is one word, and it is six letters long. Zeroing Out Money For...

• 36:28Nick Capodice?

  Zombie.

• 36:30Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 36:31Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 36:32Speaker 00

  Zeroing Out Money For Buying Influence After Elections Act.

• 36:35Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 36:36Speaker 00

  Zombie. So, Nick, follow-up question. What was this act for?

• 36:41Nick Capodice?

  Zeroing Money For Buying Influence After Elections?

• 36:43Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:44Nick Capodice?

  Was it a bill to like overturn Citizens United?

• 36:46Speaker 00

  No, not quite.

• 36:47Speaker 03

  Is it a bill to keep people from donating to campaigns of other people who are running for... Office after they are running for office?

• 36:54Speaker 00

  I think that's close. It required candidates to disperse unused funds after the election.

• 36:59Speaker 03

  Oh, they had to disperse them. Okay.

• 37:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, so basically you had to give up your money and it set away to do it. So Nick, you get the first go at this. What year was this introduced?

• 37:08Nick Capodice?

  Oh, the Zombie Act? I'm gonna say the old Zombie Act. I'm gonna say 2016.

• 37:13Speaker 00

  No, it's 2021. Now, the next piece of legislation. The following legislation was introduced by Mike Quigley, a Democrat from Illinois. The acronym is one word and it is seven letters long. Communications over various feeds electronically.

• 37:35Nick Capodice?

  Kofeve.

• 37:41Nick Capodice?

  That's so funny. That's hilarious.

• 37:44Speaker 00

  So the whole title is Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement Act, or the Kofeve Act. I cannot look at this tweet from President Trump that inspired this without laughing. It's like Donald Trump, who was president at the time, tweeted something at 12:06 a.m. on a Wednesday that said, "Despite the constant negative press, Kofeve." End tweet.

• 38:09Speaker 00

  It was like the next six hours overnight, people just lost it. And then six hours later, to his credit, he had a really good follow-up. "Who can figure out the true meaning of Kofeve? Enjoy." And it's still up there. So, Nick, what was this act for? What did it purport to do?

• 38:29Nick Capodice?

  Can you read to the bill one last time, the name, and then I'll get it?

• 38:32Speaker 00

  Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement Act.

• 38:37Nick Capodice?

  This is monitoring the usage of politicians on social media.

• 38:41Speaker 00

  Uh, I'm gonna go ahead and say close enough. Rebecca, do you have a guess?

• 38:45Speaker 03

  It codified that the president's tweets are actually like archival material.

• 38:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's exactly it. So you are gonna get the point for that, yeah.

• 38:54Nick Capodice?

  Well done.

• 38:54Speaker 00

  So it basically, some of the language in here is that the bill amends provisions governing presidential records to revise the definition of presidential records. Records to include any personal and official social media account. Nick, what year was this bill introduced? Do you have a guess?

• 39:09Nick Capodice?

  Uh, 2020.

• 39:12Speaker 00

  No, someone else have a guess.

• 39:14Speaker 03

  2018.

• 39:15Speaker 00

  No, it was 2017.

• 39:16Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 39:17Speaker 00

  This was like three months into his new administration when this happened. Did it pass?

• 39:21Nick Capodice?

  I'm gonna say no, because it's an acronym.

• 39:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're correct. It did not, it did not pass. But it's worth pointing out that in 2014, so before this bill was introduced, there was an amendment to the Presidential Records Act that specified that electronic content was considered presidential records and must be preserved. So, a lot of legal experts already assumed that included social media. But President Trump did come under fire for deleting tweets during his presidency. Nick, I believe you got two points for that one. Are you ready?

• 39:49Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 39:51Speaker 00

  This piece of legislation was introduced by Democrat Gary Ackerman from New York. The acronym is one word. It is eight letters long, but the word is not spelled correctly.

• 40:02Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 40:03Speaker 00

  The Health Insurance Protects America Can't

• 40:09Speaker 03

  HIPAA.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  Can't Repeal It Act.

• 40:14Speaker 03

  Hypocrite.

• 40:15Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 40:15Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 40:17Speaker 00

  Well done. Yes, so yeah, it is spelled HIPAA, like H I P A, and then Can't Repeal It-rite. Okay, so Hannah, you got a point for that. I'm gonna ask you what you think it was for.

• 40:29Hannah McCarthy?

  Can you say it again?

• 40:30Speaker 00

  The Health Insurance Protects America Can't Repeal It Act.

• 40:35Hannah McCarthy?

  So, I think it was to stop the repealing of the Affordable Care Act? Stop going after Obamacare, like something like that.

• 40:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I'm gonna give you points, because that is the intention of the act. It was kind of like a dare. So Democrat Gary Ackerman from New York introduced a series of bills that would repeal some of the most popular parts of the Affordable Care Act, including the one that said that companies couldn't deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and another that said that insurance companies couldn't just end your coverage. And here's what he said. "These are great safeguards to improve coverage for all Americans. Republicans wouldn't dare vote to do away with them despite their campaign pledge to do so. But I'm calling them out on it and dare the GOP to vote for these bills." So basically saying that like you keep claiming you want to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Well, if you really want to do that-

• 41:30Speaker 03

  Do it!

• 41:31Speaker 00

  Do it on these specific provisions that everybody really likes.

• 41:34Speaker 03

  What about the death panels, though? Do they, do they put those in the list?

• 41:37Speaker 00

  Death panels? What's that?

• 41:39Speaker 03

  You don't remember when the Affordable Care Act was being sold to the people? That was the opposition to it, was that it would create so-called death panels, where a panel of people would get to decide if you lived or died. That was the Sarah Palin talking point around the ACA.

• 41:53Speaker 05

  President Obama stood before a joint session of Congress and said, "There is no such thing as a death panel." Is he a liar?

• 42:04Speaker 07

  He's not lying in that those two words will not be found in any of those thousands of pages of different variations of the healthcare bill. No, death panel isn't there.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  Okay, so Hannah, you get first guess. What year do you think that this was introduced?

• 42:20Speaker 03

  2017?

• 42:21Speaker 00

  Nope.

• 42:22Nick Capodice?

  2012.

• 42:23Speaker 00

  Nope. Um, so it was 2010. Did it pass, Hannah?

• 42:29Speaker 03

  No.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  No. That is all of the trivia that I have for you today.

• 42:43Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 42:44Speaker 00

  So I'm going to reveal our final scores. Nick, you received 10 points. Hannah, you have 7 points.

• 42:53Speaker 03

  How's that?

• 42:54Speaker 00

  And Rebecca, you have 6 points.

• 42:56Speaker 03

  See, I don't always win.

• 42:57Speaker 00

  Your winning streak is over.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  That's right, that's right.

• 43:00Speaker 00

  Congratulations, Nick.

• 43:01Nick Capodice?

  Well, thank you. It's, I haven't won one in a good, long while. It feels pretty good.

• 43:06Speaker 03

  Is that true?

• 43:07Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, yeah. There was no categories about like Twilight this time. Baker says.

• 43:12Speaker 03

  That was our favorite category of all time.

• 43:15Speaker 00

  I'm glad, I'm glad.

• 43:17Nick Capodice?

  This was so fun, Christina. Thank you. It was so fun, Christina. It was so fun.

• 43:21Speaker 00

  Yes, thank you so much. Thank you, everybody.

• 43:23Speaker 03

  Thanks for having us.

• 43:32Speaker 00

  This episode was produced by me, Christina Phillips, with a lot of wonderful help from our hosts Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice and our executive producer Rebecca Lavoy, who also edited this episode. Our team includes producer Marina Henke. Music from this episode is from Epidemic Sound and The Taco Bell. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.

• 44:11Speaker 05

  This is Phil Bretisson, former Democratic governor of the state of Tennessee. If you love digging into how history shapes US policy, check out the new season of You Might Be Right.

• 44:20Speaker 06

  And this is Bill Haslam, former Republican governor. This season, we're asking the questions that have defined every pivotal moment in American political history. Is democracy really under threat? Or is that just a story as old as the republic itself? We're tackling the biggest questions shaping the 2026 midterms, so join us.

• 44:37Speaker 05

  Follow You Might Be Right wherever you get your podcasts.