I'm trying to remember if I ever participated in an April Fools Day joke on the air. I vaguely remember Johnny B and Steve & Garry switching shifts on April Fools Day one year (a move, which ironically happened for real just a few years later), but I didn't make the move with them that day because they wanted to work with Wiser. I seem to recall that John Landecker pretended to be bitten by a snake one year, but I can't remember if that was on April Fools Day or not.
I only mention this because Robert Feder tips off a couple of April Fools Day jokes happening today...
"Public radio listeners will be in for a shock Monday when they hear who’s hosting The Afternoon Shift on WBEZ-FM (91.5). Broadcasting from his condo in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Steve Dahl will be introduced as the Chicago Public Media station’s new 2 to 4pm weekday replacement for Steve Edwards. Listeners will be told he’s been signed to a long-term multimillion-dollar deal. "I don't know what you're talking about!" Dahl said when I asked him about taking part in the first April Fools stunt in his 35-year Chicago radio career. (Business reporter Niala Boodhoo starts for real as interim host of The Afternoon Shift on Tuesday.) The pranksters at WBEZ offered the April Fools morning show to Ed Volkman and Joe Bohannon, who declined. “Jobo didn't want [us] to ‘parody ourselves’ or ‘seem desperate,’ " Volkman told me. Instead, the morning show will parody Lin Brehmer’s opening day broadcasts for WXRT-FM (93.1) from a fictitious Wrigleyville bar."
