A photo of a woman harvesting spaghetti in the BBC programme

The Spaghetti tree is a fictitious tree; a joke designed to fool those who do not know how spaghetti is produced. Image File history File links Spaghetti_harvest. ... The coniferous Coast Redwood, the tallest tree species on earth. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Spaghetti in a bowl. ...

The report that it is a product grown on trees was first produced as an April Fool's Day joke by the BBC TV programme Panorama in 1957, reporting on the bumper spaghetti harvest in Ticino, Switzerland due to the mild winter and "virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil". The report was given additional gravitas by the voiceover by respected broadcaster Richard Dimbleby. Pasta was not an everyday food in 1950s Britain, and was known mainly from tinned spaghetti in tomato sauce. It was partly filmed at the (now closed) Pasta Foods factory on London Road, St Albans in Hertfordshire, and also at a hotel in Switzerland. April Fools Day or All Fools Day, though not a holiday in its own right, is a notable day celebrated in many countries on April 1. ... Corporate logo of the British Broadcasting Corporation. ... Panorama is a long-running current affairs documentary series on BBC television, launched in 1953 and focusing on investigative journalism. ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Canton Ticino or Ticino (German: (help· info)) is the southernmost canton of Switzerland. ... Families Nemonychidae Anthribidae Belidae Attelabidae Brentidae Caridae Ithyceridae Curculionidae A weevil is a beetle from the Curculionoidea superfamily. ... Look up gravitas in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A voice-over is a narration that is played on top of a video segment, usually with the audio for that segment muted or lowered. ... Note: broadcasting is also the old term for hand sowing. ... Richard Dimbleby CBE (May 25, 1913–December 22, 1965) was a British journalist and broadcaster. ... Pasta is a type of food made from flour, water, and sometimes eggs, which is mixed, kneaded and formed into various shapes, and boiled prior to consumption. ... // Events and No. ... Three tin cans of varying sizes; the one on front is opened with a pull tab. ... St Albans (thus spelt, no apostrophe or dot) is the main urban area of the City and District of St Albans in southern Hertfordshire, England, around 22 miles (35. ... Hertfordshire (pronounced Hartfordshire and abbreviated as Herts) is an inland county in the United Kingdom, officially part of the East of England Government region. ...

An audience of approximately 8 million watched the programme, broadcast on April 1, and hundreds phoned in the following day to ask for more information about spaghetti cultivation and how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. The BBC reportedly told them to "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best". April 1 is the 91st day of the year (92nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 274 days remaining. ...

The Spaghetti Tree myth was also used in a popular 1970s TV commercial for Delmonico spaghetti. The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ...

See also

• List of species in folklore and mythology
• Exploding trees

These are legendary creatures that historically humans have thought were real. ... Exploding trees are a phenomenon mostly heard taking place in the northeastern United States and Canadian wilderness, and usually concerning maple trees. ...

External links

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• http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/spaghetti.html
• Still a good joke - 47 years on (BBC News, 1 April 2004)
• The original broadcast (BBC, RealVideo)
• 1957: BBC fools the nation (BBC, On this day)