Introduction:
Welcome to the UXN’s first attempt at an April Fool’s Day joke. The idea of this particular joke occurred to me literally two weeks after the April 1, 2005 – and I was so angry with myself that I hadn’t thought of it before. It was torture having to wait 11 months for the big day – but it was worth it.
One of the most popular features are our Event Months, which, as long-time visitors know, are filled with articles, Crossovers, Summaries and Spotlights, all centered around a particular theme. One of the most anticipated Spotlights has been the one for the Wolverine, which we have said ad nauseam will be released during a Wolverine Event Month. Regular visitors know that Event Months are not broadcast in advance – so they can happen at any time, hence a lingering frustration from our readers.
So, because of the extreme demand – and the fact that we had never done an April Fool’s Day joke – the stage was set.
The Day of the faux Event Month:
All of the pieces of the joke were amazingly simple. First was a new logo, which are done on a regular basis. Second was a modified “white-background” Wolverine headshot, for the “Spotlight On…” box. The third and final piece was the joke picture itself, a simple picture of Wolverine. Dean Clayton happily stepped into these tasks, designing the pieces and, because of his location in UK, time zone-wise it made the most sense for him to make the release.
On the morning of Saturday, April 1, 2006 around 7:30 am or so GMT (which placed him about 2:30 am EST), Dean posted the Wolverine joke in a simple article in the Merging Minds section, added the new logo, the white-border headshot, as well as a little text that we co-wrote. The result is seen here:
Looks real, right? Why not? There’s the text, saying that the Event Month has arrived! A new logo to go with it! The announcement of the Spotlight, there in the Spotlight box! Even the text sounds like it is Event Month time! However, when the hapless dupe who doesn’t recall what day it is stumbles in and sees the trap – oh, that cheese just looks too good not to click on immediately. However, upon doing so, they were in for a surprise:
What they saw…
April Fool's Bub!
After finishing the post, Dean logged onto the Forum and kept hitting “refresh” until he got a response from visitors.
He had to wait a whole three minutes.
Here are a few of the responses. Apologies for some edits, as emoticons do not translate well into html coding:
Northstar777: Absolutely loved it. I was so eagerly awaiting this and could not believe my eyes when I went to the main page and saw that the Spotlight on Wolverine had been released. I loved the content as well. Great job guys!
Ultimateicemanfan: lol
ExtolEndsong: ROFL
Crawler310: Damn, you fooled me...
Britanix: You do realise i hate you all now
Archangel: That's just mean, dude.
Strong guy79: Nice.
Slasher the merc: That... was... the... meanest... thing... ever...... Props!
DARKxMOON: That was so mean.
Locustthelame: Best April Fool's Day prank EVER!!!!!!!!
SummersProdigy: Ok I'll admit, you didn't get me once... but twice! I swear, I saw the Wolverine spotlight description and clicked on it which got me, then I saw the Wolverine Event month announcement and that got me too.
Final Words:
Of course, we did not do this out of meanness, which I’m sure was just stated in jest. Working on the UXN is half for ourselves and half for our visitors. Until we started the Forum, the flow of information was just one way, from our site to your computer screen. However, with the Forum, we have been able to receive feedback and answer questions. We hope that this has resulted in a virtual community, our very own online neighborhood. As such, we would not do this if we did not appreciate you, the visitor.
Just like the Event Months are produced as a quality product for our visitors, so too was this April Fool’s Day joke. We at the UXN value our readers and hope you enjoyed our little jest, even though it was at your expense. Perhaps one year we will be able to do another, however it’s going to be extremely difficult to top this one.