What's so funny?

Q: What happens once a year and is not nearly as much fun as it used to be?

A: April Fools' Day!

What happened? Have we grown more jaded, more cynical, not so ready to fall for the old switch-the-sugar-and-the-salt gag that I personally got from Dennis The Menace and pulled off successfully in third grade?

The time was, people would go to great lengths to pull off great pranks on this most special of foolin' around days. Hugh Troy (1908 - 1964) was regarded as the greatest practical joker of all time, because his stunts required planning and execution. (I planned my salt-and-sugar bit so well that I was nearly executed, but anyway...)

Troy would buy a large pile of newspapers when a huge event was in the headlines (Lindbergh lands, WWII ends, etc) and save them for a year or so, and then he would take the papers and hand them out to people riding the bus home from work, asking the people to whom he gave the papers to read them intently. Imagine the laughs a couple of April Firsts later when people were shocked to see old news again.

He would buy a park-type bench from, I don't know, Wards or Sears, and take it to a park, sit down and read his paper until he saw a policeman, at which point he would pick up the bench and carry it off, surely to be followed by a cop, for whom he would produce the bill of sale for one park bench.

Today, not so much. Fast food places go on Facebook to announce that they are no longer going to sell their most popular items, and will carry kangaroo burgers instead. Stuff like that. Not up to the standards of Hugh Troy, for sure.

The Washington POST made a weak attempt to claim that gondola service would soon be available in the nation's capital. But nothing has been funny for several months there...

Nice try, but weak.