Starting, I suppose, with the company’s founding on April 1, 1976
Geeky April Fools Day jokes are not my cup of tea. I’m more of a salt in the sugar bowl, electrical tape on the sink sprayer kind of guy. But given Apple’s (AAPL) historic link to the first of April, it’s hard to let the 35th anniversary of the company’s founding go by without a tip of the hat to the two pranksters who started it.
The most elaborate Apple Fools gag we saw Friday was ThinkGeek‘s Playmobil Apple Store, complete with Genius Bar, tiny Macs and iPads, and a miniature Steve Jobs holding forth in the in-store auditorium. “Fusing for the first time,” as the clever accompanying video puts it, “the fun and sensibility of Playmobil with the design cliche and hubris of Apple.” See below the fold.
There’s plenty more where that came from, though not always so well produced. Techmeme, TechCrunch and Network World have assembled master lists of Friday’s pranks, and Network World’s Paul McNamara has posted an Apple specific list that goes back 35 years.
UPDATE: If you have a few minutes, check out the prank list curated by David Pogue in Saturday’s New York Times.
Below: ThinkGeek’s Playmobil Apple Store video.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSU3ijxkp8Y&feature=player_embedded]
Also on Fortune.com:
- The CIA discoveres 91 million missing Chinese Internet users
- Report: Apple to absorb quake costs
- How many iPads did Apple sell?
[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]
