April Fools' Day is a day for pranks of all sizes and all qualities: good pranks and bad pranks; pranks by friends and family members and big businesses and even celebrities.
It's a tradition in Atlanta as much as anywhere else. Last year, Bravo teased that "Real Housewives of Atlanta" star NeNe Leakes would be included in a special — and bogus — "all-star" edition of the franchise.
In that spirit, here are four notable local pranks, through the years, including an appearance former President Jimmy Carter.
1. Chick-fil-A debuts "Chick-a-Strips" and "Chick-a-Sticks." The fast food juggernaut announced the mock nose strips and chewing gum as two solutions to a continuing problem: How do you solve your Chick-fil-A craving on Sunday, when the chain is closed? "New Chick-a-Sticks gum is a delicious, long-lasting, sugar-free solution made with the same natural seasonings as the Chick-fil-A Sandwich, including a hint of crucial pickle," the company said on April 1, 2013. And: "Chick-a-Strips provide nighttime relief when chewing gum isn't practical. ... Chick-a-Strips expand nasal passages and emit vapors containing the smell of our chicken sandwich."
2. A Mexican restaurant in disguise. Most days when you walk into Old Fourth Ward's Across the Street, it looks like a normal Mexican restaurant. But not on April 1: owners Ali Wild and Lana Banks have for several years transformed the eatery in a variety of styles: French, Italian and more. "It's pretty much a blitzkrieg of design and storage," Wild told Nation's Restaurant News. She said they change the art and paint the walls: everything. "The trick is to make it pretty low budget," she said.
3. As a teen, Carter cut class. The former U.S. president was poised to be named the valedictorian of his high school class, in Plains, until he and his friends got a case of "senior fever." According to the biography "Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter: The Georgia Years, 1924-1974," Carter and his friends were restless and impatient and on the verge of graduation. So for April Fools', they "went to Americus, attended a 'picture show,' toured the Coca-Cola plant, and then had the local newspaper publish a story about what a good time they were having," author E. Stanly Godbold Jr. wrote. The punishment included zeroes on the day's missed schoolwork, which knocked Carter down a spot in the class rankings.
4. Georgia Tech's "imaginary student." Not an April Fools' Day joke, but an incredibly resilient ruse nonethless: The story goes that Tech student William Edgar Smith, class of 1931l, actually earned two bachelor's degrees, one for himself and one for "George P. Burdell." But Burdell did not actually exist. Smith's successful trick has since passed into schoolwide legend and spread outward — Burdell is a member "at most local Atlanta churches," according to Tech.
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