Getting people to agree to play strip poker isn't something you'd think has a lot of appeal. It's usually done behind closed doors with close friends, or at least friends you want to get close to. But, thanks to a joke, gaming site Paddy Power turned it into something massive. In 2006, 195 strangers gathered for the Paddy Power World Strip Poker Championships, where one champion walked away with £10,000 and his clothes in one hand. This was the result of a joke about the tournament made by Paddy Power on April 1st of that year.

Despite the absurdity of the concept, many people were drawn to it. Obviously, because 195 of them showed up. The response was so overwhelming that they threw caution to the wind and held it for real, donating an additional £10,000 to charity to legitimize the whole thing. People had a good time, charities received funds, and the event set a Guinness World Record for the largest strip poker tournament ever.

• Website: flickr.com/photos/paddypower/1590098056

Do you know what a lilo is? It’s a trademarked term, but it’s also used as a general term for those inflatable, floating mattress-looking things you can use in a pool. In 2018, lingerie company Bravissimo made an April Fool’s joke about selling one that had built-in “cup-holders,” which is to say it was designed to accommodate women with larger breasts who wanted to be able to lay down on their stomachs on one. It was exactly the type of joke you’d expect from a lingerie company, but that’s not how it went over. Instead, they started getting serious inquiries from customers who actually wanted the product.

A few months later, the product was available for purchase on the company's website. Given that they're just inflatable beds, you'd think the overall design and production would be fairly simple, even if it was completely outside of the company's expertise. They were selling them for £25 each.

• Website: scarymommy.com/bravissimo-pool-float-for-boobs

Tesla has produced its own branded tequila, which comes in a lightning-bolt-shaped bottle, after inventor Elon Musk joked about the concept on April 1, 2018. On April Fools' Day 2018, the American entrepreneur claimed that Tesla had gone "absolutely and totally bankrupt," leaving him "passed out against a Tesla Model 3, surrounded by 'Teslaquilla' bottles, the tracks of dry tears still apparent on his face."

Six months later, Musk applied to the US Patent and Trademark Office to trademark "Teslaquila" and showed a visual of the bottle on Twitter, which was far more generic than the final product. Over two years after filing for the trademark, the drink has now been renamed Tesla Tequila and is now available for purchase on the brand's website for the hefty amount of $250.

The product is only available in a few locations in the United States and is housed in a hand-blown glass bottle shaped like a lightning bolt, which could be a reference to the company's electric cars. The Tesla Tequila appears to come with a metal stand that holds the bottle's pointed tip in place, allowing it to stand upright. According to the internet description, the tequila was matured in French oak barrels for 15 months and boasts a "dry fruit and subtle vanilla nose with a balanced cinnamon pepper finish." The Tesla Tequila is made by the agave spirits firm Nosotros Tequila, and the product is distributed by Speakeasy Co.

• Price: $250 per bottle
• Website: https://teslatequila.tesla.com/
  

The Barbara Bush/Aleister Crowley Conspiracy ranks 4th in the list of april fool’s jokes that became real things. Some rumors have a way of taking on their own lives. What begins as a joke grows into something bigger, and when you try to set the record straight, people refuse to believe you and believe that any truth is a conspiracy to cover up the "real" truth. That is how the story that former First Lady Barbara Bush was the daughter of the world's most evil man, occultist Aleister Crowley, began. In that sense, this entry isn't about something factually correct, but about something that became real in the minds of conspiracy theorists even when it was openly admitted to be nothing more than a joke.

This strange story begins with an April Fool's Day joke from a man named Joseph Cannon in 2006. He wrote the joke article based on the fact that he thought Crowley and Bush resembled each other, then waited to see if anyone contacted him to ask if it was true and what evidence he had. Nobody ever has. However, the story quickly spread and took on a life of its own. The joke evolved into a conspiracy theory and was featured in Crowley documentaries. It was even brought up by right-wing radio host Alex Jones. It's been translated into other languages and is still circulated on conspiracy and alleged "truth" websites today.

A few years ago, the principal of Briggs High School in Columbus, Ohio, made an April Fool's joke about getting students a therapy llama. Everyone was very excited until she told them it was a joke, at which point everyone became very upset and could have used a therapy llama. Why are there jokes about a therapy llama? That's probably a story for another time. The point is that it occurred, and then the rug was pulled out from under everyone who was invested in the concept.

Someone joked about getting a therapy dog a few years later during a Zoom meeting. Why do people keep making jokes about the need for therapy animals among the students at this school? Nobody knows. Nonetheless, the thought had returned. The principal suggested a bunny instead, and it just so happened that someone knew someone who was fostering a rabbit. The joke had suddenly become a reality, and the school had a week-long trial with a foster rabbit. The trial was successful, and the rabbit, named Briggsy, is now housed in a "calming room" where students can relax and interact with the rabbit. Everyone has overwhelmingly benefited from the rabbit.

Google Maps for NES ranks 6th in the list of april fool’s jokes that became real things. Google launched an April Fools' prank on Internet users over the weekend, transforming Google Maps into an 8-bit pixel world akin to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) or Family Computer that was popular in the 1980s. Google Maps (maps.google.com) users were greeted with a "Start Your Quest" box on the left side of the screen, where they could examine 8-bit landmarks, "be a hero and explore the environment," and "discover secret monsters." "Our Beta Maps technology, 8-bit Quest Maps, has specific system requirements. Your system may not fulfill the bare minimum for 8-bit computations "the notification stated.

However, choosing "Try it now" sends the user to a low-resolution, 8-bit world with controls reminiscent of the NES, famously known as the "Family Computer" in the Philippines 30 years ago. According to Mashable, the 8-bit version of Google Maps even temporarily went up last weekend, leading Reddit users to post world landmarks and historic places that could be viewed on the map.

• Website: hackaday.com/2021/09/02/google-maps-now-on-the-nes/

Some jokes are terrible and are intended to make you cringe or feel uneasy. For example, Wynkoop Brewery produced an April Fool's joke about a new beer they had developed, brewed with Rocky Mountain oysters, sometimes known as bull testicles. It sounds bad because, well, it does. Who would want it in their beer? Wynkoop couldn't leave well enough alone, and they actually carried out their evil plot, creating a real batch of Rocky Mountain Oyster Stout. It's made in small quantities of 8 barrels with roasted barley, seven specialty malts, and 25 pounds of sliced and roasted bull testicles.

The peculiarity drew a lot of attention from the press and attendees during the Great American Beer Festival. Consider it similar to those hot pepper challenges you've seen. People can't help but eat or drink anything that sounds disgusting. The oddest part? According to reports, the beer is delicious. Mathematically, those testicles had to cover just under 2,000 pints of beer, implying that each pint glass contains just over 1% testicle awesomeness, implying that the rest of the brew had to stand on its own, and evaluations were quite favourable.

• Address: 1634 18th Street Denver, CO 80202
  
• Contact: 303-297-2700
  
• Website: wynkoop.com/brewery/brew-blog/rocky-mountain-oyster-stout/
  

Pokemon Go, one of the most popular smartphone games in history, began as a Google joke. Back in 2014, the company's annual April Fool's hoax was to introduce Pokemon that you had to capture on Google Maps. People were so taken with the concept that Pokemon Go, an augmented reality game, was created as a result. Ditto will spawn in large numbers throughout the day, taking the form of numerous Pokémon. You might catch a different Pokémon only to have the game exclaim, "Oh?" and it turn into the pink blob. You can also acquire a single Field Research job from spinning Poké Stops: Capture three Transform Pokémon.

No one could have guessed how huge the prank would become when it was first played. The app went live in 2016 and earned more than $4 million on the first day. That amounted to $600 million at the end of three months. Numbers fell in 2017 and it appeared that the game was dying, but history demonstrates that this is not the case. In reality, in-app transactions will have reached $904 million by 2021. That's a great joke.

• Founded: July 6, 2016
• Platforms: iOS, Android, iPadOS
• Publisher: Niantic
  
• Website: https://pokemongolive.com/
  

Depending on where you reside, you may not be familiar with the Culver's restaurant franchise in the Midwest of the United States. They're perhaps best known for their butter burger, which is, of course, a burger with butter on top. They do, however, have a fondness for cheese, and cheese curds can be seen on the menu. In 2021, the firm joked on Twitter about a Curderburger, which was simply a huge cheese curd on a bun.

The joke became so popular that a petition was started to make it a reality, which 642 people signed. That was enough for Culver's to agree to make the burger a reality for just one day. And it worked perfectly. The company reported that 20% of locations broke single day sales records as a result of the Curderburger becoming a reality. In Wisconsin they were selling Curderburgers at three times the rate of normal burgers.

Street Fighter has sold 47 million units globally and is worth billions of dollars, according to Capcom. It was so popular that it spawned a film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, which you should definitely never watch. The key is that it is significant. And it was so popular in 1992 that when publications published rumors about a secret character named Sheng Long, fans were ecstatic at the prospect of playing as him.

The entire humor began with a translation error. When characters win in the arcade version of the game, they say different things. "You must overcome Sheng Long to stand a chance," Ryu said. It was simply a mistranslation of "if you cannot overcome the Rising Dragon Punch, you cannot win!" Shenlong or sheng long approximately translates to "god dragon" in simplified Chinese.

Electronic Gaming Monthly capitalized on this by publishing a story in their April Fool's issue about how to locate Sheng Long. It entailed winning the game several times while never receiving damage; a difficult task. Other publications repeated it because it came from a reliable source. A legend was created. The stories and jokes persisted for several years until Capcom officially introduced a character named Gouken in Street Fighter IV, who looked precisely like Sheng Long had been described in the past and also had his backstory.

• Founded: August 1987
• Platform: Arcade, multiple platforms
• Website: https://www.streetfighter.com/en/