According to the Boston Globe 100+ is the number of panicked Milton residents who called authorities on the evening of April 1, 1980, after a Channel 7 news report that 635-foot Great Blue Hill was erupting?—?complete with archival clips of flowing lava from Mount St. Helens and President Carter and Governor Ed King expressing worry; the program’s producer is fired on April 2. You can find “April Fools’ Day pranks: The good, the bad, and the ugly” here.
A more benign April Fool’s joke than the supposed eruption of Big Blue: A message from Santa Claus -” Because Milton had this winter a fantastic snowfall, one for the storybooks, I have decided to relocate to near the Weather Observatory. So please look for me, my reindeer and elves next December.”
There was a sad coda to that April Fool’s eruption of the Big Blue Hill Volcano story of April 1,1980
As happens all too often in the broadcast industry the then owners and management of Channel 7, General Tire & Rubber Company – RKO General, blamed the low person on the totem pole. They fired the producer of that news segment.
As a person who was in that industry readers should know that nothing gets on radio or television with being filtered through many management if not corporate levels.
Very simply, the then WNAC – TV Channel 7, made a scapegoat of this producer and ended his career. You can find more information and this person’s name which I will not mention here in Google search.
This is NO April Fool’s joke but it does define the often questionable ethics of the broadcast industry