April Fools 2008 - Shut Down for Copyright Infringement


This one was good - a bit similar to the previous years, but done at a very different angle. I spent a few days building this one up on the forum about how I was stressed out over something (without ever saying exactly what it was). And then on March 31st... cheating I know... SP.com was suddenly shut down due to "copyright infringement" over the name "ShowBiz Pizza" which was said to be owned by CEC. A rather irritated note was posted on the homepage about the harassment by corporate CEC and an attempt to rally the fans against the impending lawsuit.

Then on April 1st, the forum was changed over to appear as though it was being controlled by corporate CEC - all of our members remained intact, but the admins and mods were removed and Dick Frank and Mike Magusiak were put in as the new staff. It seems goofy to think back on it, but I think that the joke falling before April Fools caught people off guard. As laughed at in the Podcast Episode above, people were pissed about it before they knew it was a joke. Actually Michael Hill who works at CEC's home office almost fell for it too, but his curiosity got the best of him and he actually walked across the building and asked CEC's legal dept if any of it was true, LOL.

Ok I admit we cheated on this one, but after so many years of practical jokes it was getting hard (if not impossible) to trick our senior members. So we bent the rules this one time, but it was so worth it. You'd think that we learned our lesson after this...