Wasn’t too hard to spot…Every year I hunt for them, but this time it stuck out like a sore thumb…I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t recieved their issue yet.
\
Thanks as it will be a couple of weeks before I get my April issue. And they are usually pretty good.
If the gag is what I think it is (haven’t pored through the magazine in great detail yet), then… let’s just say I’ve seen better. A few years ago they had a good one about an upside-down layout mounted on the ceiling using static electricity or something (photo included). Then more recently they had a good one about a “five-fingered” control system (I forget what they called it - “5DC” maybe?).
I’m just glad they don’t put the gag into a “serious” article on weathering or modeling that would lead to a modeling disaster for the hapless victim(s). Like if they ran a how-to article about removing lettering on a plastic model using acetone-based nail polish remover… that would be bad.
Got my April issue on the 1st day of March here in Oz, so I didn’t even think of an April fools joke. Not as subtle as some previous ones, but just as good.
Ah…I looked at it and thought ‘gee, that’s odd’…Call me gullible until I read…
Few days ago I was reading the older magazines I take to work for the slow times. (I read a lot) I came across the DCC 5 article, after a few lines I was going what the heck? I flipped to the cover, it was April issue from last year. Did have me going for a little while.
Cuda Ken
In my opinion, the weakest April Fool’s joke yet. Then again, with some of the modeling I’ve seen presented on various sites’ weekend photo threads, I guess the piece could have actually been taken seriously!
Years ago MR produced a number of really clever April Fool’s pieces, including their very well thought out lunar layout. That one was so well done and convincing that some hobbyists took it seriously and actual built examples! In fact, as I recall one of these, done by a teenager, won a local, or regional, science fair competition.
CNJ831
I agree, but then again I could do with out ever seeing another April Fool’s joke in MR.
Sheldon
Shoot, I was gonna make some of those “lily trees”…
Y’know… That article got me scratching my head at face value… A paragraph in though you have to admit it was pretty good tongue in cheek…
As some of you know I’m a writer, fiction mostly, though I do some serious work too… I guess its a good time to point out that I’m an accountant by profession, writing is more of a sadistic habit that generates a little cash to buy trains with…\
The most conveincing April Fools Joke I ever read was in the Wheelersburg Gazette, from Marietta Ohio… In 1996 or 97 the owner wrote a piece about Nazi Submarine being found in the Ohio River… It was so well done, and checked out- I mean Operaton Pastorious was real… I read it and got on the phone. All the facts checked out, and the dredger that supposedly found it was working another section of River, and the “Sub” was an old barge ballast.
Got me thinking enough to outline a novel and get some reasearch going…
Sometimes April Fools aint all bad.
“Sometimes a little nonsense is relished by the wisest man,”- Willie Wonka
Oh, was that it? I was thinking it was something else. I suspected the “flower trees” article at first, but after reading the banana article, I decided the flower trees article was legitimate… a little off-the-wall, but legitimate because apparently some guy out there actually did this, put it on his layout, and wrote an article about it. If this is the gag, it would have been more effective as a gag if MR had touted it as a new technique for making super-realistic trees instead of a “show and tell” piece.
I actually thought a couple of those trees looked fairly realistic enough. The tulip trees looked like those tall Mediterranean hedges that some country clubs have along their driveways. But some of the other trees looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book or an old Looney Tunes cartoon. I’d personally pass on that scenery technique, but hey, to each his own.
Actually I didn’t catch the joke when I first flipped through - why? Because some of those trees looked like the ones Bachmann & Lifelike used to sell (and which I brought - ugh) in the 1970s…
Gosh - THAT was it?
[:I][:I][:I]
Did not see it…
My favorite was the “NoTracks Modules” that they did about 10 years or so ago.
I was the same - I saw the Trains of Thought picture w/ the hand holding a banana on the railroad tracks, and though maybe this was supposed to be some new method of cleaning track.
Remember last year’s April issue - there was an article on using cotton or wool or something to model clouds - I hate to say it, but it looked silly and I thought that was the parody article …until people started noting that the parody was the Trains of Thought article with Tony switching scales.
Finally, remember the ‘rail to trails’ parody article years back - now it’s become de-rigueur to include abandoned ROW on modern layouts it seems.
The Pressurized Basement article was a classic.
It actually wasn’t too far off…I have used a lot of backyard stuff for tree making…especially Sedum.
I think my favorite was in the 80’s when they claimed that a “well-known model coupler manufacturer” had been contracted to build full-scale magnetic couplers for the real railroad. The kicker was that when they were moving the uncoupling magnets on a flatcar, they flew up and stuck to the underside of a bridge. they had me rolling on that one. [:)]
I also didn’t catch that it was a joke. I just thought it was another of those bad filler articles they put in from time to time. Wonder what it says when we can’t tell the joke from the regular content? Is it all a joke? Will I wake up to find Linn Wescott is still the editor and there’s a John Allen article in the next issue?
It was pretty obvious (even without reading the writer’s name and location) from the Dr. Seuss tree. I thought it was OK. Not the best but clever.