Readers often ask me where I get my ideas for articles. Sometimes it’s accidental. I frequently am looking through old microfilm of the daily papers for something and find something else on a nearby page.
That’s what happened while I was searching for information on Sears Pearlridge, which I wrote about last month. I came across a story about Lucky Luck and Hal Lewis ("J. Akuhead Pupule") playing an April Fools joke on the listening public. They were both local morning deejays at different radio stations.
On one particular April First, they came to work, greeted their listeners and put on long-playing records. (Remember those?)
They then got in their cars and drove to each other’s stations, where they took over the other’s program. Listeners were perplexed. What was Lucky Luck doing on K-59? Did somebody switch my radio channel?
It reminded me of other pranks that Aku and others pulled.
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Perhaps Aku’s greatest April Fools prank came in 1983. This time, KSSK’s general manager, Earl McDaniel, came up with the idea for Aku to promote an Easter parade all week long.
"Magnum, P.I." star Tom Selleck, Gov. George Ariyoshi and many Easter Bunnies would walk down Ala Moana Boulevard, turn right on Kalakaua Avenue and make their way to Kapiolani Park, Aku told them. Hundreds turned out to watch with beach chairs and coolers.
That day, Aku played recordings of marching bands, and reporters described the floats and procession.
Those waiting on the street saw nothing but cars passing by. Many called the station in anger. One woman said her young daughter cried when she told her there would be no Easter Bunnies.
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Another of Aku’s April Fools stunts took place in 1954. Aku told his listeners at 7 a.m. that Congress had approved statehood for Hawaii.
In the next hour Aku provided further details. The bill would repeal islanders’ income taxes and return whatever we had paid in 1953. Information could be found in the day’s papers.
Residents spread the news like wildfire. They scoured the papers over and over for a mention of the tax refund and found none. The Internal Revenue Service, radio stations and newspapers were swamped with telephone calls for details.
Remember, this was 1954. There were no 24-hour news stations on TV. There was no Google to check.
Then the story took a twist. At 8 a.m. the general manager of the station, Bryson Ross Gardner, apologized for the hoax and fired Aku as of tomorrow!
"Let’s make it today," an angry Aku retorted.
Again the station was flooded with phone calls, this time protesting Aku’s firing.
Turns out, that was a prank, too. The general manager was actually Aku’s associate Buck Buchwach (who once worked for The Honolulu Advertiser). The whole thing had been Buchwach’s idea, Aku said at 9 a.m. April Fools!
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The uproar over that April Fools tax refund prank had an unintended consequence. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin had been running April Fools pranks since the 1930s, and called them off because of Aku. They never resumed.
Most of them involved a Norwegian scientist called Dr. Thorkel Gellison of the Loof Lirpa (read it backward) Society.
In 1950 Gellison reported that a "flying saucer" had crash-landed on the slopes of Punchbowl. He said the news "rocked official Washington to its heels." A 14-plane convoy of gliders was bringing every Pentagon scientist and space expert to Hawaii, it was said.
Local authorities clamped a tight lid of secrecy on the situation, Gellison said, but Star-Bulletin photographer B.R. Trebe managed to sneak in and get a good shot of the 30-foot-diameter saucer. It made front-page news.
Nearby resident Anderson J. Gibloof said he heard a "loud humming noise, saw a blue light flashing through the murky dawn sky, then heard a crash on the hillside."
Hawaii ham radio operators, believing the story, spread it all over the world.
When asked if there was anything odd about this happening on April 1, Gellison said, "Any fool can plainly see there is."
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The same day, the Army pranked the public as well. A news report on the front page of the newspaper said a military truck driving near Diamond Head Crater took a wrong turn and found itself in a lava tube. The tube led all the way to the outskirts of Hilo! The truck was driven by Pvt. K.O. Kapu, based at Fort Ruger, the report said.
Legislators quickly drafted a law making it a territorial highway.
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On April 1, 1936, Gellison said construction workers unearthed an ancient Viking vessel out of the sands of Waimanalo. It caused a sensation in the archeological world, establishing that Norsemen were here as early as the 13th century.
The vessel was 78 feet long and 16 feet wide and made with overlapping planks of oak, fastened together with iron rivets and wooden pins. Sixteen oarsmen on each side provided propulsion in addition to a sail.
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In 1952 Gellison was the first to discover the newest Hawaiian island, which he named Aipana. "It rose from the sea 4 miles southeast of the Big Island today," he told the Honolulu Rotary Club.
The volcanic island abounded in jadeite, Gellison said, and 17 Honolulu jewelers became wealthy overnight by flying to the island and harvesting an estimated $750,000 worth of the highly prized gem.
Volcanologists believed the new island was squeezed out of lava tubes beneath the ocean, off the village of Kalapana.
Gellison said he named it Aipana because "it lies off Kalapana, and I found it." Star-Bulletin photographer Yar Burystans captured an image of the new island from a helicopter.
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In some of his pranks, Gellison has a Chinese assistant named Ah Gwan. One particular April First, the two sighted an iceberg off Waikiki. The Norwegian and his assistant drove a Fjord amphibious truck out to inspect it. They argued about what to do with it.
Towing it to Helsinki was one possibility. For some reason, they didn’t consider making the world’s largest shave ice out of it! That would have been my choice.
Bob Sigall, author of the "Companies We Keep" books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.
