While Batboy still lives in the form of an off-Broadway musical, I miss seeing his face on the cover of the tabloid Weekly World News, alongside the supermarket checkout counter.

Now an online publication, Weekly World News never confused its readers by trying to be anything other than off-the-charts zany.  PhD Ape and the friendly underwater Nessy-like monster known as Kraken were fictitious and fun.  It’s the same model that works well for the Onion, which still thrives as an ink-and-paper parody periodical.

Where things start to get as hairy as another Weekly World News cast member, Bigfoot, is when an organization respected for publishing the truth strays from the mission — even  in the name of comedy.  April Fool’s Day is the day the shananagans usually happen.

As a former editor of the Utica College Tangerine, I know how much fun it is to create an entire issue of phony articles, photos and ads.  But when we re-branded the weekly the Gangerine each year on April 1, we inoculated ourselves against anyone claiming they were confused over what was true and what was concocted.

Not so when a fake item — like a press release — is presented as fact.

Because the feeds of commercial wire services like PR Newswire and Business Wire are pumped directly to the hundreds of thousands of equities terminals of Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters and Dow Jones and to media web sites, there is a great deal of anxiety about fake press releases.  Bogus content can tarnish the editorial reputation of those  media brands as well as those who issued April Fool’s releases during a lapse of judgment.

That’s the reason why hoax releases are routinely rejected, even when they are well written and presented by organizations with deep pockets and good intentions.  It’s not personal.  History has shown that a gullible public and inexperienced journalists can lead to embarrassment.

Fast food companies seem to be particularly fond of generating press through hoaxes.  In 1996, Taco Bell announced via full-page ads and a press release that it had purchased the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Citizens and politicians went ballistic, saying that a national symbol of U.S. freedom should not be sold.  The restaurant chain issued a follow-up release a few hours later saying the whole story had been a practical joke.

Other fast-food and beverage chains have tried to match Taco Bell’s creativity.  Burger King routinely uses April Fool’s Day to create buzz, through full-page newspaper ads and other tactics.  One heralded the introduction of the left-handed Whopper sandwich, and another followed the Mad Cow Disease tainted beef scare and claimed the chain’s name was changing to Chicken King.

As someone who has had to reject releases submitted by PR agency execs and their eager clients, I emphasized that the individuals digesting press releases were not always able to discern fact from fiction.  Unless an issuer was willing to make it clear that the entire press release was a parody, there was a chance it would be taken seriously by an unwary consumer, investor or reporter.  The brand reputation of a newswire service was more important that the potential loss of revenue by refusing to distribute a hoax press release.

I wish I could say that every hoax story was caught before it went out.  But that would be stretching the truth.

The press secretary for the acting governor of Pennsylvania, Mark Schweiker announced on April 1, 2002, that he had changed his mind and decided to run for a full term.  The tongue-in-cheek release included clues that it was a hoax, including a campaign manager named April Phuels and a quote from Schweiker’s wife saying she did not want to leave the governor’s mansion because the bed sheets were delightfully soft.   The Schweiker release was “killed,” a newswire service term for alerting media not to use a story, within a few minutes of transmission.

Business Wire sued the individuals behind a phony 1999 press release that claimed a company called Webnode had been granted a government contract to regulate ownership of portions of the Internet.

Some pranks have proceeded without setbacks, primarily because broadcast or print outlets were willing parties to the April Fool’s jokes.  These three are courtesy of the Museum of Hoaxes:

• In 2004, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered announced that the post office had begun a new ‘portable zip codes’ program. This program, inspired by an FCC ruling that allowed phone users to take their phone number with them when they moved, would allow people to also take their zip code with them when they moved, no matter where they moved to. It was hoped that with this new program zip codes would come to ymbolize “a citizen’s place in the demographic, rather than geographic, landscape.” Assistant Postmaster General Lester Crandall was quoted as saying, “Every year millions of Americans are on the go: People who must relocate for work or other reasons. Those people may have been quite attached to their original homes or an adopted town or city of residence. For them this innovative measure will serve as an umbilical cord to the place they love best.”

• In 2000, Miller Beer announced that it had struck an agreement with the town of Marfa, Texas to become the exclusive sponsor of the phenomenon known as the Marfa Mystery Lights. These are spherical lights which appear south of the town each evening, seeming to bounce around in the sky. They’re variously rumored to be caused by ghosts, swamp gas, or uranium (though they’re probably caused by the headlights from the nearby highway). Miller announced that under the terms of the agreement the Marfa Lights would be renamed the Miller Lites. The local paper, which was in on the joke, printed the news on its front page.

• In 1999 the Savings Bank of Rockville placed an ad in the Connecticut Journal-Inquirer announcing that it would soon begin charging a $5 fee to customers who visited a live teller. The ad, which appeared on March 31, claimed that the fee was necessary in order to provide, “professional, caring and superior customer service.” Although the ad was a joke, many customers failed to recognize it as such. One woman reportedly closed her account because of it. The bank then ran a second ad revealing that the initial ad was a joke. The bank manager commented that the first ad ironically “commits us to not charging such fees.”

• In 1996, Virgin Cola announced that in the interest of consumer safety it had integrated a new technology into its cans. When the cola passed its sell-by date, the liquid would react with the metal in the can, turning the can itself bright blue. Virgin warned that consumers should therefore avoid purchasing all blue cans. The joke was that Pepsi had recently unveiled its newly designed cans. They were bright blue.