While the exact origin of April Fool’s Day remains unclear, the annual celebration has long commenced on April 1 with a focus on playing practical jokes and spreading hoaxes. Pop culture often utilizes April Fool’s Day as a theme for books, films, and television episodes, as well as the perfect opportunity to publish fake stories. In 1997, several comic strip writers and artists orchestrated a massive practical joke. How much do you know about this prank?
On April Fool’s Day 1997, without the foreknowledge of their editors, numerous cartoonists traded strips for the day. Known as the Comic Strip Switcheroo, this practical joke was masterminded by Baby Blues comic strip creators Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott. Considered one of the greatest switcheroos, 46 syndicated artists participated with a variety of “switches” implemented. Some of these switches were one for one with Mike Peters trading with Lynn Johnston, Scott Adams with Bil Keane, Jeff MacNelly with Mort Walker, and so on. Others saw several comics doing a multiple swap, including a 13-way swap, Kevin Fagan simply swapped hands for the day, while the writer and artist for Sally Forth swapped duties for the day.
There were no rules to speak of with each artist permitted to do whatever they wanted. Among the comic strips involved in the swap were 9 Chickweed Lane, Baby Blues, Beetle Bailey, Blondie, Dennis the Menace, Dilbert, Ernie, Family Circus, Garfield, Hägar the Horrible, Jump Start, Mother Goose and Grimm, Non Sequitur, Nancy, One Big Happy, Pickles, Rose is Rose, Reality Check, Sherman’s Lagoon, Speed Bump, Stone Soup, Tank McNamara, and Zippy the Pinhead. This one-day prank proved to be a success, gaining attention as being a harmless yet amusing prank played on the newspapers, the readers, and the comic syndicates.
Today, characters making guest appearances in other comic strips is not an unusual occurrence, but this was the most ambitious in scale. During the swap, one of the more hilarious switches saw Jason Fox of FoxTrot dressed as Luke Skywalker in a fight against Darth Vader who later reveals himself to be Nancy. A few years after the Switcheroo, FoxTrot’s Bill Amend made a Sunday strip in which Jason, Andy, Roger, and Peter Fox exchanged looks. The strip referenced such comics as Cathy, Hägar the Horrible, The Boondocks, Doonesbury, Baby Blues, and Calvin and Hobbes.
Such a massive Comic Strip Switcheroo has never been attempted again, but pop culture continues to use April Fool’s as a guise for unveiling information. Tread carefully on April Fool’s Day, you never know what’s real and what’s a switcheroo in the making.
