The Press: April Fool

When they got their first copies of the April Pageant, several newsstand distributors wired the circulation director to complain that the issue seemed to be all fouled up. On the cover was a pretty girl, but she was also on the back cover, only upside down, and with four eyes and four eyebrows. Inside Pageant were six pages (also upside down) revealing the sensational now-it-can-be-told story of "Garson Inconnu, the four-year-old who helped build the atom bomb," and other startling tales. On the other 156 pages of the magazine were conventional, right-side-up pictures and stories.

The weird make-up and atom story were...