The Taco Liberty Bell was an April Fool's Day joke played by fast food restaurant chain Taco Bell on April 1, 1996. Taco Bell took out a full-page advertisement in seven leading U.S. newspapers announcing that the company had purchased the Liberty Bell to "reduce the country's debt" and renamed it the "Taco Liberty Bell".[1] The ad was created by Jon Parkinson and Harvey Hoffenberg who worked at Bozell, the Taco Bell advertising agency at the time, and went on to win several industry awards. Thousands of people had called Taco Bell headquarters and the National Park Service before it was revealed at noon the same day that the story was a joke.[2][3] White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry responded that the federal government was also "selling the Lincoln Memorial to Ford Motor Co. and renaming it the Lincoln-Mercury Memorial".[4][5]
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Lerouxwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Sara Steindorf (March 30, 2004). "Historic Hoaxes". Kidspace. The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 2008-01-18.
- ^ (2 April 1996). April Fool's Day ad a real ringer, Eugene Register-Guard (Associated Press)
- ^ Boese, Alex (2002). "The Taco Liberty Bell". Museum of Hoaxes. Retrieved 2007-04-01.
- ^ (2 April 1996). Taco Bell's April Fools' hoax goes awry, Lawrence Journal-World (Hearst newspapers)