Every Tuesday On some day that ends with ‘y’, Ben brings you the creative endeavors that should get put on a ship a-cross the sea (all alone).

This week: Extraterrestrial April Fool’s jokes are sooooo over.

“Now Ben,” you say. “Surely you’re not uncouth enough to suggest—in this liberated and forward-thinking forum, no less—that censorship could somehow be beneficial.” I shake your hand conciliatorily and cackle as a Joy Buzzer fulfills its terrible purpose, “When an entire day of my life is wasted parsing weak jokes by companies, news organizations and jackholes like you, I must regrettably present A Case for Censorship…“

April 1st came and went once again. Perhaps you noticed? The denizens of every media outlet, commercial entity and probably the cubicles next to yours decreed that you should be assaulted with half-cocked jokes, hoaxes and parodies for 24 hours.

[old-timey AHH-OOOOOGAAAAHHHH car horn]

As with pretty much everything, this was at its worst on the internet. Slate was even forced to guide you in recognizing humorless fake crap (Note: many of Slate’s examples are actually funny, but have led to the current sad, oversaturated situation).

[whistling noise, sound of anvil comically meeting skull]

But seriously, folks (not really). I think public shaming is necessary to convince everyone that lame April Fool’s jokes are not acceptable. You really need to dig in and cause some damage to make hilarious impact these days. I suggest trolling YouTube, finding the most dangerously harebrained middle school experiment, cranking it up a few notches and converting it into a large-scale prank for the ages. We need more ‘buttered floors’ and less ‘pansy phony press releases’, people. Maybe next year the main offenders could use a little prodding to make them realize the error of their ways?

[gong crash]

This Year: Fresh from pretending they’re going to the moon, Google demanded your laughter be directed at a fake attempt to colonize Mars. They even managed to convince Virgin’s Richard Branson to be part of a conceptually muddy, hastily-realized idea that falls apart after two seconds of consideration. That must have been tough.

Next Year’s Solution: A fake PMRC lawsuit (alternate title: Tipper Lives!) claims that a moody teenager committed suicide after reading the sixth result on the sixth Google search page six times backwards.

This Year: The BBC jumped on the penguin train a little late. (The advertising world recently decided ’sasquatch’ is the new ‘penguin’, which was once the new ‘bear’.)

Next Year’s Solution: A twisted reversal of the classic “War of the Worlds” broadcast convinces the entire BBC machine that—despite George Bush’s ouster—America’s colonial impulses continue to blossom. Reports of crazed US soldiers spouting circa-1815 anti-British slogans pour into field offices across the world. Millions of UK citizens, previously notified of the ruse, dryly raise their right eyebrow with a nervous chuckle.

This Year: That weird guy in HR tried to send you the YouTube ‘Featured Video’ RickRoll four more times after you told him to stop.

Next Year’s Solution: Every hour, on the hour, several million C&D leaflets are dropped over YouTube headquarters. Each one is signed “Stabbily yours, Michael Eisner” in what appears to be blood. Hidden cameras record the panicked response which is then edited, sped up, set to “Yakety Sax” and seeded on YouTube.

[classic Fozzie "wokka wokka"]