Fail: Ely announces April Fools' joke a day early

Photo by DigNature

Do these folks look like natural comedians? Nope.

As if a small Minnesota town could get any more unfunny. The little town of Ely thought they had come up with a real April Fools' knee slapper. Unfortunately they announced it a day early and quickly told everyone it was a just a joke. Don't these people know how April Fool jokes work?

In their clever joke, the city pretended for about five minutes that they were applying to host the Olympics and would likely overtake Chicago as the U.S. contender for the spot in 2016. Right. The Star Tribune reported the fake news as fake, saying promoters in the town were going to "submit its paperwork immediately to the International Olympic Committee, finalizing its bid for the 2016 Olympics."

"We missed the first deadline for the bid by a couple of years, but we are optimistic," Roger Skraba, Ely's mayor, in a news release that should more accurately be labeled a "ruse release."

"Our 1.3 million acres of untouched wilderness is beyond compare," Skraba went on, "so there's plenty of room for Ely to host thousands of athletes and more than a million visitors, and we have lots of space for the facilities."

Last year, the city said Canada was trying to buy them. We hope that last year they actually announced the joke on the correct day.