April Fool’s Day: Tampa airport, Sunken Gardens and more play local pranks
Tampa International Airport enlisted the image of Phoebe, its beloved giant flamingo art installation, for an April Fool’s Day prank on its social media accounts on Monday.
A flamingo also played a part in a joke the city of St. Petersburg posted on April Fool’s Day, about a new image for its historic Sunken Gardens.
The airport posted pictures of Phoebe, the 21-foot flamingo that became a viral hit as an art installation after it was first put up in 2022 in its main terminal. The pictures seemingly caught Phoebe at various iconic locations around Tampa Bay. She was seen poking her head out of an Ybor City trolley car, peeking in the windows at Amalie Arena and popping up on the beach.
On Monday, the airport posted “breaking news” that their giant flamingo was on the loose.
“Phoebe escaped her enclosure at 8:47 AM and has been spotted throughout the Tampa Bay area,” a post said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Flamingo recovery efforts are underway. If you see something, say something.”
Also on Monday, puzzle fans found emojis instead of words at the New York Times games site for the popular Connections puzzle. The game typically has 16 words, and players aim to group four related words together. Instead of words, on Monday there were emojis of a train, bacon and space alien among the matchup choices.
In St. Petersburg, the city’s social media account announced a new look for Pinky the flamingo that represents the city-owned Sunken Gardens attraction. It had pictures of the flamingo in face paint and a mohawk and edgy sunglasses for its “new and improved logo.”
“Pinky the Flamingo is fierce, spirited, and one-of-a-kind... everything the gardens represent,” the post said.
A few hours later, the city account said, “APRIL FOOLS, but we weren’t kidding about the rebrand.” It then posted pictures of the new Sunken Gardens logo, merchandise and updated website.
Tampa Bay businesses and organizations have a long history of playing lighthearted pranks on April Fool’s Day. In 2016, Tampa Theatre announced that then-presidential candidate Donald Trump had purchased the historic movie house, adding in the takeover announcement, “I’m not sure what this means for our inclusion in the ‘Historic Buildings For Bernie’ Facebook group.”
That year also saw prank posts by Coppertail Brewing in Tampa that advertised a new product, Free Dive flavored toothpaste that is ”5.9% ABV, just like the beer.” And Tampa’s Mini Doughnut Factory announced new mustard and sriracha-covered doughnuts.
Skatepark of Tampa once announced on April Fool’s Day that its whole store was a dollar, making SPOT “skateboarding’s first dollar store.” But they topped themselves in 2012, when they issued a press release on April 1 announcing that rapper and skateboarding fan Lil Wayne had purchased a controlling interest in the legendary park.
That joke was almost believable since the artist has a long history of professing his love for the park, stopping by there many times over the years to skate after hours. He also regularly shows up to check out professional skaters there at the annual Tampa Pro competition, which gets under way this week starting Thursday. So be on the lookout for Weezy.
