“The First Joke”… In Three Years. APRIL FOOLS 2023!

Jonathon Svendsen

2 years ago

Well, friends, another April Fools has come and gone. If you don’t know what it is, learn about it here.
For those of us who write for website such as this, April Fools is pretty much our version of decorating for Christmas or Halloween. Something fun to break the monotony of what we do and just have fun. And in some cases see if maybe, just maybe, we can fool you. We’ve done it before, and did it so well that we made the front page of Cinefantastique, and even found ourselves linked Wikipedia page for the character of Eustace they actually had our announcement of Zach Efron being cast in the role. Or, even better, as is the case of our 2018 joke when we announced that the next Narnia movie would be a Netflix original movie, the joke actually came to fruition. As we like to say in the Dancing Lawn Forums on the “Give the Movie Makers Silly Ideas” thread, if the filmmakers are going to make silly ideas, they may as well take ours!

So, to clarify:

First: Insomuch as we know Netflix is still developing a Narnia series. What life it will take ( animated or live action) or what in order they will be produced is unknown. Thus, Tremblay, Sermon, Kingsley, Gadot, Abraham et. all have NOT been cast.

In fact some key hints to the veracity of this news were hidden on the poster. First, Paul Martin ( Specter) and I were listed as Executive Producers, a role that to the best of my knowledge we have not been offered. Second an obvious Space Balls reference, “If You Can Read This, You Don’t Need Glasses” followed by the disclaimer “But Seriously, Paul and I hope you enjoyed the first April Fool’s joke we’ve done in three years.

Second: There will NOT be a Telmarine spin-off series focusing on a young Prince Caspian and Baby Reepicheep. Believe it or not, Paul and I have had that one sitting in the hopper since early February of 2020, and it was inspired by Baby Yoda Mania.

For those of you keeping track at home, that means the last time we did our annual April Fools jokes, it was 2019. We had been excited to have another go at April Fools jokes, looking forward to all sorts of madcap tomfoolery we could have.

And then the whole world spiraled out of control with the Covid-19 Pandemic.

With the start of the pandemic, Paul and I both felt that it just didn’t feel right to do silly news stories, especially when so many projects were shelved, delayed or cancelled. Then 2021 and 2022 were just as bad.

It reached a point where I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d do another April Fools joke again, but if I did, it had to be something really special, something fun, and more importantly something that if I read it for myself and knew I hadn’t wrote it, I might just believe it.

Nothing seemed to come, at least until I was watching Marvel’s Moon Knight series and I noticed how much the voice of Khonsu sounded like Liam Neeson as Aslan.

The light bulb went on and I decided, why not use my own fan cast choices as an April Fools joke? I messaged Paul my idea and he loved it. Low and behold the joke took form. I honestly felt like I hadn’t this much fun writing a joke in a long time. In fact we had so much fun, we decided to dig up our Baby Reepicheep piece. But, not too much fun. Lets face it, I’m pretty sure we’ll never have a repeat of the year we tried to do a record total of seven April Fools jokes on one day.

That’s it for this year, and as I said, I hope you guys enjoyed them. I know Paul and I had a lot of fun writing them. Will there be an April Fools 2024 for NarniaFans?

Well, you’ll just have to wait and see….

And remember “keep your computer close, but your calendar closer” for all the latest and the greatest on Narnia related news.

Check out the links below to see our previous April Fools Fun.

2019:

2018:

2017:

2016:

2015:

2014:

2013:

2012:

The Muppets in Narnia Special is Coming!

2011:

2010:

2009:

2008: