1. 1990s Hulu — Going the retro route for April Fools’ isn’t new, but Hulu definitely kicked it up a notch. The home screen is reminiscient of the days when websites weren’t as plentiful and using HTML with <blink> was a cool new thing to use. What’s more, when you view a video, you get the old-school 56k modem sound and animation before the video loads.
2. Shout! Factory releases Guiding Light – The Complete Series — When this link was sent my way, I thought, “How funny could this really be?” Then it hit me: Guiding Light was on TV for 72 freakin’ years! For a mere $45k, you could own the above-pictured shipping container of DVDs for the entire series. Clocking in at over 11,000 hours, that’s only 1.2 continuous years of your life to catch up on it all.
3. YouTube 1911 — Not to be outdone by Hulu, YouTube enabled 1911 mode on most of their videos. Click the button at the bottom-right of the video player and it gives the video the silent movie treatment, complete with scratchy video and ragtime piano. Have a look while it lasts.
4. ABC’s new programming — ABC used April Fools’ to rather cleverly promote existing programming, with such gems as White Castle, Body of 90 Proof, and Dancing with the Stars … featuring Watson the Jeopardy computer! Hey, at least Nathan Fillion has something to go to, now that his shows been canceled (yeah, that’s a joke too).
5. The Aurors — “What happened to Harry Potter after the final book,” you ask? Well, FX is going to show you, with this new series coming July 2011. I have to give the creator credit — this was rather well produced. Part of me laughed most at how I’m sure some people think Ronald D. Moore’s 17th Precinct is going to be a hell of a lot like this. After reading the pilot script myself … it might not be too far off the mark.
Got any favorites I missed? Let’s see them in the comments!
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on Apr 01, 2011 @ 22:21 EST5EDT
Oh yeah, that was a shot across RDM’s bow alright.
Oh, I don’t know. I doubt the creators of the parody were even thinking about RDM.
That being said, if ever there was an opportunity to spin the Harry Potter world off into a marketable television show, with or without original characters, this would totally be it.