Hulu Takes You Back To 1996 For April Fools' Day 2011

Hulu is looking a little retro today.

For April Fools', Hulu has turned back the clock to 1996, a time of grainy photos, dial-up modems, website counters, and basic text.

Hulu.com opens with a photo--which loads in pieces--of Mulder and Scully from the X-Files. "NEW" in hot-green text and all caps flashes at the top of the screen. A neon page counter (it appears to be stuck at 54) and an invitation to "Sign our Guestbook" appear at the bottom of the page. There are even shoutouts to Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, and Geocities.

"Our place in the Geocities neighborhood is under construction. Build your own site on Geocities, the best spot for fanpages on the World Wide Web!" Hulu's retro site exclaims, with a note, "Best Viewed in Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer at 1024x768."

Check out a screenshot below, or see it for yourself here, then take a look at the pranks from Google, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

LOOK:

Comments

[thedigitaldork]

06:07 PM on 04/01/2011

Has anyone seen what happens if you watch an embedded Hulu video today?

[Blues02]

02:47 PM on 04/01/2011

The dial up noise kills me every time.

[Greg Olotka]

11:59 AM on 04/01/2011

The little digging guy still rules.

[TFDNYC]

11:55 AM on 04/01/2011

Haha. I was wondering what the hell was wrong with Hulu this morning. I totally fell for it and thought I was part of an A-B test or something. Good one.

[CaptainObvvious]

11:49 AM on 04/01/2011

Awesome!

I remember the internet from back in these early days... In fact seeing a site this nice would have been surprising.

Great gag!

[Greg Olotka]

12:00 PM on 04/01/2011

I looked younger and more up to date in 1996, while the opposite holds true for most websites.

[JasonMcl]

11:34 AM on 04/01/2011

This was hilarious. I spent the morning watching REM music videos.

[J0E1]

10:05 AM on 04/01/2011

That is exactly what my web page used to look like.  Oh the good old days where you had an animated construction workers digging to show that your page was still under construction.  Guestbooks were always a good time too.