2016 ended with one more celebrity death, and 2017 got off to a horrible start in Turkey, but it’s good to know that in times like these (only 19 days to the Trumpocalypse!) there are still people willing to do anything for a joke. On New Year’s Eve pranksters in Los Angeles changed the famous HOLLYWOOD sign to read ‘HOLLYWeeD’. The sign is not damaged – the jokers just covered up parts of the ‘O’ letters. Police are treating the incident as an act of ‘minor trespass’ according to the BBC. The incident was caught on security cameras (somehow not time-stamped at 4:20.)
This is not the first time the landmark has been altered. A similar incident happened in 1976. In 1987 Caltech students crudely altered the sign to read CALTECH, and again in 1987, in honor of Oliver North and the Iran-Contra hearings, it was changed to OLLYWOOD. The HOLLYWOOD sign, made up of 45-foot high letters on Mount Lee, was first erected in 1923 as HOLLYWOODLAND and was an advertisement for a nearby housing development.
1976 vs 2017 WHO WORE IT BETTER? #hollyweed pic.twitter.com/hiIQbEundI
— Keegan Allen (@KeeganAllen) January 1, 2017
This is not the first time the Hollywood Sign became the Hollyweed Sign. — Happened in Dec. 1983 (Her-Ex) pic.twitter.com/dVxXyHt1bo
— Shelby Grad (@shelbygrad) January 1, 2017
