Question for Matt Cutts: What about April Fools content?

As many of you in the SEO sphere know, there was a furor in recent days regarding Matt Cutts’ feedback regarding the use of fake stories for the purposes of linkbaiting and SEO in general (hint: Matt’s comment is about 3/4 of the way down the page).

Nick Wilson authored a blog post on the subject, which got the Sphinn crowd worked up into a frenzy, but I came away with a very simple point of view on the topic at hand.

What about the April Fools stories?

A lot of web publications post fake news stories on April 1, and some of them get a ton of publicity (and inbound links) as a result. For the most part, these faux articles are not conjured up for the sake of SEO, but they are fake content just the same.

So will Google make a special exception for this type of fake content, or will these beautiful babies also be thrown out with the bath water (thanks for apt cliche, Neyne)?

Mr. Cutts, if you’re out there and you’re reading this, please chime in. I need a definitive answer before I post my annual faux Miami Dolphins column in 2009.