(OT) Crank Yankers and your own crank phone call memories

[King_Stannis]

I am really enjoying that Comedy Central Show “Crank Yankers”. Being a fan of the prank phone call from wayyy back in my childhood, I think it was a fantastic idea for a show. Incidentally, my favorite “Yankers” are Bobby Fletcher and Tony Deloge (Super Dave Osborne). For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, Crank Yankers is a show where they get comedians to make real prank calls to people and they then reenact those calls with puppets. The result is, in my opinion, comedy gold.

Were any of you crankers? Me and my friends were, big time. One of my favorites was calling up a guy named Frank Abel. When he answered I pretended I was a german named Ernst Zell (Marathon Man) and that I was awaiting a huge delivery of nazi gold. I told this guy he had the loot in his basement, under his floor. Though I doubt he ever did, I used to chuckle at thoughts of some old-timer ripping up his basement floor looking for hidden nazi gold.

We did some others, too. In fact I seem to remember a summer between 8th and 9th grade of doing calls almost weekly. Man that was fun.

What about you? Do you like Crank Yankers? Do you have any crank phone calls you ever did that you want to brag about?

 

[alsih2o]

i don't do outgiong, but i have lots of fun with telemarketers...

 

[King_Stannis]

it's gotta be tougher to do outgoing cranks today, with all of the caller ID's in use. Though i think you can block caller ID.

 

[buzzard]

Best prank call I know of was actually a series, or rather a dedicated plot to drive a man insane.

You see a buddy of mine back in the college days saw a poster that advertised a free picnic, he then called the organization in question to get details. He spoke to a guy named Ross. This being college, you would swoop down on stuff like that like a vulture. Well he and I went trekking out to find this picnic. Unbeknownst to us it had been cancelled. This left my friend miffed. He called the organization back and they, stupidly, gave my buddy Ross' phone number. Bad move.

Thus begins the torment. You see we did not prank call our new friend Ross. Campus police would go after that, especially if it were a repeat job. We were a more sly bunch of drunks than that. what we did was use the campus directory and call random freshlings. Given that freshlings are usually damned naive, they were the perfect tools.

We would call the freshlings and hope for an answering machine. If we got one we would leave a message "Hello this is Ross. I'm your physics TA, and it is URGENT that you call be back. This is about your grade. I'm busy most of the time so please call after 10 PM. " We would sometimes change the class in question, but you get the picture. This must have been done several dozen if not hundreds of time. Pretty much any time a bunch of our coterie was together drinking such calls would be made.

Periodically we would call Ross himself to gauge our progress. These conversations would be rather like:
US:"Hello, I'm trying to get a hold of Ross, he left a massage on my machine saying he was my physics TA"

this was to a machine since by the time we were checking Ross didn't directly answer calls

ROSS"Hello- you have a message on your machine!"

US(sheepishly):"Uh yes, someone called, but I don't think it was my TA, I mean your not my TA, I'm not sure what's "

ROSS:"YOU HAVE A TAPE!! Good, some jerk [well actually an expletive, but we have grandmothers to think of here] has been harassing be and I need to get a tape to campus security. HA HA HA, I'll get them!! I NEED THAT TAPE!"

US: "Uhh, sure, I guess"

ROSS: "Can you drop it by the [organization] office tommorow? I NEED IT!"

US: "Uhh, yeah, sure."

ROSS:"GREAT!"

We'd click off around this point since it was hard to stop laughing (especially when pickled).

Buzzard

 

[-Ekimus-]

ok, Crank Yankers is one of the worst shows on T.V. IMO, most of the pranks are so stupid its not even funny. Crank calls? sure some are funny, puppets trying to reinact them? utter crap. They should just put Family Guy back on the air.... much better that this show, even though its a diff network

 

[King_Stannis]

buzzard, that is some funny stuff! poor ross!

when i worked at pizza hut back in the day, there was this manager at another store named kevin. he was a real loser, so me and my buddy got pretty ripped one night and just started calling him over and over....during the dinner rush hour.

the calls got less and less articulate as the "sodas" we were drinking took effect.....climaxing in me telling keving that i was going to "kill him and eat him!".

 

[Neowolf]

ok, Crank Yankers is one of the worst shows on T.V. IMO, most of the pranks are so stupid its not even funny. Crank calls? sure some are funny, puppets trying to reinact them? utter crap. They should just put Family Guy back on the air.... much better that this show, even though its a diff network

Agreed.

 

[Dr Midnight]

I support the show because a guy I know has some sketches on it. The Touchtone Terrorist (a name he changed after 9/11) did the one about the diamond watch being burned up in transit (UPS is suing him) and some others. I did the art for his last two CDs. The heartbreaking turn in this is that Crank Yankers didn't make their puppets using my character designs. They had to make certain they wouldn't owe me royalties, but still, it's sad. Their Junkyard Willie differs greatly from mine (see below). Sigh. Still... I think it's cool that my art is up at ComedyCentral.com, on the Crank Yankers site. Woop.

 

[King_Stannis]

even though they're not using your stuff, it's still cool they have it on their site.

i'm wondering if the jerky boys will make an appearance on CY soon?

 

[Umbran]

As if the world today wasn't annoying enough, we make an entertainment out of adding annoyance and embarassment into random people's lives....

Wonderful idea. Brilliant.