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Prank calls in popular culture
Prank calling and the InternetMichael Biggins, an actor whose real name is Michael Bigansky and goes by the performance name or nickname of Blackout on the internet - runs a website known as Blackout.com and was the very first person to put original prank calls on the internet in a digital streaming (instantly playable) format. He was also the first person to host an internet talk radio show based primarily on prank calls on the now defunct Lycos Talk Radio[3] network (which ran an internet based talk radio site using Wonderhorse internet broadcasting and teleconference software.[4] Blackout started his site Blackout's Box in 1995 (cite: verifiable by a whois check on domain name blackout.com and also verifiable with web archives such as wayback machine and in newsgroups archive postings and several major print sources - see references section) and put his first pranks online using the test version of RealAudio[5] Beta software (which has over time evolved into RealPlayer) on a 14,400 U.S. Robotics modem. This was long before mp3 or SHOUTcast streaming or internet radio stations existed. Before this time, the only way for both prank callers and prank call fans to hear pranks was by exchanging underground tapes, or maybe hearing them on the radio, but many radio prank calls were fake or 'set up' because of the steep FCC fines that could be imposed on the station if caught. Blackout used reel to reel recorders in his high school radio station 88.5 WKPX[6] in Florida to record his first pranks, and then transferred them to VMBs (voice mail boxes) - hence where he got the name 'Blackout's Box'. People would spread his voice mail box number around on BBSs (bulletin board systems) and other VMBs so that calls into Blackout's voice mail box to listen to his pranks would grow virally (before internet multimedia type viral spreading existed) and he would get requests from all over the U.S. for him to prank people. Blackout was finally able to preserve his pranks in a digital format when DAT (digital audio tape) recorders became available. He then ported them to computer hard drive without losing quality. They were then converted to the RealAudio format and uploaded via FTP to blackout.com the first day RealAudio beta became available. It was quite a pain and time consuming process to do at the time, but the excitement of having anyone in the world who had a modem and the RealAudio plugin be able to hear one of his pranks instantly and in real time with no downloading was a great payoff and step forward. The very first call he put on the internet was called The Rrrrrrrooksnitchzien Society[7] in which he kept 411 telephone operators going mad for a good half an hour. Blackout's pranks were known to be longer and more complex than your average quick prank and the site gained quite a following and much international press because of this. Howard Stern even talked about Blackout's famous prank call to Christian Slater,[8] saying, "this dude runs an internet radio show and broke Christian Slater's balls for 45 minutes!" Blackout.com was voted one of the top humor sites for 4 years in a row and counting in Harley Hahn's Internet Yellow Pages,[9] one of the best selling and longest selling internet books of all time in print and online. He was also featured in the UK's .NET magazine in 1998 and in an eight page cover story in New Times magazine in 2003 which focused primarily on Blackout's complex prank calls. Hardware, software, technology and bandwidth have grown exponentially since Blackout put that first call up and so has the flood of sites, shoutcast, icecast, and podcast stations devoted to prank calls. Blackout.com has also expanded its scope considerably in the over ten years that it has been online as first a prank site going from RealAudio to Lycos Talk Radio which closed down but then was replaced by Alternacast, which was also shut down, then being on Live365 for a while and eventually moving to the now popular SHOUTcast mp3 format. It still has a large section devoted to all original prank calls, while also hosting other forms of entertainment and active forums with discussions on art, pop culture, and philosophy. Biggins (Blackout), while moving more into the acting and independent film scene, still dons his Blackout hat and hosts an interactive radio show on Thursday nights at Blackout.com. Other notable prankersThe group Prank Machine had nearly 200 calls available entirely free to the public on their website before it was closed as the result of legal action put forth by one Emilia Seldon. This was considered to be the first major action of its kind. Some of the more controversial calls can still be found through various sources, and the site has since reopened at a new location, although the content and format have been drastically altered, presumably due to legal constraints. There is also a live prank call community on SHOUTcast Internet radio station called "PCR: Prank Call Radio". The radio station plays a stream of various prank calls. There are also several live shows @10Pm est.. run by people known as Zolar (usually with comedian Charles Goonan), Billy Mira, Carlito, High Pitch Eric(Howard stern SHow),"DR LEgo" and others.
Captain Janks, a frequent contributor to the Howard Stern Show, called into Wolf Blitzer's The Situation Room on CNN on August 23, 2006, and impersonated Wendy Hutchens, a woman who claims that she chatted about the death of JonBenet Ramsey with a suspect in her murder, John Mark Karr. Blitzer asked, "When did the talk of JonBenet Ramsey begin?" Janks answered: "It started around September of 2001, when he told me that he knew more about the JonBenet Ramsey case than what anybody else had known - and that he was instructed to kill JonBenet by Howard Stern." Blitzer said, "All right. Well, that sounds like we've just been Howard Sterned, as they say." The Phone Losers of America have continuously taken prank calling to the next level, by putting themselves in the position to answer various business phone calls. This means that the prank calls come to them, instead of them having to bother with dialing the phone. They were also some of the first known pranksters to put advertisements in the newspaper, specifically for the purpose of "pranking" the people that called in response to the ads. The Phone Losers have spent more than 10 years pranking various celebrities and businesses. A group known as Phantom Signals group took prank calling to an entirely different level. They used a modified ham radio to break in on cordless telephone calls in the late 1990s. In most cases, only the person using the cordless telephone would hear them. They recently posted recordings of the pranks on their podcast. Their recordings also include "normal" prank phone calls. Examples of Prank CallsSome examples of well-known prank calls are:
Other examplesOften, pranksters attempt to use wordplay to get their victims to unsuspectingly use vulgarities. This was attempted by the Plutonians in an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, asking the Mooninites for "Michael Hunt." Oglethorpe, still finding humor despite his mistake, didn't realize he was supposed to ask for "Mike Hunt" (my cunt). In response to this, the Mooninites called back asking for "Holden McGroin" (holding my groin). Harvey Kneeslapper on Sesame Street liked to prank call old ladies and try to get them to dance by singing to them.
Dane Cook receives a notable prank call from a fan:http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1710383 The SimpsonsDuring the early years of The Simpsons, a popular recurring gag involved Bart making prank calls to Moe's Tavern. This bit was inspired by the infamous Tube Bar prank calls of the 1970s. The calls usually followed a set pattern: Bart would ask for a non-existent person, Moe would shout loudly for the person Bart asked for, Moe catching on only after the bar (usually) erupts in uproarious laughter, and Moe threatening violent revenge upon catching the perpetrator. Moe never seemed to realize that it was Bart who made the calls until he hears Bart's voice in the bar. "People" whom Bart has asked for include:
One backfire on this formula was a call to "Hugh Jass" (huge ass), as there turned out to be a person in the bar named Hugh Jass. Another backfire was when Homer was running the bar and didn't know how to carry out the prank when Bart asked for Ollie Tabooger (I'll eat a booger). A third was a time where Mr. Burns called Moe's by mistake while looking for Smithers, and was threatened by Moe who thought it was a prank call. Finally, in a flashback scene to Homer and Marge's youth, Marge tries to call Homer (whom\ she believes goes by the name "Elvis Jagger Abdul-Jabbar" because of his shyness), only to get Moe to threaten her when she asks for his name. After hanging up, Moe mutters "And that's the origin of that!" FuturamaA prank call leads to Fry's delivery of a pizza to a cryogenic lab, which sets the whole series in motion. The name used is I.C. Wiener (Icy Wiener, a pun on an inevitable side-effect of cryogenic freezing), although some will disagree and say that I.C. is another way to say, "I See Wiener" Fry also adopts a dog after receiving a prank call asking for a pizza to be delivered to a Seymour Asses (see more asses). Fry then names the dog Seymour following the prank call. ReactionIn the United States, prank calls are easily traced through Caller ID. It is possible that caller ID can reduce the number of prank calls. However, most telephone companies currently permit callers to withhold caller ID if they do not wish the called party to know their identity. In North America, there is a way to disable the victim's Caller ID by dialing *67 before dialing. Sometimes the joke can be taken too far, especially if the prankster succeeds in making his victim believe the scenario is real. Prank call comedian Jim Florentine (who mainly takes incoming calls from telemarketers and turns the tables by performing pranks on them) has had the police called on him on more than one occasion for taking his jokes too far. During one call, Florentine tells an insurance agent that, rather than pay to keep an elderly woman alive, he is going to go to the hospital and smother her with a pillow.[10] After the call, the agent called 9-1-1 and gave them Florentine's number and the address on file, and the police arrived at his home with guns drawn. However, when the police showed up and discovered it was actually a prank, the officer simply asked, "Don't you think you're a little old for this?"[11] Criminal offensePrank calls range from annoying hang-ups to false calls to emergency services or bomb threats. Prank calls that waste the time of emergency services are a criminal offense in most countries. One such hoax call occurred in Perth, Australia, on New Year's Eve 2002, when a drunken teenager called the new anti-terrorist hotline to report a bomb threat against the New Year's Eve fireworks celebration.[12] The threat was taken seriously, and the celebrations were about to be canceled, when police discovered that no such threat existed. The teen was arrested for deliberate false reporting. Tension was also caused in December 2005, when a Catholic Church-owned radio station in Spain (COPE) played a prank on Bolivian president-elect Evo Morales. The hoaxer pretended to be Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, congratulating Morales on his election[13] and saying things like, "I imagine the only one not to have called you was George Bush. I've been here two years and he still hasn't called me".[14] The Bolivian government protested to Spain, and the real Zapatero called Morales and apologized. The Spanish government in turn summoned the papal nuncio in protest. In the United States, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 makes some prank calls a felony with penalties of up to two years in prison, and possible fines (depending on severity). However, such penalties are rarely carried out. As an example, the Chicago shock jock Erich "Mancow" Muller, after being criticized for the extensive use of prank calls on his radio show, broadcasted the sarcastic remark: "Reality check for you people: Chicago's the murder capital of America. The police don't care if you get a prank call." Moreover, to make a prank call that falls afoul of the Telecommunications Act, 47 U.S.C. 223 (a)(1), the call must be done with the intent to "annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass". Arguably then, if the intent of the call is to amuse, confuse, or simply to engage the call's recipient, there is no violation of the Telecommunications Act. Greek culture of prank callsIn some countries, prank phone calls are often driven by a more hard-line approach. In Greece, many pranksters are considered "Kafroi" (Κάφροι), an extension of the Zamanfou philosophy that emphasizes on the lack of respect for established guidelines of behavior. This philosophy is used by the "Kafros" to create an unsettling climate for the victims of their pranks. Often, wordplay and dual meanings are used to deceive the victims into believing situations or statements in a very harsh and dramatic way, resulting in emotions of anger and despair, purely for the sake of amusement. The most famous of these pranksters are Fousekis (Φουσέκης), followed by "Lentis" (Λέντης) and "Barc0de". All three are widely popular among the youth and are considered to be "underground". The recordings of their pranks were widely circulated, initially in tape format, and later converted into digital format. All three have created a style of humor that is often followed by imitators trying to make a name for themselves by surpassing them. These pranksters are not related in any way, are from different eras, and have distinct styles of humor that have over the years created a fan base for each one of them. See also
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