Recordings of prank phone calls became a staple of the obscure and amusing cassette tapes traded among musicians, sound engineers, and media traders in the United States from the late 1970s.
Comedian Jerry Lewis was an incorrigible phone prankster, and recordings of his hijinks, dating from the 1960s and possibly earlier, still circulate to this day.
[citation needed] Callers can also call from payphones in order to hide their identity, although this is becoming less common as pay phones began to phase out in the 2000s.
The advent and advancements in digital switching technologies such as those found in SS7, unspoofable ANI, as well as outbound and inbound calls being logged at carrier exchange equipment, further complicate the pranksters will to remain anonymous while carrying out such activities.
In December 2005, a commercially operated radio station in Spain (COPE – owned by a series of institutions affiliated with the Catholic Church) played a prank on Bolivian president-elect Evo Morales.
The hoaxster pretended to be Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, congratulating Morales on his election[6] and saying things like, "I imagine the only one not to have called you was George Bush.
More recently, the Pranknet virtual community has been credited for causing tens of thousands of dollars in damage to many hotels and fast food restaurants.
The group, who flaunted their anonymity, were outed when editors of The Smoking Gun, posing as journalists, persuaded them to visit unique URLs.
[13] A series of prank calls by Joseph Sherer led to convictions and a twenty-year prison sentence for impersonating a physician, criminal endangerment, and aggravated assault.
[14][15] In one call, as described by the Montana Supreme Court, "Sherer, impersonating a sympathetic and caring doctor, instructed the victim to cut off her nipple.
"[16] Until his death in 2011, Oklahoma construction worker Frank Garrett was prank called and recorded countless times for his vitriolic reactions.
The soundboard community that followed him caused at least three known incidents with the law: two in Kansas City, Missouri, and a third in Houston; both were for threats of violence against residents and the police with his name being used in the process.
[17][18][19][20] In 2012, Jacintha Saldanha, a nurse at King Edward VII Hospital who was attending a pregnant Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, was deceived into transferring a prank call from Mel Greig and Mike Christian, the hosts of the Hot30 Countdown radio program broadcast on 2Day FM in Sydney, Australia, who were impersonating Queen Elizabeth II and Charles, Prince of Wales.
Moe would then announce the call to the bar patrons in a way that would cause himself embarrassment ("I'm lookin' for Amanda Hugginkiss [i.e. a man to hug and kiss]").
In another episode, "Donnie Fatso", criminal ringleader Fat Tony calls to ask for his business partner, "Yuri Nator" (urinator).
Some performers such as The Jerky Boys, Tom Mabe and Roy D. Mercer, made a name for themselves producing albums of their recorded prank calls.
The television show Crank Yankers is a series of real-life prank calls made by celebrities and re-enacted on-screen by puppets for a humorous effect.
The callers would repeatedly ask the employees if they sold Battletoads, a video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System notorious for its difficulty.
This call led Rick Harrison, owner of the store, to repeatedly swear and yell at the prank callers, who recorded this and uploaded it to YouTube.