For some mischief-makers of the old school, the internet will never compete with the thrill of a phone prank on a befuddled TV newscaster.
When a Los Angeles water main broke and drenched the UCLA campus, ABC7 News wanted answers. To that end, they fielded a call from one “Louis Slungpue,” who may have traced the flood to either a flushed cherry bomb or “a very large dump.”
This would be run-of-the-mill local-news tomfoolery were it not for anchor Ellen Leyva’s insistence on dragging it out, keeping her composure, and not getting it.
The sort of people who still make prank calls often share an affinity for poop.
In a related item, the Washington Post has an in-depth interview with Tom Cipriano, a/k/a “Captain Janks,” long-term member of an old phone-pranking pantheon based around alpha shock jock Howard Stern and his “nether regions.” After 10,000+ calls, Cipriano is still at it.
“They don”™t just give you the news,” he says, “they give a dramatized presentation of the news. All I”™m doing is ruining their sensational moment with my sensational moment.”