From Be Nice Art Friends, because prank calls are still funny:

Bart Simpson, Crank Yankers, your Mom, everyone loves a good prank call, but I feel like no one does it better than Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. The geniuses behind classic American comedy shows* such as, Tom Goes to the Mayor, Steven and Stephen, and of course, the ever beloved Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job, have done plenty of pranks in their time, but personally, I”™m loving the following:

*They WILL be.

From CMT Comedy Stage – Tom Mape in “Mape in America”

Click here to watch a video of a Tom Mape phone prank called Cell Phone Eavesdropping

thanks Linda

Check out more prank calls from Tom Mabe here and here.

Incognit-O phone prank
by Lukas I. Alpert
New York Post
December 23, 2009

Move over, Vinny from Queens. There’s a new radio call-in king — and he’s dialing from the White House.

President Obama played a prank on his friend, outgoing Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, phoning Kaine’s radio show as “Barry from DC” to gripe about traffic.

The ruse didn’t last long, as Obama quickly said, “Well, Governor Kaine, this is actually the president of the United States calling. I have some questions about traffic in northern Virginia. But rather than go there, I’d just like to say how proud we are of your service.”

A stunned Kaine said his happiest moment as governor came when Obama was elected president with Virginia’s help.

photo: dailymail.co.uk

Submitted by W.J. Elvin III:

FBI probes PrankNET over thousands of dollars in damage caused to hotels and restaurants
by Tom Leonard
Telegraph.co.uk
15 July 2009

The FBI is investigating an anonymous prank-calling internet group which has reportedly duped people into causing thousands of dollars of damage to hotels and restaurants.

Some former fans of PrankNET have expressed misgivings about the increasingly violent nature of the pranks

PrankNET posts its “greatest hits” on YouTube and streams its calls live on internet radio.

Investigators say its creators are difficult to identify due to the diffficulty of tracing prank calls placed online.

Dex, the pseudonym for the group’s purported leader, has claimed credit for various expensive scare calls, although others have been attributed to “copycats”. (more…)

Prank call gone HORRIBLY wrong!!

Phone prank from KTU War of the Roses with hosts Goumba Johnny and Hollywood Hamilton.

War Of The Roses 3

via Will Art for Food – Weekend News

Submitted by W.J. Elvin III, as found on The Smoking Gun, June 9, 2009:

Now…Go Break The Windows

Crank caller wreaks havoc on Arkansas hotel, duping employees, guests

A telephone prankster posing as a sprinkler company employee caused havoc Saturday morning at an Arkansas Holiday Inn when he convinced an employee to set off the hotel’s fire alarm, smash windows, shut down electricity, and break a sprinkler head that flooded the building lobby. The bizarre incident is detailed in a report prepared by the Conway Police Department, which, as seen below, photographed the aftermath of the June 6 incident. According to police, Holiday Inn employee Christina Bergmann was at the front desk early Saturday when a male caller “identified himself as an employee of Grennel Fire Sprinkler service.” The man told Bergmann that there was a problem with the hotel’s fire sprinklers and that she “needed to pull the fire alarm to reset them,” cops reported. “Bergmann proceeded to pull the fire alarm at this point, causing the audible alarm.” Bergmann, aided by a hotel guest, would subsequently follow a series of directions from the caller that would result in about $50,000 in damages to the hotel’s windows, carpets and electrical system. (more…)

Submitted by Brad Carter of phonelosers.com:

I spent my Black Friday hanging out at Wal-Mart, picking up phones in the store to talk to customers calling in. I managed to get a lot of them to yell at me for poor customer service. Thought your readers might enjoy it.

Hoax call fuels Pakistan-Indian tensions
by Munir Ahmed
1010WINS
December 6, 2008

Islamabad, Pakistan (AP) — A man pretending to be India’s foreign minister called Pakistan’s president and talked in a “threatening” manner during the Mumbai terror attacks, prompting Pakistan to put its air force on high alert, a security official and a news report said Saturday.

Dawn newspaper said authorities were investigating the circumstances of the hoax, which occurred as tensions spiked between the nuclear-armed neighbors during the attacks.

The atrocity, which began Nov. 26, is being blamed by India on Pakistani extremists.

Indian officials were not immediately available to comment on the telephone call.

The call by a man identifying himself as Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee was put through to President Asif Ali Zardari on Nov. 28, said the security official, who declined to be identified, citing the sensitivity of the issue.

“India through diplomatic channels has informed the Pakistani Foreign Ministry that Pranab Mukherjee made no such call,” he said. “Now what still needs to be checked is who made this threatening call.” (more…)

From The Lowe-Down, posted by Chan Lowe, the Sun-Sentinel’s editorial cartoonist, SunSentinel.com, December 5, 2008:

The Obama prank that wasn’t

You can hardly blame Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, one of Miami’s three anti-Castro amigos (along with the rabid Diaz-Balart brothers), for imagining herself to be yet another victim of a telephone prank.

After all, local Miami stations are past masters of the art form, having famously fooled Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez into thinking his pal Fidel Castro was on the horn, and then reversing the prank on Fidel, himself.

We all know about the French Canadian “President Sarkozy” who called Sarah Palin a couple of months ago.

It is no wonder, therefore, that Ileana hung up on President-elect Barack Obama when he called to congratulate her on her election victory and tell her how much he was looking forward to working together on common goals. Just to make sure she had dug her hole deep enough, she then slammed the receiver down on his future chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who had called to tell her that the Barack outreach was una llamada verdadera. (more…)

Submitted by Andrew Boyd:

A Canadian comedy duo called The Masked Avengers from CKOI 96.9 FM in Montreal, Quebec pranked Sarah Palin, convincing her (and her team) they were receiving a call from French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Related Articles:

Slate’s Presidential Election Soundboards
by Christopher Beam, Andy Bouve, and Jim Festante
Slate.com
October 17, 2008

If you live in a swing state, you’re probably getting deluged with phone calls. Volunteers, staffers, even candidates themselves””or at least recordings of them””are hassling you at all times of day and night.

Here’s your chance to join in on the fun.

If you were around in the early days of the Internet, you may have discovered the joy of soundboards””grids of buttons that play different phrases, usually spoken by a celebrity. The basic idea: You call someone up and use the soundboard to simulate your end of the conversation. The best soundboard, hands down, featured Arnold Schwarzenegger and produced some prank calls that rose to the level of art.

Just in time for the election, Slate presents the next generation of crank-call technology: the John McCain and Barack Obama soundboards. Just call up a friend, enemy, pizza place, or rival campaign press office and use the sound effects [here]. (more…)

Two videos of prank calls during which callers are told they’re on hold while phony hold music is played:

First, from LumpBrady0: A telemarketer calls us at work and we decide to pull a quick prank on her and tell her the hold music that our phones are set to is our boss at a local museaum for black appreciation month. Check out more at www.lumpbrady.com.

African Music Prank Call

And then, from AJA095: Mark Phillip, A.J. Alexander, and Duncan Stevens put an Xbox service guy on hold.

African Safari Hold Music (more…)

Soccer-Euro-Late reporter stages plane bomb hoax to reach game
Reuters UK
June 12, 2008

Rome – A German sports reporter who was late for his plane to cover the European Championships staged a bomb scare at Italy’s Verona airport in order to delay its take-off, police said on Thursday.

The 27-year-old reporter, who has not been identified, called police saying a bomb had been planted on the Air Dolomiti flight to Vienna on Wednesday, police in northern Verona told Reuters by telephone on Thursday.

The airport was closed for about two hours and two incoming flights were forced to land at another airport.

The reporter arrived at check-in just five minutes before the scheduled take off, shortly after the phone call announcing the bomb scare.

When told he was too late to check in he said he had heard the plane was still not ready for take off, even though the airport officials had still not made any announcement of any delay.

“He changed his version several times, first claiming he had arrived at the airport on time and then admitting he only arrived five minutes before take-off,” a police officer said.

The man’s mobile phone was linked to the call.

He was arrested and charged with causing an alarm and interrupting a public service.

image: inmagine.com

Danny Dumps: Angie. Cheating girl dumped live on radio.
(listen to or download the mp3 below)

Another episode of the extremely popular “Danny Dumps”, a program hosted by GalaxyFM, a local FM radio station in Yorkshire, England.

This time we meet Craig. A chap who wanted to ask his girlfriend to marry him on Christmas Day, after a four year relationship. Only to find out, through his friends and her colleagues, his girlfriend was doing her married boss at the company’s Christmas party. He then asked radiohost Danny to dump her, live!

image: Press the Buttons, thanks Nick