When Celebrities Attack (Over The Phone)

I've just spent the most immature hour laughing myself to tears on this site.

If you're unfamiliar with what's going on there, people with far too much time on their hands (hmm, sounds like a certain unemployed blogger I know) have grabbed a whole heap of soundbytes from movies or celebrities (Howard Stern's radio show, Dr Phil's TV show, etc), and then uploaded them to their computer, ready to play at the press of a button.

Then they call someone up (although sometimes they're 'shock jocks' on a radio station themselves, and have unsuspecting callers waiting on the line unaware that they're about to be fooled), and then they trick the person who answers the phone into thinking they're talking to these celebrities, etc - simply by clicking the mouse of their computer on one phrase at a time to create a (mostly disjointed) conversation with the hapless victim over the phone.

It is clearly a skill if the prankster can be quick (so the various soundbytes seem to flow naturally without a pause each time as the caller tries to find the best response to the victim's last question or comment), but there are some really talented pranksters out there and some of the downloads on the site are flat-out hilarious.

I must warn you, some of the calls featured are a little 'blue', so if you're offended by that kind of material, steer clear of the Howard Stern ones in particular.

Yeah, I'm pretty immature at times, and this sort of phone call prank makes me laugh so hard I think I'm going to collapse from a lack of breath. Some of them, anyway.

If this kind of humour amuses you, give them a go. Maybe don't play them at work (you never know when something unsuitable might be said), but it's fantastic to hear how some people are duped into answering back to the recorded messages.

I haven't listened to them all, but every one I heard had at least some form of swearing in it (even the one of Homer Simpson, courtesy of the AA call centre woman he's rung up to taunt about his drunkeness - but it was fairly mild), so I'm by no means 'vouching' for any or all of the clips. (Update: The Jack Nicholson ones are surprisingly free of any swearing.)

Putting the swearing and 'blue' topics aside, though, the humour had me in stitches.

Not just anyone can bring themselves to ring someone up and 'prank call' them. It takes a certain kind of person to do that. Sure, a menace - but a gutsy menace at that. So when you add in the very restrictive parameters of the prankster only being able to use certain pre-determined soundbytes to do all the talking for them, that makes them a talented gutsy menace.

And I say it's better to let them sit at home doing this kind of thing than go out into the world (where they might meet chicks and eventually procreate).


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