I was watching an old episode of Leave It To Beaver and he and Gilbert and another kid were making prank phone calls
You know, “Is you’re refridgerator running? You better catch it” Or “Grocer? Do You have pig’s feet? How do you walk”
Of course with today’s technology it’d be too easy to be traced, but I wonder if that stops kids today? Or are kids to mature to be that easily amused anymore?
As an side, if anyone has an amusing story from when you were a kid and it involves making or receiving a prank phone call please share
There are videos of kids (and older) making prank calls on youtube- it seems to still be done. My 11 year-old is fascinated by these videos, but I’ve told him that with today’s technology, you get caught and then it’s phone fraud which is automatically a prison sentence for like 20 years. Or something like that.
When I was a kid, my friends and I would call and ask women to tell their husband that he left his underwear at our houses last night and would he please come pick it up. Har! I grew up in a rural, very boring town.
One prank call that was always a big hit with our group involved asking whoever answered if Bob Wall was there. When the answer was No, we’d ask for Chuck Wall, Bill Wall, Susie Wall, and whatever other first name we could think of to pair with the surname Wall. The idea was to get the person answering to say, “No, there are no Walls here,” at which time we’d ask, “Then what’s holding your roof up?”, laugh like only 11-year-olds can, and hang up.
Our favorite was to ask for John. When they’d say, “I’m sorry, you have the wrong number”, we’d say, “Well then what the hell do you pee in – a dixie cup?”
Our favorite was to repeatedly call a number asking if “Billy Jones” (or some other made-up name) was there. We’d have different people call, sometimes for hours or days, and the people getting called would get more and more insistent that we had the wrong number and that no “Billy Jones” lived there.
Finally, one of us would call and say, “Hi, this is Billy Jones! Any calls for me?”
My sister and I used to prank call different numbers at random. We lived in California. One day my sister called this one number then hung up, and told me, “If you call (such and such a number) they answer and they say Grand Central!” So I called it, and they did, and I hung up. Then my sister called it, again, and they said “Grand Central,” and she asked “Grand Central what?” They said (as you no doubt have seen coming) “Grand Central Station in New York.” Oops. This was a time when long-distance calls were not free. We couldn’t use the phone for two weeks.
I made some prank calls as a kid, but I just couldn’t do them well. I would call a church and ask if Satan was there. Usually people would hang up.
I loved it when telemarketers would call me so I could mess with them. Instead of what most people do and hang up quickly, I would keep them on the phone as long as humanly possible. Or while they do their spiel I would start singing. Or I would yell into the phone stating that I was 94 years old and asking them to talk loudly on the telephone, or if I was on my way out, I would tell them, “I’ll get my credit card number,” put the phone down and quietly leave, forcing the telemarketer to sit and sit and sit until they know they were had. If it was a woman, I might say, Hey baby, you got a boyfriend? Anything to spook them out.
As I see it, they called me and violated my privacy and this was my private, yet oddly humorous war on them.
Ah, those were the days. A simpler time when felony use of telephones were a breeze. Dadgummed “modern technology.”
My favorite was calling up someone’s house late at night, the house of a classmate we knew was out running around, and say we were the police and could they come pick up their daughter, for any variety of offenses.
One year right after Christmas, we called the local newspaper and put an ad in the classifieds that said: “Don’t throw your Christmas tree away. I’ll buy it!” And gave a friend’s phone number. It was pure chance that we called the ad in on a Friday, meaning it ran all weekend before their offices reopened on Monday to cancel it. The lady who took our ad said she was dying with curiosity about what we were going to do with all those trees, and thinking fast I said: “Uh, I, uh, I’m going to resell them for firewood.” “Oh! That’s a great idea! I never would have thought of that.” We called the friend’s house ourselves posing as someone with a tree to sell, and his mother said there must have been some sort of mix-up at the paper and that their phone had been ringing nonstop all weekend. The friend kept absolutely silent about it at school the next week, waiting to see who would break and mention it. We never did, and he never brought it up. So, Steve, if you’re out there somewhere reading this right now, it was me and Robert (you know Robert who).
I called and ordered pizzas a few weeks ago, using my cell phone. The guy asked me for my phone number, presumably to confirm that I wasn’t a crank caller. I don’t give out my cell number, so I gave the land line; if they wanted to call back to confirm we’d ordered the pizzas, I’d have answered. The guy said “That’s not the number you’re calling from.” Well, if you had Caller ID, why are you asking for my number?
Mom asked me to call Donna. Donna, my best friend’s mother, was a bit gullible. My friend was about to buy his first car. Donna and Norm (friend’s father, Donna’s husband) were handling the purchase.
Being a good son, I call Donna. I was asked to call and see if she wanted to “go to ceramics tonight.” I reached an answering machine. I improvised a joke/prank message. In a blatantly fake voice, I claimed to be Officer Zdenko from the neighboring town’s PD. I advised them to complete the purchase of the vehicle, but to be aware that the seller was under surveillance for drug-related offenses, and that the car may be seized as evidence. I needed her to complete the purchase so that we could take down the kingpin. I left a fake call back number. Mom was nearby and heard the message.
Then I forgot that I left the message. 3 days later, Mom gets a phone call from Donna. She went on to tell my mother the whole story about how the police called, how she couldn’t reach them at the number they left, and how when she called the actual police station the didn’t have any record of the case… nor did our town’s police dep’t, nor the police dep’t of the town where the seller was located, nor the county sheriff’s office, nor the FBI…
Donna marched down (ok, drove) to the seller’s house and demanded her good faith deposit back and cursed him out for selling her teenage son a “drug car.”
My mother just laughed; then I had to call Donna back and explain the prank. I was not loved by her or Norm for many years.
I did occasional prank calls, but more often did crank answers. Our phone number was one digit off from a restaurant’s number. We got a call a week or so from folks wanting to make reservations. I would take detailed reservations, asking all sorts of personal questions. “So, your date. Is she pretty?” “WHAT??” “Yes, if she is pretty we will seat the two of you where people can see her”. “Now, any food allergies?”
For a while I was telling callers that a scene for a movie was being filmed the night of their reservations, and if they came dressed very nicely their meals would be free; in fact they would be paid by the studio for their appearance.
Oh yes kids still prank call. It’s just not the same as we used to do it. Now there is an app for cell phones that spoofs caller ids. I have no clue how it works other than the fact you enter the number you want to show up on a caller id. So it looks like its someone else calling.
You can actually enter say a police station number and call a friend and mess with them.
Way more devious than my old, is your refrigerator running?
