Hello? Fidel Castro? Is your refrigerator running?

Well, they didn’t ask him that, but it seems Castro was the victim of a crank call . These were the same guys who cranked called Hugo Chavez a while back, using a tape of Castro’s voice. In a funny twist they used taped comments of Hugo Chavez from that conversation to get through to Castro this time. You can listen to the actual conversation here , it’s a little long, and in spanish obviously, and Castro only comes on in the last minute or so, but the old dictator lets loose with a stream of profanities when he realizes he’s been had.

That reminds me of a couple of months ago. KROQ’s Kevin & Bean had their costar Ralph Garmin do his Jerry Lewis impression and got French Prime Minister Jaques Chirac on the phone to discuss the Iraq situation.

Apparently they didn’t believe they would actually be able to get the PM on the phone, but when Chirac answered they had to carry on with the ruse. Although they said they would replay the tape the following morning, they never did. It seems Jerry Lewis’s “people” got a little upset at these local yay-hoos impersonating Jerry Lewis and talking as Lewis to the French head-of-state.

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVES me a good practical joke.

But I think this kind of thing is stupid and dangerous.

What’s Castro gonna do? Not send us baseball players? :smiley:

There was a radio station a couple years ago that did a prank call with (I think) a Bill Clinton immitator calling up the Queen, and they got through and chatted for a bit.

Can we get an English transcript?

I’d love to at least know what was said!

Actually, it’s pretty funny.

That’s hilarious. You’d think that Fidel would notice something’s up when all they hear is Hugo going: “Sí, sí, sí…Fidel?.. Claro” :wink:

This is funny.

By the way, who is Herman?

si, si, si, claro…ahaaaa.

You might be thinking of Pierre Brassard, friedo. He pretended to be Jean Chretien.

The first few minutes of the call they’re working their way through a whole litany of secretaries and ministers. The guy you hear the most identifies himself as Lieutenant Camil, that name may or may not be someone in Hugo Chavez’s entourage, but the guy is doing a pretty good Venezuelan accent at least. He uses all the “code words”, such as “compañera”, the Cuban equivalent of comrade, “estamos en pie”, or “we’re standing firm”, and so on. He’s also playing bits of Chavez’s voice, mostly saying things like “Yes, Yes”, “I hear you”, “Of course, of course”.

Then, as the call is transfered up the latter, Lieutenant Camil embelishes the story at little. He starts talking about the reason for the call as being a “missing suitcase with some very important papers”, probably lost “during the recent meeting in Argentina”. He says that Hugo Chavez NEEDS to talk to Castro personally, but that he’s having trouble with the satellite and can’t hear everything that’s said, only bits and pieces.

Finally, and you could almost hear the surprise in Lieutenant Camil’s voice, he’s connected to Castro. Who says that he can hear Chavez, but only bits and pieces, just things like “Yes, I hear you”, duh. Lieutenant Camil goes through the suitcase spiel, adding a clip from Chavez saying “do you understand me?”. Castro then says enunciating very clearly “I understand you perrrrrfectly.” I wonder what the heck “lost suitcase” is a code for.

I’m guessing the call would’ve gone on forever, but Lieutenant Camil interrupts Castro to tell him to watch what he says because there’s a third party on the line. Castro takes it in stride and seems about to start talking about some other subject but then another voice, presumably the other DJ, jumps in and tells Castro “How do you feel about screwing up Cuba? How do you feel about that? You murderer! You fell for it! All of Miami is listening to you! You fell for it!”

Castro recovers pretty quickly and starts on them “I fell for what you ‘comemierda’? I fell for what you ‘maricon’? I fell for what you ‘mariconzon’? ‘Hijo de puta’”

The call ends then, and you can hear the DJ’s doing some hand slapping and celebrating.

Stupid, certainly. Funny, absolutely. Dangerous? Please.

Excellent. Good prank.

Okay, so which dictator should get pranked next? I call Kim Il Jung in North Korea. ::picks up basic guide to Korean::

The difference, of course, is that Castro isn’t certifiable like Kim is, and plus - no nukes. :slight_smile:

I think it would have been funny to say to Castro: “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!”

Oh damn-that’s funny!

Hehehehehe…

How do you say in Spanish, “Dude, you’ve been punk’d”?

Thanks for the translation, bayonet1976.