And as far as posting the link, “Bob” was an ass, taking advantage of a crisis situation, and I’m certainly not going to give him any more publicity.
YMMV, of course.
Corrections to last week’s copy: Johnny Sample is offensive cornerback for the New York Jets, not fullback as stated. Bobby Tolan’s name is not Randy, but Mudd. All power to the people, and ban the fucking bomb.
Principia Dischordia?
Now what would have knocked me flat off my chair is if the caller said to Ted, “Uhhh…looky here, I can see the people trapped…”
That would have put it into the stratosphere of great fake calls!
Looky, looky here! 
I fail to see what the big deal is about posting a link. Am I missing something here? What is on this site that is so controversial?
There’s nothing overly controversial about either the link or the site. The worry I had re: linking was just the whole advertising question. Whether it would be ‘wrong’ somehow to give this guy even more publicity.
So far, the verdict seems to be “Link Us”.
So here ya go. http://thankyoufortakingmycall.com
Praise “Bob”!
I saw it, too. I wondered the same thing- doesn’t ABC screen these people? Can I really just call up the station and introduce myself as an authority?
Poor Ted. I nearly fell off my chair at the warnings about wandering the subway tunnels and winding up in “Beauty and the Beast” territory.
Hey, at least they’d have candles.
Well, the site seems to be fucked.
Its not very difficult at all to get on the air on a news show, particularly during a big news event.
All a person has to do is claim they are Person A and have some information. Because the networks are desperate for scoops and to “be there first” they do minimal or next to no fact-checking. Some intern muppet will ask them quickly what they have to say and pass it along to the Director who will patch the call in to the anchor.
Besides, some of these guys are pros, and they’ve gotten past the screeners on Larry King on numerous occasions.
Slightly off subject, but I was once listening to a radio show in which a prank call went awry.
They were talking about the (then) imminent release of the new Harry Potter book. The caller telephoned the show, claiming to be a “researcher” of the affects of children’s literature on their behavior.
He told the host that the book had been leading to a wave of childrens’ cults which practiced the Black Arts. The host began asking eager questions about what they were doing. The caller, apparently a bit off-kilter because he hadn’t been challenged on that, said that kids were running away en-masse to join these roving bands. The host said that was terrible, and that he had wondered where all of these missing children were going.
The caller then said that the kids were practicing animal sacrifice. “Wow. It really just shows the power of these books!” the host replied. “Parents just have no idea . . .” The caller agreed, and described cattle evicerations in great detail. He then said that the “rampant wave” of teen pregnancy was directy related to the Potter series.
It went on for about ten minutes. No matter how outlandish the claim, the host swallow it whole. Finally, the prankster just hung up abruptly. The host chalked it up to a bad connection. Then, for the rest of the show, he kept bringing up the “points” the caller had made to other guests. When others pointed out the fact that there were no reports of mass runaways or piles of gutted cattle, he didn’t seem to think that was important.
Bob is a fucking genius.
As far as exploiting an emergancy situation, note that no one Bob’s ‘emergancy instructions’ could have harmed had access to his advice…available only for the rest of America to ponder.
Quit your job for “Bob”!
(ps. my god, where is the spell check?!? sorry for the mistakes.)
“Captain Janks,” a guy who used to do a lot of prank phone calls that got played on the Howard Stern show, once said that he didn’t feel sorry for any of the newscasters he fooled, because almost every joke he pulled off could have been spotted if someone, ANYONE had used an ounce of common sense and asked a question or two, rather than just taking him at his word and putting him right on the air.
I still think the greatest on-air phone prank ever was that guy who called ABC news after the Colin Ferguson shooting spreee on the Long Island Railroad. Using an OBVIOUSLY phony Jamaican accent, this guy told reporters that, as he shot at commuters, Colin Ferguson kept yelling “Babba booey, baba booey!”
Hours later, newscasters on other TV and radio stations were repeating that story, and some were speculating that “Babba booey” was actually some kind of Islamic battle cry!
Subgenius references always get extra points, but my favourite serial prank callers are some fellas in Austin, TX that put stuff out under the rubrik of “Phone Militia.”
One of the guy’s regular personas is an insane old woman named Melba that calls in to fundamentalist Christian talk radio shows. The best one is where “she” calls in to Bob Larsen to express her outrage at her family’s traumatic experience at DisneyLand during “Gay Day,” when her grandson had become attached to a young man that he met in line for a ride. It’s amazing how long Bob accepts it at face value as it becomes increasingly bizarre. “His voice was even higher than yours is, Bob! He was such a sissy! And they kept going on that same ride, over and over, you know, that It’s A Small World one?” And Bob’s deadly serious at she describes the puzzling changes her has been displaying ever since-- “He keeps talking about all this weird stuff, and I don’t even know what means, like ‘rimjob’ and ‘felching’…” “Believe me, Melba-- You don’t want to know.” Nothing she can say is apparently too bizarre for Bob, who I guess meets his share of unique persenilities, until she finally begins tootling on a bugle, apparently has a loud orgasm, and begins speaking in tongues as he leads her in a sincere prayer for the redemption of her wicked grandson’s eternal soul.
Beautiful.
An agent for basketball coach Mike Jarvis once inadvertently found himself on the wrong end of a prank. The AP talked to someone with the same name, who made up stuff since he thought it was merely one of his friends.
The difference is, “Bob”'s goofs are all captured on video. There is such a voyuristic thrill in seeing the victim’s reaction.
I actually had his tape before the Koppel goof. It is golden.
Uh, hey folks? Did anyone else notice that “Bob Dobbs,” or someone claiming to be him, registered in April but has just now posted his first post in this thread? As in the above post by ExpandingMan?
Am I the only person who thinks that’s really cool, or am I missing something?
Anyway, ExpandingMan, good job on Koppel.
Count me in with the seemingly few who think prank phone calls just aren’t funny.
What’s so cool about it. You call someone up, lie to them and then laugh at them for believing you?
Nope, I don’t get it.
I think it’s really cool, too, jackelope. I always knew the dopers were a subversive bunch of mothers.