Prank call

A prank call, also known as a crank call, is a telephone call that is made with the intention of playing a joke on the person who answers the call. The caller may sometimes refer to the call as a crank call. It is often a form of annoying phone call.

In the late 1970s, recordings of prank phone calls were a common component of the strange and humorous cassette tapes that were shared among artists, sound engineers, and media merchants in the United States. The Tube Bar prank calls records, which focused on Louis "Red" Deutsch, are among the most famous and first recorded hoax calls. They were also among the first recorded prank calls. Comedian Jerry Lewis was known for being an uncontrollable phone prankster, and recordings of his antics, some dating back to the 1960s and others probably going back even farther, may still be found in circulation today.

Prank callers have been known to fool very prominent people, such as Queen Elizabeth II, who was duped by Canadian DJ Pierre Brassard, posing as Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who asked her to record a speech in support of Canadian unity in advance of the 1995 Quebec referendum. Brassard was able to fool Elizabeth II because he was able to convince her that he was Chrétien. The radio station Radio El Zol, which is situated in Miami, is responsible for two further hilarious instances of hoax calls. In the first scenario, they pretended to be Cuban President Fidel Castro when they called the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and talked to him over the phone. Later on, they decided to play the joke backwards by contacting Castro and acting as if they were Chávez. After the impostors identified themselves, Castro started cursing at them while they were live on TV.