The Art of Prank Calls: More connected than Red Deutsch
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The Art of Prank Calls: More connected than Red Deutsch |
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Updated 1/23/03Frank's World Bulletin Blog
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The Art of Prank Calls - Frequently Asked Questions
How do I play aiff files from the web?Check out the guide to downloading and playing aiff files.How do I play Real Audio clips?You need the Realplayer. For tips on playing Real Audio clips, go to The Real Audio homepage.Almost all of the clips on this page are encoded in Realaudio 2.0, 14.4 (8kbps). A few are Realaudio 3.0 28.8, this is noted on the page. If you are sending clips, please encode them at 14.4. Phone coversations are low quality anyway, it sounds fine.
How do I record phone calls?(Note: The Art of Prank Calls is not affiliated with any of the companies products which are mentioned below. Let us know if you know of any devices we should add to the list. Please submit reviews of any devices you own!) Radio Shack Telephone Recording Control -- $19.99 Radio Shack's Other Telephone Recording Control -- $24.99 Radio Shack's cheapo phone recorder -- $3.99 Telephone Pick-Up Device -- $7.98 Phone Recorder -- $39.99 Micro Telephone Recorder -- $79.98 Automatic 5HR Telephone Recorder -- $99.95 Auto 5HR Recorder with Dialed Number De-Coder -- $174.95 If you have a phone built into your computer, chances are you
can easily record the calls directly on the computer. Why is the other person disproportionately quiet on my recordings?Try different setups - change your phone, try different lines. However, the most important factor seems to be the OTHER person's phone, which you can't do much about.The best suggestion is to re-record your calls with the levels boosted using a computer sound program, an equalizer, or some other sound boosting equipment. How do I record them on the computer?You have to have an input to your computer. Virtually all Macs come with a microphone which will do just fine. You can use a high-end program such as SoundEdit 16 or even something as simple as the "Sound" control panel. Just hold the mic up to the speaker and make sure your levels are right. If you have an AV Mac, or a PC with an AV card, you can input sound directly through standard RCA jacks (the same plugs that are on your VCR). Some computers have additional types of sound input plugs. Many computer mic inputs are non-standard, so you can't plug a regular mic directly into them (or a telephone recording device). There is, however, a Mac plug that converts between Mac mic (which is non-standard) and RCA plugs (standard, the kind that your VCR probably takes). If you can't figure it out or don't have access to a computer with these capabilities, we'll be happy to digitize your pranks, even if you want to put the files on your own page. Just send the tape to the above address. You can also record them directly if you have one of those computer
phones. How do I convert sound clips to Realaudio?If you're at the point where you already have a clip recorded in a file on your computer, you're almost there. Go to the Realaudio homepage and download the RealEncoder. It is FREE. They give the products that cost top billing, but if you dig around the site a little, you'll find the RealEncoder.The RealEncoder will take a variety of sound formats for input. Read the RealEncoder documentation to find the current list, then make sure you save your clips in an acceptable format. Remember, though, Realaudio is a lossy compression format, so once you convert them to Realaudio, you can't convert them back to .wav, .aiff, sound designer II, .snd, etc. Just like anything, if you put garbage in to the RealEncoder, you get garbage out. Make your original recording in the highest quality possible (44 Mhz, 16-bit, no compression, etc). Realaudio Encoder 3.1. download page. Why do I have to record clips in 14.4 for this site?If you want to submit clips to the Art of Prank Calls site, you MUST encode in them Realaudio 14.4. We once allowed 28.8 files, but no more. There are a number of reasons for this.First of all, whaddya think, disk storage space grows on trees? All these clips take up a lot of space and Realaudio 14.4 are very small. Second, you don't need a higher quality for phone clips because phones have poor sound anyway - it's worse than AM radio, which is what Realaudio 14.4 is said to be equivalent to. Therefore, you're not losing anything. Third, the new versions of Realaudio won't run on older computers, so you want the most people possible to be able to listen to your clips. Finally, Frank's World is too many hops away from a good net connection to support streaming Realaudio 28.8, so the sound clips are choppy. Sorry, no MP3s either. They're better quality and decent size, but the site already has hundreds of clips in Realaudio so we're not going to change now. To encode in 14.4, you have to get an old version of the Realaudio Encoder (like 2.0 or 3.0). If you can't handle this, feel free to send files in other sound formats and we can encode them for you - just don't send more than 5 megs at once.
Realaudio Encoder 3.1. download page What are some other useful products?Portable Voice Changer II -- $39.99 or $69.988 position pitch control - from deep male to high female Item No. B-7610-462031 The Johnson Smith Company catalog, Winter 97: $69.98 -- Item #3649 (Orders:1-941-747-2356 Catalogs:1-941-747-5566) Damark, August 1996...1-800-729-9000 -- $39.99 No longer in stock I hear Voice Changing Telephone -- $99.00 Telephone Voice Changer -- $39.95 Caller ID Blocker -- $19.99 or $29.95 Tele-guarder -- $119.95 Tele-screen -- $44.95 Tele-safe tap detector -- $199.95 Telephone Tap Detector -- $39.98 Easy Hang Up Network Phone adapter -- @$2.99 Caller ID for Your TV -- $71.99 Red Box: Check out the Phone Losers of America page for more info. What if I can't afford all that crap?Read the article in Prantagonize Magazine about how to make you own humorous 'voice changers' and sound effects (Sorry, this is not available yet).
I do some great pranks. What do I do with them?Well, if you want to see them on this page, all you have to do is send them via email, or contact us about setting up a temporary ftp site for you. We'll put them up on the page with a big mailto to your email address or a link to your web page. Send email to find out the address to send tapes and correspondence to.How do I trade with you guys?Mail me, write us Snail Mail, or just send your tapes. We've done plenty of trading and have always come though, although I've been slow a few times. I figure 1:1 is a fair trade, but if you have good pranks, music boots, or any crazy shit on tape, we'll be more than happy to deal.If I give my pranks away, won't someone steal them and make shitloads of money without me?First off, they are your intellectual property and you can copyright them by stating that they are copyrighted by you. Secondly, no one on the net (and few people in the world) has yet made money off prank calls. We're a community of people who do it for fun and like to exchange pranks via the web. So far as we can tell, Detonator Records and the Jerky Boys are the only ones who have made significant money directly off sales of prank tapes. But the Jerky Boys first had an underground following after the so-called "Jerky Tapes" (raw, unedited pranks that later went on JB1, JB2, and the Musacha Tapes in edited form) were dubbed and dubbed and dubbed.You have to get known, get a buzz going, and get some exposure to get anywhere. Detonator Records, which markets most of the prank tapes which have sold many copies, apparently receives tapes constantly from people looking for deals. If you have a rep from an underground tape (or web page), you'll be much more likely to be signed. BESIDES, this is about "the Art of Prank Calls" after all! Its just
about having fun, laughing, shaking things up a little bit and keeping
people on their toes! Give us a fucking break! Get on the phone and mess
with some people, record it and share it with your fellow prankers who'll
appreciate it! That's the bottom line. Why do you guys care so much what I do?We're fans of pranking as well as a pranker, so we want to hear what people around the country are doing. That's why we don't mind helping you get started digitizing your pranks, etc., cause we want to check 'em out.
What are some ideas for funny pranks?Of course, you can just sit around and think up ridiculous shit to do to people. Think about people you know who deserve some harassment - people you knew in high school, that asshole at the comic shop down the street, your friend who's taking life way to seriously lately.If you need more inspiration, flip through the yellow pages, or watch TV and wait for an ad with a 1-800 number or a local number to come on (or better yet, the prayer-line). When you call, make sure you "Go With the Flow". There's nothing worse than a prank in the which the pranker does all the talking and we don't even hear the victim react. If we wanted to listen to you swear at someone, you know, we could, like, call you up and attempt to piss you off until you yelled at us. Not that swearing is all bad (if you've ever heard the Jerky Boys say "Shut the fuck up!" five times in a row then you know it can be funny), but let's see some creativity. Toy with people. Get into character and improvise. Overall, just take it easy. Too many first time pranksters get on the phone and start making threats, getting their asses in trouble. Don't call restaurants and complain about the food - it's been done to death. What kind of pranks should I do?There is basically a spectrum of pranks running from the kind where you just keep someone on the line talking about random crap in a very harmless way, to the pranks where people make threats, impersonate the police, and other malicious things. If you listen to our pranks you'll see they are near to the first type - slightly more annoying, pushing people's buttons, but usually pretty harmless. Horris is hilarious in just keeping people on the line with nonsense, Insane Jason is a funny, slightly Jerky, in-your-face style. Latrine does a lot of group pranking madness, while the Fightsters are so slow that the calls become funny just listening to the other person get annoyed at their mumbling.We personally don't call people's homes very much, we mostly call public businesses who invite us to call with big advertisements and who pride themselves on customer service. A swear word works its way in every once in a while, but the majority of the stuff is pretty innocuous. Its not that we're holier-than-thou, we just find toying with people funnier than screaming and cursing at people. We don't try to dominate the call, we try to get a response. This is not to say that name calling and making people angry isn't funny, its just not usually our style. My friends and we have been doing this stuff since we were in middle school and we do what we're good at, we don't try to imitate what's popular. This is what makes prankers good - the "art" of it. Your own style. There are a lot of good prankers on the net with a lot of different styles. Someone might prefer one type of call to the other, but as long as you're being original, there will be someone who appreciates your humor. There's plenty of room in the prank world for more creativity - you just have to find your niche. I sent a pizza to someone who didn't order it -- is that funny?No, probably not. Rarely is it funny when you send the exterminators around or do any other prank where you send people somewhere. If you staked out the place where you sent the Orkin man, then had video of him being turned away, then maybe it would be funny - but even then he'd probably just turn around and leave, which would not be any funnier on video than it would be on the phone.Plus, places that dispatch workers make verification phone calls and have caller-ID to avoid fake calls like this. If they caught you, they'd have grounds to get your ass in serious trouble. Overall, stuff like this is just downright mean, without much humor or creativity - so what's the point? What is a good way to not laugh in the middle of a prank call? I always screw them up that way.Just get in the frame of mind of what you're doing and you won't think about it. Its hard though, so you might want to try pausing to take a deep breath to get rid of the laugh, pretending to cough, pretending to talk to your friend, or pretend you just heard a funny joke that your friend told you (pretending to hear a joke is a pretty lame excuse). You can also turn laughter into crying easily, or just continue talking in a half-laughing voice - this may just sound strange to the person who already thinks you're a weirdo for making the call.How do I avoid rambling and then freezing up with nothing to say?Be relaxed and go with the flow. Go with what you know. Bring up topics that you know something about and bring in details from your life or your friend's lives, or something you saw on a tv talk show. Anything that brings up the unexpected is funny... the wackier the better. In addition, details add a huge amount of legitimacy to the call. Even if you pause before answering a question, say it with confidence and the person on the other end will think you're serious.For example, if you listen to the Seattle Phone Pranks you can tell the guy knows something about cars, because he keeps bringing up "trannies" and car-related things. The fact that he chose to call car want-ads was a good decision in this case, because he can mix insanity with real car questions. Whatever you do, avoid the urge to say "hello?" or "what?" or "huh?" Get into talking in an area where you're comfortable and above all else, say your name with confidence. For more information, check out Lars' article on prolonged mind games from Prantagonize, July '97. I'm a 7th grader and my voice hasnt changed yet, any suggestions?Go with what you're good at. Do 7th grade pranks with a 7th grade voice. Many pranksters wish they had the voice of a 7th grader. 7th graders have notoriously bad judgement and a cruel streak, so make sure you know what you're doing before you get into it.What are some other prank call pages on the net?Funny you should ask: Check out the BIG list of prank linksSomeone's pranking me - what should I do?Simple - beat them at their own game.First of all, record their incoming calls. Do what makes prank calls fail - don't get mad and don't really respond to what they say, or try to insult them back. Just say, "uh-uh, yeah." Don't answer their questions, don't really do anything. If you're in a hurry, just ignore it and hang up. But, then they might call back. The best thing to do would be to stay on the phone as long as they will, but make sure that it is not funny to them. That way, they'll get sick of it, hang up, and not call back.
Just what are the laws on telephone calls?"Telephone Harassment" is against the law, but making a phone call, especially calling a public business is not. Recording phone calls is legal in most states (One party must know it, meaning no phone taps). Its a good idea to protect people's privacy by always bleeping phone numbers, full names, and in some cases the name of the business. Call-in radio and television are most certainly not illegal as they are inviting you to call. Claiming to be someone you're not, making threats, and accusing people of serious things all toe the line and you should be careful if you do this kind of thing. Impersonating law enforcement authorities is definitely dangerous ground.Someone is threatening to "call security and get the phone tapped." What do I do?First of all, it takes a court order to get the phone tapped in by an authority. Yeah right - Especially if it is a busy place of business (Busyness), they don't have time to go to all that trouble. And where are they going to find a judge after 5 PM, which is when most pranks are made?If they claim they have "star 69...direct dial*" they are lying. If they say "You are calling from 555-0998" and that is in fact your number, they're not lying (obviously). Keep reading for some ideas at how to handle this... Remember, if you've only been annoying them, you're not breaking any laws, so a failsafe method is just to never go over the line. Say "But I was just asking you a question!!!!" if that's all you were doing. *That quote was from Insane Jason's "Stop 'N Go" What is the deal with Caller ID anyway?In addition to having a Caller ID device such as the ones listed above, you must pay a monthly fee for the phone company to provide you with this service. Depending on your phone company, when you make an outgoing call, your phone number and/or name and address goes out with the call. Anyone with Caller ID and particularly 1-800 numbers can get access to this information. Because of YOUR right to privacy, you can disable this "feature" of your telephone by habitually dialing *67 before making any call (depending on your phone system). Many networked phone systems or your college phone system may require you to press '9' to dial out. These sometimes don't allow you to type in *67. Often, however, Caller-IDs will only return one main number for any phone within the network. For example, if your number is 555-3457, the Caller-ID may only return 555-0000 (or one main number for the organization). Of course, Your mileage may vary.[From: NVPhreak@Hotmail.com] I read through your FAQ and thought there was some interesting tips and info you could add. Instead of dialing *67, call up your local phone company, and ask about permanent caller ID block to be installed on your line. In Nevada (with Sprint) the service is free, due to your right to privacy, or some shit like that. Also, if you are using your Modem line to make the calls, or a line where you never recieve incomming calls, set it up to forward to an out of service number. (Of course, anything as nifty as call forwarding has to have a cost!) But it works for me. Well, that was my 2 cents worth if you care! =) I called some paranoid asshole who recorded my prank and Caller-ID'ed my phone number. What do I do now?First of all, remember the #1 rule.Method 1: Stick to your guns. Unless you threatened him with something really illegal, nothing says that you aren't who you first said you were. You haven't done anything wrong, and its certainly not worse than "Candid Camera" or any of those TV shows where they pull pranks on people. If you're really worried, just let him think that he has beaten you and apologize. NOT for making a fake phone call, but for whatever reason you called him in the first place. STAY IN CHARACTER, just become sympathetic and let him win. Make the victim feel like its partly their fault. Say "Now you know we ain't have no reason to be on the phone cussing each other out.*" as if both of you were at fault, but YOU'RE the one now extending your hand in reconciliation. Your new niceness will overshadow your previous rudeness, making the victim forget about the severity of your previous conversation. *That quote was from "Y'all So Stupid" Method 2: Assume he's bluffing. Record the whole thing. The fact that you don't care that he knows your phone number will make the already paranoid, weak-minded jackass even more angry - to the point where he just doesn't want to mess with you anymore because his empty threats don't even faze you (and he knows there's nothing he can or wants to take the time to do to pursue you over some stupid prank). Plus you then have a hilarious sequence of calls on tape. Method 3: Have "dad" answer the phone. Swear no one made those calls from this number. Say you've been gone all day, your kids aren't allowed to use the phone, etc. When the person protests, continue to say there's no way the calls could have come from this number. Show your naiveity at what your supposed kids are doing by giving more excuses that they don't even know how to use the phone, you were right next to the phone except for the 15 minutes when you were on the shitter, etc. Let the Caller-ID'er piece together the idea that the dad doesn't know what is going on and his kids are playin' with the phone. Once you have adequately argued, let him convince you that your kids could have done it. Say "Hold on, let me have a talk with my boys." Wait a while. For embellishment you can make walking away and up the stairs noises, then coming back noises with a kid caught red-handed making resisting noises. If you want to really have fun, threaten and argue with the "kid", who protests all the time that he didn't do it. Or just put someone on the phone to do a really pitiful, childish voice and say, "H...Hello? I'm Sorry....No, [I can't apologize to your wife too,] my dad said I'm not allowed to use the phone for a month." If you really want to make it funny, say "My dad said I'm never allowed to use the phone again (...until I move out, or ...until I learn how to use it responsibly, or whatever)". Then at the end throw in "I won't do it again, honest." Remember, the key is to do a really typical, stupid sounding kid who sounds really sorry and didn't realize what he was doing. Regardless of what voice you used on the first call and how much fast-talking, big-vocabulary you used, the Caller-ID'er will never remember things that way. After all, they don't want to admit to themselves that they were fooled by some grade-school kid playing a prank. They'll remember that they knew it was a prank all along and the kid never had them fooled and never made them mad. Have "dad" thank him for alerting him to this problem and say, "Oh, I assure you, I've already started taking care of it." Feel free to embellish here, too. "The little bastard's gonna get it!" or "You just wait until the orphanage hears about this - he's a troublemaker and I'm sending him back. This is the last straw. Thank you, sir, for showing me that no matter what I tried, I just couldn't be a good enough father to this troubled young man. Thanks for showing me now before the adoption had gone completely through." or "How many times should I hit him with this belt? *Snap!* At least 25, I'd say. What do you think?" At any rate, just say you can assure him you're taking care of it and act very upset with a hint of violent anger, so the Caller-ID'er really believes the kid's going to get what's coming to him. The fact that *he* caused the little kid to get beat might also give him some guilt, which will make him even less likely to pursue the matter any further. Method 4: Important! Don't do calls in which you can't do Method
1. You, the person on the other end of the line, always might really be
the incredibly stupid asshole idiot who made the call. A chimp can dial
a phone after all. Particularly if you call businesses - real people make
calls ten times dumber than anything we could think up. Businesses are
used to it. Besides, "the customer is always right." I went too far and I've really gotten myself in trouble. Am I up shit creek?Pretty much. You can do *67 and this and that, but in the end, its up to you to use some discression in deciding what is ok and what's going too far. Neither the Art of Prank Calls, nor anyone on the Internet, nor your friends will be much help if you get in trouble.Can I legally use someone else's voice on a tape I put out?If you put out a big commercial tape, no. As far as passing a tape around that you aren't making money off of, except possibly to cover cost-there is no money for them to sue you for. The only way issue is whether you are using their voice "talents" for profit, without their permission.It's a touchy issue. If you're the Jerky Boys, you have to get permission. If you're Joe Tool with a prank tape that you've passed to a few people and have a small prank web page, then what does it matter? Especially if you are the one acting stupid and it's just a humorous call, not a threatening one. The Art of Prank Calls policy is that if anyone featured on the site has any problem whatsoever with the way they are featured, we take down the clip immediately and will not use it on any future tapes. If you ever sell a lot of tapes, you will have to deal with this issue. Not many of us have done that.
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DisclaimerThe calls on this page are presented for entertainment purposes only. While laws regarding telephone calls vary from locale to locale, the calls presented here were recorded with the knowledge of the caller but not the recipient of the call, in accordance with the laws of the state in which they were recorded. Details of the call recipients have been edited out whenever possible in order to protect them from harassment. The content of all recordings are the sole responsibility and property of their respective authors. Neither the webmaster of this site, Frank's World Entertainment Network,
Smoothium, nor Smoothium, LLC will be held responsible
for your actions, legal entanglements, or otherwise misfortune. Please
see Frequently Asked Questions for more information.
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