Prank Calls
Posted by nd379@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 50 comments
Did anyone else do this in their childhood? Who would you call?
My brother and I would call 1800ABCDEFG (Hooked On Phonics) anytime we would be near a payphone đ Those poor employees
Jd11347@reddit
In JR high I had a friend named John. We were close. I had spent the night at his house a few times. I didn't know that his dad was also named John. So I decided to call his house and disguise my voice. His mom answer the phone. "Hello, this is Gary Schneider from Playboy magazine. Is John available?". His mom's voice was quite angry: "NO! He's not!" ME: "OK, can you tell him that his subscription is going to run out in a month". She just hung up.
The next time that I saw my friend, I brought it up to him. "Dude....you are such a dick. My mom was so mad at my dad. He's been sleeping on the couch for the last 2 days."
Physical_Classroom25@reddit
(705) 280 8481
Physical_Classroom25@reddit
(705) 280 8481
HookedOnPhonicsTeam@reddit
Taking notes here....
nd379@reddit (OP)
Is your refrigerator running?
Teeheehee
spiderman0307@reddit
+917703909513 call this no.
Suspicious_Size4030@reddit
I remember doing pranks with a buddy...i had called this place and was swaring at this lady and i hung up on her. When i tried to pick up the phone again she was still on the line so i cussed her out more. Turned out it was my mom and somehow the phone didnt ring because of call waiting. She was pissed lol
thetrappster@reddit
Would prank call random numbers and tell them I was from Baskin Robbins and if they could name 10 of the original 31 flavors they'd get a free icecream.
edasto42@reddit
We used to call various 800 numbers on commercials. We would always ask for more information about the product and riff off what they said. The goal was to keep the call going for as long as possible before getting hung up on.
UptownJunk802@reddit
Calling the bowling alley and asking if they had 8 pound balls. Wow. How do you walk? Lol.....click
Deep-Interest9947@reddit
Is your refrigerator running?
KittenPurrs@reddit
I have never once seen the tobacco product "Prince Albert" in a can, but our defaults were "Is your refrigerator running? Better go catch it!" and "Do you have Prince Albert in the can?" with the hopes of one day getting a yes so we could say "Better let him out!"
It's like we got our prank call scripts from the back of a 1950s comic book.
EatsCrackers@reddit
Do you have Mr Clean in a bottle? Better go open it, he canât breathe!
rajkaos@reddit
I once called a late night infomercial from my cousinâs house when I was 12 or 13. I kept insisting that I just wanted to buy the juicer that was the free gift with the main product they were selling. The lady kept going back and forth with me that I just needed to buy their product and I would get the juicer for free, but I wouldnât budge. I wasted so much of her time that night. Around the same time period, my friends and I used to call 1-900-Hot-Duck from a local payphone. We would giggle and enter a random sixteen digit number and a fake expiration date just to see what would happen. It actually worked once, but we chickened out at the last moment and hung up before it fully connected.
WENUS_envy@reddit
Ok I used to dial someone one on line, dial someone else on the second line, then hit conference and listen to them both pick up and then fight over who called whom. Extra fun bonus when it was 2 people who knew each other - they'd spend longer arguing about it.
So much hilarious ridiculousness pre-caller ID and 69/67
WutzTehPoint@reddit
We would call a resaurant in town. We'd tell them we really meeded to talk to our father and the we he was there. They'd ask for his name and we'd say"Mike cough cough, excuse me, Hunt." They tell us they were going find them and put the phone down. Then we'd hang and die laughing as this poor waitress went table to table asking if they had seen Mike Hunt.
supergooduser@reddit
I was ridiculously in to prank calls as a kid. Like I went out and bought a recording setup. I'd go through the classifieds for some kind of a strange item and then devise a premise.
Some guy had an ostrich farm selling ostrich meat and I call him and asked about setting up human ostrich cock fights and he humored me for WAY too long.
Primary-Strawberry-5@reddit
Damn. I was just a regular âcall the bowling alley and ask whoever answers if they have 12 pound ballsâ kind of prank caller. Until we eventually started randomly trying to spell out words. My best friends last 4 digits spelled FUKR and it was how he knew I was calling
Baked_Potato_732@reddit
I had a friend whose number spelled GUN-FURY which was awesome.
Primary-Strawberry-5@reddit
Noice!
nd379@reddit (OP)
đ
menunu@reddit
We used to leave ridiculous voicemails to our local newspaper.
Glittering-Station78@reddit
All the time before caller ID. We would play White Pages roulette and ask them if their refrigerator was running.
Appropriate-Food1757@reddit
Loved it. 1800Tampons was a good target
TheJokersWild53@reddit
I remember getting an answering machine and my friend just launched into this infomercial character and said, âYouâve just won a lifetime supply of condoms courtesy of Captain Condomâ and then sang a made up jingle and hung up.
MSB218@reddit
In elementary school, my sister and cousins and I used to prank randoms from the phonebook. One time, I called a number and asked for the listed name, and whomever answered said that he was the manâs son and that the man wasnât home, then said, âOh, this must be Don!â I pretended to be Don and had a 15- or 20-minutes conversation with the guy. I thought I was pretty slick for fooling him, and it didnât occur to me until years later that he obviously knew I was a stupid kid and was just screwing with me.
In sixth grade, I landed myself in in-school suspension for a week because I made so many prank phone calls from the cafeteria payphone that the cops had to come to the school.
One would expect me to have learned my lesson, but a few years later, a bunch of us were bored at someoneâs house when I suggested pranking some randoms from the phonebook; luckily for us, our first victimâs father happened to be an on-duty detective who immediately traced the call and sent a patrol car to the house; my friendâs older sister was lividâthrew me out, screaming at me from the front lawn as we drove away that I was never welcome back at their house again, etc.
THAT was the last time I ever made a prank call. Ha ha
Second_City_Saint@reddit
First or second grade we'd go through the white page listing for the last name Sexton. We'd call & wait for a woman to answer & then ask if she liked to have sex. We got everything from yelling to hang-ups & even a lady who thought it was the funniest thing ever. She was the only one to ever say "yes."
zzz242zzz@reddit
Waaaay back my friend and I would get bored and night while camping with my parents at Bofega Bay. We would sneak off and wander the camp at Doran Beach and try to entertain ourselves, which usually meant prank calls from the pay phone at the coast guard station.
One time I was way into Kurt Vonnegut and one of his books mentioned that a sperm whaleâs penis was about my height. So my calls that night were to inform people that I was roughly the size of a sperm whales penis. Then I got nervous and hung up. What fun!
Jasoco@reddit
My sister and her friend spent an afternoon doing this one day with business numbers. The only one I remember is calling Kelloggâs and telling them the best part of the Frosted Mini Wheats is the frosting. You had to be there. It was a whole commercial thing at the time.
Tall-Introduction414@reddit
We used to hack the phone system (beige boxing, PBXs, phone phreaking etc) and set up free conference calls ("confs"). We would call our friends long distance from the internet (IRC), and then make prank calls using the Arnold Schwarzenegger sound board, which was mostly Kindergarten Cop sounds.
One of my favorites was calling a pay phone, and having some random person on the street pick up and start chatting.
The old phone system was fun.
igorpk@reddit
You are of my tribe friend.
Your post gave me so much nostalgia that I'm going looking for a certain Cookbook online now.. As a .txt file, of course.
Embarrassed_Rule_269@reddit
Word. Did more than my share of phreaking too.
I miss the old ways
nd379@reddit (OP)
Whoa. You were serious business! Hack the planet
NotXenos@reddit
We had a pay phone in our school gym entrance in middle school. My friend was obsessed with calling 1-900-FAT-GIRL on it. Like he did it almost daily.
Plutoniumburrito@reddit
We were recording them way before the Jerky Boys ever existed. We did and said some fucked up ones and probably split up a few marriages. Damn kids hahaha
heyitscory@reddit
A long time ago I was in a tobacco shop actually had cans of Prince Albert pipe tobacco, like the old prank call premise.
I suggested they let him out.
lavasca@reddit
People did that constantly before CallerId!
silentsnak3@reddit
My cousin and I would randomly call people and pretend to be radio DJ's. We would put on a song and play it, then ask if the person could name the artist and title of song for $1000. We would only do the biggest hits. Think Michael Jackson and other songs that almost anyone would know. We did beat it one time, and the guy was so excited to answer. Then I would say "OOOOO so close. But that was actually Nirvana with their hit smells like teen spirit.".
Ahhh good times. Well until my parents got the phone bill. I don't remember much after that. Funny how there are gaps in my memories after I got in trouble lol.
Zoso03@reddit
There used to be a number you could dial on a payphone, hang up then a little while later it would start ringing. It was stupid anf harmless but we were easily entertained while waiting for the bus
CelticSith@reddit
Pablo Honey? You washing your ass, Pablo?
boston_homo@reddit
We were very stupid and called the operator, remember her? She called back and told mom every delightful thing we said. No more prank calls after that.
bwaarp@reddit
My friend and I loved to call the 1-800 numbers on the back of food packages and ask them stupid questions. I remember calling whichever company makes Coffee Mate coffee whitener and asking if it could be used instead of Shake nâ Bake.
MsBlondeViking@reddit
I was friends with a sheriffs kid. She was the prank queen. We would dial random numbers, not knowing who or where we were calling. One time it was a rental place for port a potties. She gave them a random address, and told them she needed ten of them. Not sure how that ended up lol. We chatted with some random old lady once, was quite obvious she had no family, no one to visit her. This same friend ran up an $867 phone bill, calling friends long distance. Her parents put a block with a 6 digit code on it. She figured it out lol.
deowolf@reddit
What's the statute of limitations on this again?
nd379@reddit (OP)
1-2 years. Misdemeanor.
deowolf@reddit
All the time at house parties (cause you don't do it from your own house - *69 was a thing). We'd be drunk, cold calling random numbers with the cordless handset of whomever's house it was in some out of the way place. We'd do impressions of celebrities and ask for random favors or ask for votes in upcoming elections. We thought we were better than the Jerky Boys.
Man, I really should have spent more time talking to girls.
herseyhawkins33@reddit
One of my friends was so good at holding back laughter despite saying the most absurd things. I could barely keep it together after 30 seconds. Good times.
xt0rt@reddit
We always called QVC and "pranked" them and/or tried to act serious and get on the air to talk about a product.
Logical-Cherry9395@reddit
Confession - Still do this when Christian billboards annoy me. You know the ones: Call 855-FOR-TRUTH and they have some really nuts "When you die you WILL MEET GOD"
nd379@reddit (OP)
đ I love it