Prank Call

Prank call recordings collect comedic telephone calls in which a caller, adopting a false persona, provokes an unsuspecting recipient for the audience's amusement. The form circulated first through underground tapes, most famously the 1970s Tube Bar recordings, then became a commercial comedy category with *The Jerky Boys*, whose 1993 debut on #Select Records# went platinum and influenced the title of *Radiohead*'s "Pablo Honey". *Roy D. Mercer*'s telephone threats of violence and the surreal, effects-laden calls of *Longmont Potion Castle* mark the genre's poles of confrontation and absurdism.