I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love a good practical joke. Whether it’s played on me or I get to harass one of my friends, there’s no end to the fun I have being part of one. (Though I will admit to preferring being on the delivering end…) This is why I ended up watching shows like “Punk’d” or “The Jamie Kennedy Experiment”, both of which remind me of a time when “Candid Camera” was king. The only style of practical joke I never really got into was the prank call. Unless they were made to a friend, there is something lost when you can’t laugh about it with them later on. Of course, a few years back I teamed up with a friend to play a joke one someone we didn’t know (it was a friend of another friend - see if you can keep track). We pretended to be from the police department and were calling to follow up on a traffic stop that person had the week before where they were caught with a very small amount of an illegal substance. I had several questions prepared and after the initial introductory conversation, I was ready to ask them.

Unfortunately, when I told our victim that we were trying a new experimental form of interrogation and asked if she had a bright light available that she could shine in her eyes, my partner lost it and started cracking up. So much for the best part of the joke…

In Comedy Central’s “Crank Yankers”, the art of the prank phone call is taken several steps further. In the series we not only get to hear the calls, but we see them as well. Well, sort of. We are shown ‘re-enactments’ of the prank call as they are acted out by puppets. That’s right, puppets. The prank calls are set up and performed by comics like Adam Carolla, Jimmy Kimmel and Dave Chappelle (just to name a few), and then we listen to them while watching the puppets. It’s actually quite a clever idea, and very well done, but it doesn’t always work.

There are times when it’s hysterical, such as in the case when they use a character named “Special Ed”, but sometimes seeing the puppets detracts from the humor of the call itself. The inherent humor of a prank phone call comes from the fact that it is an audible joke as opposed to a visual one. Listening to the distress or frustration of some poor schmuck who gets caught on the line is very funny, even if a bit childish. When you add the visual stimulation of the puppets, it tends to distract from the joke as opposed to enhancing it. Again, this isn’t to say the concept doesn’t work, but occasionally when I watch the show, I opt not to ‘watch’ it. I close my eyes, listen to the voices and use my own imagination to create the visual.

What makes the series work so well in spite of this one small disadvantage are the jokes themselves. Since many of the comics who lend their voices to the show also write their own material, the jokes are often extremely creative and put to shame even the best of the prank callers I knew growing up. In some of the funnier moments, Jimmy Kimmell calls to make an appointment for a hearing aid and is unable to ‘hear’ the receptionist, Adam Carolla calls a country club to see if he left his prosthetic leg, and Jim Florentine as Special Ed when he… well when he makes just about any call.

Paramount Home Entertainment is releasing the 1st season of “Crank Yankers” in a 2-disc set. It includes all ten episodes and a behind the scenes featurette. The featurette is fairly short, but it does give a little bit of a look into how the show is put together.

Whether or not you’ll like “Crank Yankers” really depends on what kind if humor you like. My range is pretty big, so I enjoy the heck out of it. But you really have to be able to appreciate he immature nature of the art of the prank call.

Starring (the voices of): Jimmy Kimmel, Adam Carolla, Sarah Silverman, Wanda Sykes, Tracy Morgan, Fred Armisen, Dave Chappelle, Jack Black, Jim Florentine, Stephen Colbert, Dave Attell, Tony Barbieri,
Extras: Behind the Scenes Mini-Documentary
Specifications: Full Screen
Studio: Paramount
Release Date: 9/28/2004
Region 1
MPAA Rating: NR
Website

We'll give Crank Yankers: Season 1 a B+.