Tom Mabe: World's Most (In)Famous Prank Phone Caller A comedy article
by John Hargrave 128,123 71 10/02/2009 04:10 PM 6830 views
Over forty million people have listened to his prank phone calls on YouTube, more than any other comedian in the world, but many people don't know his name. We're out to change that, with our exclusive interview with comedian/prankster Tom Mabe.
Take the following YouTube clip, simply labeled "The Greatest Prank Call Ever," which has been viewed over 20 million times. A telemarketer unwittingly calls Tom Mabe, the 41 year-old vigilante prankster, offering him a "free digital satellite system." Mabe immediately switches into the character of "Officer Clarke," an angry detective investigating the recent homicide of Tom Mabe. He begins grilling the telemarketer with questions: his address, how he knew Tom Mabe, and whether the two were gay lovers. Rather than put up with telemarketers, like the rest of us, Tom Mabe puts them on.
Mabe's specialty is pranking telemarketers: he has four full-length albums of hilarious "reverse phone calls," made on telemarketers that were unlucky enough to call his number. After his first bestselling album, Mabe decided he wanted to do something different. His inspiration came in the form of aggravation.
"At one point, I had telemarketers literally waking me up in the morning," he said. "It got me thinking how I could wake them up instead." Then Mabe heard about a telemarketer convention in nearby Washington, D.C. He researched the hotel where they were staying, then drove up from Louisville and checked into the hotel.
"About 3:00 in the morning," he recounts, "I started calling them up. I'd sell them sleeping pills, or tell them I was with the 'Telemarketers With Insomnia' foundation. I'd say, 'We're calling you at this hour so you can better understand what Telemarketers With Insomnia are going through.'"
That epic night of pranking created his second best-selling album, A Wake Up Call for Telemarketers, but there was another prank that never made it onto the album. "About 7:00, I'm laying down to finally get some sleep, and these alarms start going off across the street from the hotel. I look out the window, and there's a video store getting robbed! The cops show up, I'm watching this whole thing from my window. So I get out the yellow pages and find the number for the video store. I call it, and I see the police officer pick up the phone. I say to the cop, 'Dude, get out of there! The cops are everywhere!'"
A native of Louisville, KY, Mabe has been a lifelong prankster. "The earliest prank I can remember," he says, "was as a kid, I saw a dead deer lying by the road. I happened to have a Santa suit, so I put it on, then went out and laid down next to the deer. This school bus full of kids came by, saw Santa laying next to a dead deer, and went, AAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
Since childhood, Mabe has had a partner-in-crime -- the bald, beefy "Jimbo." "As kids, my friend Jimbo and I would spend hours building snowmen and snow forts in our front yard. This older kid down the street had a big pickup truck, he'd come run our snow forts down with his big truck. So one day we built this huge snow fort right over a fire hydrant. We go inside to watch TV, and this kid comes down the road, doing at least 60, when BOOM! His truck is stuck on top of the fire hydrant, and water is just spewing everywhere. The cops came. It was great."
The YouTube success of Mabe's prank phone calls led to his first TV show, Mabe In America, which aired for eight episodes on CMT, each shown 113 times. Mabe remembers the experience as grueling: "We had to film 130 pranks in seven weeks," he remembers. "Looking back, it was fun, but at the time I was in a daze. It was tough, really hard."
The pranks in Mabe in America are notable for their funny, gentle punchlines -- a rarity in today's hidden-camera shock shows. "Every prank I do," he says, "I can hug someone at the end of it."
Oh I like messing with telemarketers. This one called for a survey of some sort, to ask about our television usage. I told them that we didn't have a television because mama said we were bad. But sometimes we'd go over to the neighbors and watch it. Except when we got caught we'd have to stay down in the cellar with the cyclops and share the bucket of fish with him if we got caught.
I always end up ruining it by laughing my ass off near the end. Props to people who really screw with them with a straight face thru the whole thing.
My father got a call from a telemarketer once before. The live kind, not one of the lazy machine ones. He had the guy eating out of the palm of his hand and said he had to talk it over with the family before he accepted the offer. He set the phone down and left for two hours before he picked up the phone. dad: you still there? telemarketer: yeah! dad: hangs up
I was 10 at the time and nearly shat myself laughing at it all.
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