What happens to habitual pranksters when they become unemployed? In Bill Geerhart's case, it meant grabbing a writing tablet, a No. 2 pencil, and churning out prank letters to everyone from the Church of Scientology to Donald Rumsfeld. The catch: all his letters are written as "Little Billy," a 10-year-old boy. Take for instance this letter sent to cheap beer tycoon Augie Busch:
As ZUG fans know, a true prank requires a response from a third party. The replies to "Little Billy" are quite funny, like this response sent from Budweiser to his parents:
Geerhart's first letter was addressed to a veritable moron (former vice president Dan Quayle) and his second letter moved straight to the top of governmental intelligentsia (the Supreme Court Justices). After getting responses from both, "It put some fuel on the fire to keep going," said Geerhart, and continue he did, penning thousands of letters from 1994-2008. We caught up with him to ask him how it all started.
ZUG: Who were your childhood influences?
LITTLE BILLY GEERHART: I didn't read traditional comics, but Mad Magazine was definitely one.
ZUG: Did you pull pranks as a kid?
LBG: I started calling talk radio shows when I was in the eighth or ninth grade. I had a deep enough voice, and I could do an English accent and get through if the screener was really stupid. I used to love to call in to local programs and introduce odd, contrary comments or questions to throw the host off his topic, and hopefully get him angry.
ZUG: How did you hit upon the idea of writing prank letters?
LBG: It all started as a cheap way of combating boredom. Back in the mid-1990s I had moved to Los Angeles to become a writer and I quickly found myself unemployed. Shocking, I know. One day I found a bunch of booklets of stamps in a vending machine at my local post office, and I resolved to use them to write some prank letters. When right off the bat I started getting responses from former Vice President Dan Quayle and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, I knew prank letter writing was destined to be a long-term hobby, and perhaps someday even a book.
ZUG: Were you a fan of (Don Novello's) The Lazlo Letters?
LBG: Oh, yes. Back in high school, a friend gave me a copy of [that book] and I loved it. But it goes back further than that. In 1948, there was a guy named Humphry Berkeley who wrote letters to public figures using a character named Rochester Sneath; those letters were collected and published in the 1970's. Going back to the 1970s, there have been a number of hoax correspondence books written in the voice of adult male characters. I wanted to do something different and I thought writing as a child would allow me greater latitude in the kinds of questions I could ask. I also thought writing as a kid would elicit a greater volume of responses with more interesting answers. All of this definitely proved to be true.
ZUG: In many of the letters, you have a friend named "Eddie" who seems to be the source of all your background information. Is Eddie a friend of yours?
LBG: No. Actually "Eddie" is an homage to Eddie Haskell, who was always getting "the Beav" in trouble.
ZUG: What is the weirdest/funniest response you got back?
LBG: The weirdest was the Mormons. They came to my house one morning looking for "Little Billy" after I had sent a letter. Two Mormon missionaries had been sent to try and meet with "Billy" to answer his questions about the faith. Unfortunately for them, "Billy" never seemed to be home. On their third unexpected visit, they learned from "Mr. Geerhart" that "Billy" had decided to become a Catholic. They did not return after this.
I was also surprised to find out that (convicted serial killer) Richard Ramirez had his own stationery. But the funniest response was from the Church of Scientology. They sent me coupons for the classes that they offered at the church. They knew I was a ten-year-old kid, yet they were offering me courses that cost tens of thousands of dollars!
For up-to-the-minute pranking, check out Geerhart's recent Little Billy letters to celebrities including Tiger Woods. And for the complete collection, the very funny Little Billy's Letters can be purchased on Amazon.com.
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