Crank Yankers

Created by The Man Show alumni Adam Carolla and Jimmy Kimmel, Crank Yankers was a TV show that ran intermittently from 2002 to 2007 and was based on prank phone calls made by a revolving cast of comedians, with the calls acted out by puppets. In addition to Kimmel and Carolla, Sarah Silverman, Tracy Morgan, Jim Florentine, Denis Leary and Wanda Sykes, among others, were all regulars on the show. Thanks to a loophole in Nevada state law that allowed people to be recorded without their consent, the calls were made from that state, in a room with a dry-erase board on which the group would write potential responses or directions the unsuspecting victims were to be taken in, with the intention of keeping them on the phone for as long as possible. Wanda Sykes' irate and scatologically obsessed Gladys Murphy, Jim Florentine's constantly "yay"-ing Special Ed, Tracy Morgan's uber-slick creepo Spoonie Luv and Adam Carolla's crazy 'Nam vet Birchum were perhaps the most recognized characters on the show. Inexplicably dropped from Comedy Central in 2005, the show was picked up for a short three-month run by MTV2 in 2007.