Behind The Scenes
The performers are given a basic outline of a premise by the writers, and call telephone numbers from a list of selected targets (known as "marks"). Using the basic premises, the performers improvise most of their lines, playing off of the responses of their marks, with the intention to keep them on the phone as long as possible.
With the exception of a few outside sources (including previous material from Jim Florentine and the Touch-Tone Terrorists), all the calls are made from Nevada. The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 makes it illegal in most states to record telephone calls without both parties' consent. Under Nevada law, only one of the parties has to give consent (i.e., the caller), so prank calls can be recorded without the consent of the prank victims. One result of this was the series' schedule of creating and airing new episodes was fairly sporadic due to most of the celebrities living in Los Angeles, having Los Angeles-based jobs, and so were only periodically able to go to Las Vegas to make calls. Adam Carolla, for example, took his radio program to Las Vegas once or twice a year, and while there would record new calls for the program.
The puppets are then constructed based on the various marks' voices, and, along with a series of stock characters (such as "Niles Standish", "Bobby Fletcher", and "Special Ed") based on the performers' character voices, the calls are re-enacted for the skits.
The main character puppets for first season were constructed by Bob Flanagan's company Den Design with additional puppets built by BJ Guyer, Carol Binion, Rick Lyon, Ron Binion, Jim Kroupa, and Artie Esposito. An in-house puppet shop was set up for the following seasons to accommodate the fast paced schedule of the show and the sheer volume of puppet characters required for each episode.
The puppets are puppeteered by Ronald Binion, Rick Lyon, BJ Guyer, Victor Yerrid, Paul McGinnis, Alice Dinean Vernon, and Artie Esposito.
Originally the show was titled 'Prank Puppets' but was renamed after Comedy Central lawyers deemed that it implied malice.
Read more about this topic: Crank Yankers
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