January 27, 2007
Lucille Ball: The Original Phone Prankster?
In an episode of I Love Lucy (1950s) running this morning on the Comedy Network, Lucille Ball proves why she's one of the original phone pranksters. Her husband Ricky Ricardo is trying to get the owner of the nightclub he performs at to pay him more money. The owner, played by Gale Gordon, who was Lucy's boss in the later 1960s series The Lucy Show", tells Ricky that he can't match the other offers Ricky has (supposedly) been getting.
So Lucy, her usual well-intending but trouble-making self, teams up with Ethel and Fred Mertz to phone in nightclub reservations under different identities. They arrive at the club all dressed up and then leave when they "find out" that Ricky Ricardo isn't performing.
Not quite as extreme or rude as The Jerky Boys, but probably extreme for the leave-it-to-beaver 1950s. Now I'm wondering how much of the soon-to-be expected VoIP spam is going to be prank calls from the next generation of jerky boys and silly redheads (Lucy). Google's click to call service was reportedly the subject of half-assed nonsense, with pranksters calling up businesses and hanging up.
Of course, as far as I know, you can't spoof your Skype or SightSpeed identity, so it's hard to use either to prank someone. But with click-to-call buttons, you can remain anonymous with some services. So it'll be interesting to see whether click-to-call buttons catch on or not.
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