Crank Yankers

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Crank Yankers is an American television series produced by Adam Carolla, Jimmy Kimmel, and Daniel Kellison that features actual crank calls made by show regulars and celebrity guests and re-enacted onscreen by puppets for a visual aid to show the viewer what is happening in the call. The series premiered in 2002 on Comedy Central and returned to MTV2 on February 9, 2007, running again until March 30, 2007. The series screened in Australia on SBS Television and The Comedy Channel between 2003 and 2008.

In 2011, there was a pilot for a traditionally-animated spin-off titled Birchum featuring Dick Birchum as the main character. He was redesigned to look younger and had a mustache. The pilot was made for FOX, but was not picked up as a series.

On February 11, 2019, Jimmy Kimmel announced on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that the series would be revived on Comedy Central for a fifth 20-episode season and mark the first project on his new Kimmelot production imprint. The season will include pranks on social media and other platforms. Kimmel's brother Jonathan Kimmel served as show runner and executive producer. Season 5 premiered on September 25, 2019.

On March 5, 2020, Comedy Central announced that Crank Yankers had been renewed for a 20 episode 6th season. It premiered on May 5, 2021.

Behind the Scenes

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."

Characters

• Karl Malone: Jimmy Kimmel's impression of then-NBA star Karl Malone. He regularly refers to himself in the third-person. "Don't hang up on Karl Malone." He also does his own informative shorts on the show, always giving advice of an odd or often offensive nature.
• Gladys Murphy (Wanda Sykes): A boisterous black woman who makes embarrassing announcements, generally of a scatological or sexual nature. Her many children do things like gluing her butt to the toilet, stealing money from a malfunctioning bank machine, or breast feeding at an extremely late age.
• Niles Standish (Tony Barbieri): The British Earl of Yankerville. He is a rich and eccentric middle-aged pervert with homosexual tendencies. He frequently calls various services and asks for their price, then orders them to "double it." (Once even confusing someone by telling them to "cut it in half, and double it!"). He has an assistant named Cavendish.
• Special Ed (Jim Florentine): Bobby Fletcher's mentally challenged younger cousin who constantly repeats himself, makes random comments, and shouts his catchphrase "Yay!" until the other caller gets frustrated. He makes a cameo in one of Bobby's prank calls, the "Let Me Put My Brother on the Phone" call. In two prank calls of his own (one to a movie theater and one to a video store), Ed reveals that his favorite movie is Air Bud. In the video-store call, he works in several references to The Shining.
• Dick Birchum (Adam Carolla): A psychotic Vietnam War veteran whose hobbies include carpentry, Shotokan karate, spying on women in their beds or bathrooms by drilling holes or a hidden camera, and gun ownership. He has a 600-pound wife and conjoined twin daughters. He lost part of his right leg in the war and 3 right-hand fingers in a carpentry accident. He frequently refers to his time in Vietnam and "smoking hash out of a human skull."
• Jimmy (Jimmy Kimmel): A Kimmel-based grown man who lives with his mother. He also has 2 young children who use foul language and play juvenile pranks.
• Kevin (Kevin Kimmel): The youngest of Jimmy’s children, Kevin is a foul mouthed and somewhat perverted kid who enjoys pulling pranks with his older sister, Katie.
• Katie (Katie Kimmel): The oldest of Jimmy’s children, Katie is a foul mouthed and aggressive kid who often berates and insults others.
• Bobby Fletcher (Jim Florentine): Ed's drug-using underachiever older cousin. He is extremely rude and insulting, and known for belching into the phone.
• Billy Fletcher (Eminem): Bobby’s lazy and alcoholic brother. He is also Ed’s older cousin.
• Elmer Higgins (Jimmy Kimmel): A crabby, elderly man (based on Kimmel's grandfather). He makes complaint calls and frequently goes off on unrelated, long-winded tangents about his younger days and various irrelevant subjects. He is also hard of hearing, having asked people to speak up constantly. He sometimes mentions his brother Charlie, as well as his gay grandson, Terrence Catheter.
• Helen Higgins (Susie Essman): Elmer's beautiful wife of over 60 years, she is an elderly woman who likes to proposition young men. Her son gave her a pet parrot who is well-versed in curse words. In a late-in-the-series sketch about Elmer wanting driving lessons, he mentions that she has died, but this was probably due to one of his ramblings.
• Landalious "The Truth" Truefeld (David Alan Grier): A former football player who likes to rap. Will sporadically beatbox and rhyme on the line to the other caller, often not letting them get a word in.
• Spoonie Luv (Tracy Morgan): A smooth-talking African American playboy character who makes lewd and suggestive comments. He often refers to himself as "The One and Only Spoonie Luv from Up Above." In one particularly noteworthy prank call, he attempts to sell a video store tapes of himself masturbating.
• Hadassah Guberman (Sarah Silverman): A Jewish female college student who works various part-time jobs, including conducting surveys for O magazine. She frequently asks intrusive questions and makes veiled passive-aggressive insults. Her sexuality and sanity seem highly questionable, often yelling into the phone and getting rude with the caller.
• Terrence Catheter (Jimmy Kimmel): Elmer Higgins' grandson is an effeminate redhead who acts as spokesperson for various celebrities, such as Tom Cruise, Bill Cosby, Jared Fogle, J.K. Rowling, Mr. T, and the Olsen twins. He calls various places of business to book special appearances and asks them to comply with the celebrities' ridiculous and often impossible demands.
• Tony Deloge (Bob Einstein): A loud-mouthed, fast-paced politician who calls random people to pander for votes as "district selectman." He occasionally tries to use his political power to get things for free and is very aggressive with his political agenda, often saying rude and inappropriate things to obtain votes.
• Cammie Smith (Lisa Kushell): A nymphomaniac, she is a somewhat conceited, condescending 23-year-old exotic dancer who is very open about discussing her sexual endeavors.
• Boomer and the Nudge (Jimmy Kimmel and Patton Oswalt): Two obnoxious morning-radio disc jockeys who call people to make "on-air dares."
• Junkyard Willie (Touch-Tone Terrorists): An obstructionist in the form of a gravelly-voiced black man who is actually an import from the Touch-Tone Terrorists where he is a regular character. He appears in two sketches as a supervisor at YPS ("Yankerville Package Service").
• Jim Bob the Handicapped Hillbilly (Touch-Tone Terrorists): A mentally challenged hillbilly who works with Junkyard Willie at YPS.
• Sav Macauley (Dane Cook): The overly enthusiastic host of a phone game show, "The Phone Zone," where he calls people and asks ridiculous random trivia questions for cash prizes and interjects his own sound effects.
• OCD Ken (Kevin Nealon): An accountant with obsessive-compulsive disorder who prefers cleanliness and even numbers. He often requests people to press the pound key and tap objects as part of his disorder.
• Danny (David Alan Grier): A man who repeatedly gets nervous or disgusted causing him to vomit over the phone. The vomit is depicted as an Exorcist-like liquid shooting out of the puppet's throat.
• Chip Douglas (Fred Armisen): A Mexican immigrant who is perpetually building a house with minimal supplies and poor command of the English language. He makes two prank calls to newspaper offices, one to attempt to sell cartoons and the other (a prank call in Spanish) to inform a Spanish-language newspaper that he has not received that day's edition.
• Mooshu (Billy West): A Chinese man who is a stereotypical wannabe gangster, and affectionately refers to himself as a "chigga". He is a huge fan of the rapper Tupac, as well as Biggie Smalls and is a frequent user of drugs and whores.
• Joe Smith (Denis Leary): A smoker who babysits for his friend’s pet monkey.