Among the most famous and earliest recorded prank calls are the Tube Bar prank calls tapes, which centered on Louis "Red" Deutsch.

The Tube Bar prank calls are a series of prank calls made in the mid-1970s to the Tube Bar in Jersey City, in which Jim Davidson and John Elmo would ask "Red," the proprietor of the bar, if they could speak to various non-existent customers.

More recently, the Pranknet virtual community has been credited for causing tens of thousands of dollars in damage to many hotels and fast food restaurants.

Pranknet, also known as Prank University, is an infamous Canadian-based anonymous prank calling virtual community responsible for damage to hotels and fast food restaurants of more than $60,000 as well as multiple instances of telephone harassment.

Rudimentary criminal 'pranks' may range from simple telephone harassment to bomb threats.

Common types of nuisance calls include prank calls, telemarketing calls, and silent calls.

Some performers such as The Jerky Boys, Tom Mabe and Roy D. Mercer made a name for themselves producing albums of their recorded prank calls.

The Jerky Boys is an American comedy act from Queens, New York, whose routine consists of prank telephone calls and other related skits.

Moe then asks his clientele if the person is present, embarrassing himself in the process.

Other running jokes featuring him include being prank called by Bart Simpson, running illegal activities from his bar, and an ambiguous ethnic origin.

Fonejacker, a show started on April 5, 2007 on E4, stars Kayvan Novak performing prank calls to the general public and being shown with animated pictures in a Monty Python style with their mouths moving and live recordings as the victim receives the call.

Fonejacker is a British comedy programme broadcast on E4 featuring a series of prank calls involving a number of different characters performed by British Iranian television actor Kayvan Novak.

The television show Crank Yankers is a series of real-life prank calls made by celebrities and re-enacted on-screen by puppets for a humorous effect.

Crank Yankers is an American television show produced by Adam Carolla, Jimmy Kimmel and Daniel Kellison that featured 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 Touch-Tone Terrorists is a series of prank phone calls comedy CDs.

The soundboard community that followed him caused at least three known incidents with the law: two in Kansas City, Missouri and a third in Houston; both were for threats of violence against residents and the police with his name being used in the process.

They are most often used in prank calls, when the caller uses the soundboard to imitate a celebrity or other well-known person.

Frequently, caller ID spoofing is used for prank calls.

Some performers such as The Jerky Boys, Tom Mabe and Roy D. Mercer made a name for themselves producing albums of their recorded prank calls.

Brent Douglas, who performs Mercer's voice, uses the character as a vehicle for comedy sketches in which he performs prank calls.

Fonejacker, a show started on April 5, 2007 on E4, stars Kayvan Novak performing prank calls to the general public and being shown with animated pictures in a Monty Python style with their mouths moving and live recordings as the victim receives the call.

In 2005, he and Ed Tracy created Fonejacker, a prank call show as part of Channel 4's Comedy Lab strand.

Tangalanga''', was a popular Argentine comedian known for his humorous prank phone calls to unsuspecting recipients.

"Weird Al" Yankovic's song "Phony Calls" (a parody of "Waterfalls" by TLC, featured on his 1996 album Bad Hair Day) deals with prank phone calls.

The second parody was a pastiche of TLC's hit "Waterfalls" called "Phony Calls", about prank calls.

Longmont Potion Castle (born 1972) is the pseudonym of an anonymous surrealist prank caller who has been active in Colorado and the Los Angeles area since 1987.

In the past, it has ranked at the top of Alexa's "Prank Call" category.

In 2012, Jacintha Saldanha, a nurse at King Edward VII hospital who was attending a pregnant Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, was deceived into transferring a prank call from Mel Greig and Mike Christian, the hosts of the Hot30 Countdown radio program broadcast on 2Day FM in Sydney, Australia, who were impersonating Queen Elizabeth II and Charles, Prince of Wales.

On 6 December 2012, Christian and his 2Day FM radio co-host, Mel Greig, made a radio prank call to the hospital that was caring for Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, during her first pregnancy.

A prank call (also known as a crank call, phony call or hoax call) is a telephone practical joke.

Prank calls frequently appear in many earlier episodes of The Simpsons, as Bart calls Moe's Tavern asking for people whose names are actually double entendres.

Moe and his tavern had been the victim of Bart's ongoing prank calls in the earlier seasons when Bart would call looking for nonexistent people with names that would get Moe laughed at by his customers.

Beginning in early 2011, the image board 4chan organized a prank calling of the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas, Nevada, location of the popular television show Pawn Stars.

Users of 4chan and other websites "raided" Hal Turner by launching DDoS attacks and prank calling his phone-in radio show during December 2006 and January 2007.

"Weird Al" Yankovic's song "Phony Calls" (a parody of "Waterfalls" by TLC, featured on his 1996 album Bad Hair Day) deals with prank phone calls.

Most of Guido's comedy involves making prank calls that are usually centred on outrageous claims about his looks and abilities, Greek stereotypes, and extreme bluntness.