![]() ![]() “All calls were routed through operators, and the most anonymity one could get was in the payphones prominently displayed in drugstores and hotel lobbies,” he writes. “In each case the denouement is highly farcical, and the reputed corpses are now hunting in a lively manner for that telephonist.”Īs historian Paul Collins details in an article in Defunct, whoever invented the prank call was braver than today’s bored teens. “Some malicious wag… has been playing a grave practical joke on undertakers, by summoning them over the telephone to bring freezers, candlesticks and coffins for persons alleged to be dead,” the article reads. 20th-century undertakers like this guy were constantly dealing with prank calls. The scenario above, which was described in the Februissue of the journal Electrical World, appears to be the first prank phone call ever recorded. But in 1884, the telephone was only eight years old. Nowadays, a call from an unknown number elicits immediate suspicion. And the next time the telephone rings, he thinks twice before he trusts it. He hangs his head and goes back to his office. ![]() Smith himself! The undertaker has been fooled. When he arrives at the prescribed location, though, who should answer the door… but Mr. “Please come quickly.” The voice gives an address, and the undertaker rushes out, loads up his tools, and speeds over. Smith is dead,” gasps the voice on the end of the line. Suddenly, his telephone rings, splitting the silence. An undertaker sits at his desk at a funeral home in Providence, Rhode Island. Every day leading up to April 1, we’re telling the story of one ridiculous historic prank.
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