A prank call is a form of practical joke committed over the telephone. Prank phone calls began to gain an America-wide following over a period of many years, as they gradually became a staple of the obscure and amusing cassette tapes traded amongst musicians, sound engineers, and media traders beginning in the late 1970s. Among the most famous and earliest recorded prank calls are the Tube Bar prank calls tapes which centered around Louis "Red" Deutsch. Comedian Jerry Lewis was an incorrigible phone prankster, and recordings of his hijinks, dating from the 1960s and possibly earlier, still circulate throughout the country to this day.

Even very prominent people have fallen victim to prank callers, as for example Queen Elizabeth II, who was fooled by Canadian DJ Pierre Brassard posing as Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, asking her to record a speech in support of Canadian unity ahead of the 1995 Quebec referendum.[1] Two other particularly famous examples of prank calls were made by the Miami-based radio station Radio El Zol. In one, they telephoned Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and spoke to him, pretending to be Cuban president Fidel Castro.[2] They later reversed the prank, calling Castro and pretending to be Chávez. Castro began swearing at the pranksters live on air after they revealed themselves.[3] Radio El Zol was fined $4000 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the United States for the second prank.

Prank calls are generally done for the amusement of the pranksters themselves. Many pranksters record the calls to share the joke with an audience. Some performers such as The Jerky Boys, Tom Mabe and Roy D. Mercer make a name for themselves producing albums of their recorded prank calls.

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. Fonejacker, a show started on the 5th of April 2007 in the UK 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.

As a result of the popular show Crank Yankers. College students from Cal State Los Angeles and Cal State Fullerton created August 14th Southern California Prank Call Day. Every year hundreds of thousands of prank calls are made to have fun with friends, family, and strangers.

The internet radio station [wPCR] PrankCall Radio (www.prankcallradio.net) is said to be the oldest and largest web-site that records and broadcasts prank phone calls (sometimes live) on the internet. It was created by DJ FooDStamP (Brett Backman) in 1997 and since has completed over 180,000 prank phone calls and broadcasted them to nearly 5 million people worldwide as of Jan 1 2010.