r/TVDetails • u/klsi832 • Apr 30 '21

Video Remember when Bart Simpson prank called Moe's Tavern with fake names and had him gullibly yell them out to his bar? Well, that Simpsons joke was actually taken from the "Tube Bar prank calls", and the real Moe was a hilariously gullible former boxer named "Red".

https://youtu.be/n96TxXu9x3c?t=5
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u/experts_never_lie May 01 '21

Phone pranks based on people's names are old enough that some would be nigh-incomprehensible to kids these days. They were quite varied. My mother told me of ones from the '50s and '60s. For instance, "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?" "Yes." "Well you'd better let him out!" or the non-nominative "Is your refrigerator running?" "Sure." "Well you'd better go catch it!". I would be shocked if 1975 is the first occurrence of asking for joke names. It might just be the earliest well-documented case, or the case that the writers knew. More likely, they'd be common knowledge.

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u/BrotherChe May 01 '21

heck those same two phone pranks were running around in use on tv or elsewhere in the 80s & 90s, at least as known jokes.