Crank Town

Jim Florentine is gup-gup-gupping for air. He's standing, legs spread, wild-eyed as he swallows. Neck straining, head bucking, he's sniffing. Snffff, snff. Gup-gup-gup. His eyes focus. Snfffff, snff. Gup-gup-gup. He stills his head, staring straight, eyes bulging, mouth open slightly, waiting to erupt. His is face is stony, and what may flow from that mouth—demon, serpent or maybe a double-double with cheese—is, for one silent second, unclear.

Then: Errrrrghp! Gerrrrrrrgapht! He belches. Right into a microphone connected to a phone connected to the ear of a librarian. Rolp!

"I was at your library yesterday and somebody threw me out, and I'm very upset." His New Jersey accent is harsh, demanding, assuming.

"You were in the library and what occurred?"

"Somebody threw me out. And I wasn't doing anything. It wasn't like I was running around, or causing a scene. Errrrp! … I'm trying to do a paper, I got a big exam coming up, ya know what I mean? And they just threw me out. Ya know? I was in the middle of reading a book on manners and I get thrown out. Yerrgh! I don't understand why. Berrrrg!  I was just acting like I'm acting now. I wasn't doing anything. Rolp! I was almost at the chapter on bodily functions, you know, and they threw me out. Mrrrgh!"

"Do you want to speak with the branch manager?"

"Well, what is that going to do, though? Buurrrp!"

"What are those noises I'm hearing?"

"I don't know. It's not coming from my end. I thought you were doing it. I thought you were doing that. That wasn't you burping—berrrr?"

Click.

"This isn't Communist Germany! I'm an American, goddamnit!"

Florentine is playing Bobby Fletcher, who's 36, unemployed and, oh yeah, a puppet. A deceptively friendly looking puppet, with an innocent face topped by a hat holding two beer cans connected to a mouth tube, Bobby Fletcher is one of many mini-characters on the hit Comedy Central show Crank Yankers. It's part Jerky Boys, part Muppet and part (gasp!) local. They record right here in Las Vegas, in a strip-mall sound studio near the Boulevard Mall, and invited the Weekly to sit in for three hours during last Wednesday's recording session.

Seven times a year, a team flies out here from LA to make the phone calls. Supervising Producer Jonathan Kimmel (yeah, Jimmy's brother) explains that they can't make the calls in California, because it's what's known as a two-party consent state when it comes to taping telephone conversations: It's illegal to record someone without telling them. But they might as well stay in LA—because, as it turns out, it's not really legal here, either. More on that later.

First call. They're responding to an ad in the Village Voice for a she-male. The banter between phone calls is sometimes more entertaining than the actual calls.

There are four of them, in a room where the chemical-sweet smell of dry-erase markers bristles in your nose and throat. That's how they communicate lines to Florentine while he's on the phone. The mix includes Supervising Producer Tom Stern, who's sitting on a tall, hotel-auction-looking chair identical to the one Florentine sits on, across from a black leather couch that holds Jason Jordan (segments producer) and Adam de la Pena (writer), next to a card table where Kimmel sits behind a computer. Around them is a dorm-room-style collection of empty water bottles, Styrofoam cups, soda cans and Red Bull.

The show was created by Jimmy Kimmel, Adam Carolla and Daniel Kellison, who are best know as the brain trust behind The Man Show. Crank Yankers just began broadcasting its second season and has attracted impressive talent. Some of the show's regulars include comedians Tracy Morgan, David Alan Grier, Dave Chappelle, Lisa Kushell, Sarah Silverman and Denis Leary, and guests like Snoop Dog, Eminem, the Wu-Tang clan, the guys from Mr. Show and more. They're all transformed into bulbous-nosed, pop-eyed, plastic-haired, unblinking cousins of Kermit. Such as Dick Birchum, a master carpenter who likes wood, porn and brie. And Gladys Murphy, a full-figured puppet who calls a department store and declares that skinny mannequins are oppressive to real women. She demands that they invest in some with cellulite, C-section scars and moles with hair growing out of them. And Elmer Higgins, a 92-year-old egg-eyed, hearing-aided, retired upholstery worker who's been known to become squished between the head and feet of his hospital bed. And other wonderful characters like Terrence Catheter, OCD Ken, Landalious Truefield, Guberman, The Nudge, Boomer and more.

All puppets.

Dirty little puppets.

The Mark: Scottsdale Vending, Scottsdale, Arizona

Premise: Bobby Fletcher's hand gets caught in a vending machine while trying to steal candy. He calls the vending company for help.

"I wasn't trying to steal, I was gonna put the money back." Squeaks fill the room as the writers and producers share their input. Florentine takes the script from one of the boards.
"I'm a diabetic. I was trying to get some sugar. What, do you hate people with diabetes?"

"Yeah, OK, well I'll pay for it when you get my damn arm out of your machine." He consults another board.
"I'm not going to lose an arm over a Kit Kat, all right, this is ridiculous."

The phone calls are, of course, just the beginning. Well, make that the middle, if you consider the research that goes into them. But we'll get to that later. If the phone call goes well and the mark on the receiving end agrees to let them air it, puppets and sets are created by a company called Funny Garbage, and the borderline-obscene, dependably offensive comedy makes its way into your living room.

The show's crude: Like the time a telemarketer from Oprah asked a mark what comes to mind when thinking about Oprah's BM. And puerile: There's lots of gas. And gross: Exploring bird beaks in the fried chicken. And outlandish: In that impregnation-by-hot-tub-floaters kind of way. And, well, funny. But the humor lies in the show's childish simplicity. It's lost in description. You've got to hear it for yourself.

Mark: A she-male advertising in the Village Voice

Premise: Bobby Fletcher calls a she-male to play a prank on his homophobic friend.

"My friend, yeah, I want to play a prank on him, because he's real homophobic. So if you could just go over and give him a kiss on the cheek and then maybe show your penis, it would be great, he'll be disgusted. You know what I mean?"

The calls tend to end in a good, old-fashioned, slam-it-to-the-hook hang-up, while Florentine's still talking. He's mastered the art of irritating. And he's about to get even more so: It's time for a new character. Florentine's Jersey accent morphs into a mushy, low-pitched, affect-free tone as he plays his other role: a retarded puppet (get used to the non-PC tone if you plan to read on) named Special Ed. Ed wears an orange football helmet, an "I (heart) Fried Chicken" T-shirt, screams "Yaaay!" after every simple statement and refers to men as "lady" and women as "mister."

Mark: Spy Headquarters, Phoenix

Premise: Special Ed calls a spy store and tries to engage the mark in a game of "I Spy."

For some calls research is key, and hundreds of hours are poured into that aspect of the show. They have notes on the personalities of the marks ("The sweater lady?" "It's not the sweater lady. She kinda got scared. The guy thought she might have a breakdown. She's a little fragile"), on addresses of where something is located, like, say, a vending machine, and suggested lines to use. Like the one that accompanied the she-male dating service premise:  "This guy and I used to throw rocks at the trannies down at the bus depot. He's gonna be pissed." It made it in.

Others are more spontaneous, like the library example. Iris, who photographed the session, works at the West Charleston library. The guys needed a librarian to burp at, so Iris supplied such vital information as the phone number and a librarian's name. It turned out to be one of the funnier calls of the session—for those of us who are still endlessly amused by gas, that is.

Then there are the calls that take an unexpected turn. Like the call to a bingo parlor.

Mark: Allstar bingo parlor employee

Premise: Ed tries to engage whoever answers the phone in singing Christmas carols with him.

Crank Yankers staffers follow up on every call, to let the person in on the joke and ask their permission to broadcast it. Each call is also followed with a running commentary on how it went. Like: "Good, God!," "Holy shit!," "She was actually dumber than Ed!" or "My true love came to me?"

Often they'll have Florentine repeat a line that got flubbed, or say something funny they can add in later. It's called a wild card, and for this scenario, they had him gargle with water and say, "Merry Christmaaaaas!"

More Special Ed library calls follow. This one in a stage-whisper.

Of course, this is all fun and games until a reporter asks some legal questions about it. Though many states are one-party consent states, where only one person must know they're being recorded, Nevada isn't one of them, except in an emergency. The law is murky, though. Calls to the attorney general's office, the district attorney's office and to the police resulted in a confusing cacophony of it's-maybe-probably-possibly illegal to record the phone calls. Alan Lichtenstein, general counsel for the ACLU, was more clear: "We're a two-party consent state," he says. "Recording without dual permission does violate Nevada law." The Nevada Supreme Court stated clearly in the 1998 case Lane vs. Allstate Insurance Co. that this is the law.

The legal team for Crank Yankers did not respond to the issue by deadline.

The skits continue. Bobby Fletcher, the pushiest puppet you'll ever meet, calls assertiveness training companies to ask for some tips. (
"If you can't teach me to be mean, then you're an idiot.") He phones a couple of Italian restaurants and blames them for his recent drug-test failure (
"Yeah, listen, Fredo, what's going on with the pasta sauce? It tasted like weed, I'm telling you. … Look, don't try to strong-arm me, Corleone. Oregano, my ass, all right? What are you guys puttin' in it?"). Ed calls camping stores to tell them he's pitching a tent (
"Yay! I'm pitchin' a tent right now! Yaay! Are you pitching a tent? I got a fire inside my tent! Yay! Yay! Can I see your pole?"). And then drowsily calls a Walgreens to ask, slowly and slurred, about Nyquil. (
"Do you guys have any NyQuuuuil?" "Yes, we have NyQuil." "Yeah? Yaaaaaaaayaay. I loooove. Nyy-Quillll. Hellooo?" "Yeah?" "I can't. Feel my legs. Hello?" "Yup?" "My dog's. Sleepy. Too." "Want to talk to our pharmacist?" "No! I'm getting sleepy. Tell me a story, mister. I drank it like soup. Where's my blanky? Hello? I drank it all. I'm a good boy.")

After three hours, they've made more than 20 calls. Should they use any of them, they'll edit them down to about three minutes each and ship them over to the puppet assembly line, where the person-to-person interactions morph into floppy-armed, hand-up-the-abdomen doll-to-doll drama. And the dirty little puppets will join the ranks of such greats before them as Alf, Greg the Bunny and Elmo, as they strive to position the world on their handheld string, making us humans play the part of the dummies.

And, as nice as it is to have them here in town, let's hope that they're able to quickly find a recording studio in a state that doesn't consider their recordings a class-D felony.

Yaaay!