If you can tell a lot about a person by the way they answer the phone, then I wonder what you can tell about a person by what sketches they prefer. Some of the cranks may be mean-spirited, but I can’t think of another comedy on television this concerned with testing people’s tolerance levels and compassion for others. It’s amazing what you can tell about a person by the way they answer and respond to a crank caller, observations the creators of the show brilliantly incorporate into the program’s aesthetic (one particularly hard-assed crankee has a picture of Ronald Reagan next to his phone).Įvery week, the creators miraculously tap into the social problems that separate the caller and the person being called, and every response is a reminder of the way we connect (or don’t) with one another. Like the town of Yankerville where the show’s puppets reside, the phone calls may be fake but the embarrassments they elicit are very real.

Why puppets? Maybe because the producers of Comedy Central’s Crank Yankers, one of the funniest programs on network television, wanted to comment on the ease with which they can pull people’s strings.

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