The frantically hilarious world of Earles and Jensen – and I mean to use the word, world, because one or two of their signature “prank” calls into the opus, Just Farr A Laugh Volumes I & II: The Greatest Prank Calls Ever!, you realize the major players (a 4’ 10” 250 pound, burger obsessed man named Bleachy or Morris Day of The Time fame, to name a few) are characters inhabiting an entirely different space stratosphere than you or I. Where the Jerky Boys, the chagrin of modern, mature mothers everywhere not too long ago were sophomoric, gross, and generally lowbrow, Earles and Jensen are not. Well, really, they are somewhat sophomoric, and sometimes gross, but they are decidedly not lowbrow humor, a remark that brings us to another crucial myth to dispel: these aren’t prank calls in the Bart Simpson sense; they are performance art, some of the most sophisticated, revealing sketches in the genre – ever.
Earles and Jensen thrive on context. It is the hallmark of what makes them successful. It seems their chosen game to be use seldom thought of celebrities – the pure genius of pitting Ed Asner vs. The San Diego Chicken goes almost without saying – and then putting them in ordinary situations. Often throughout the two discs, “Morris Day” calls a restaurant looking for special treatment, or for a chance to dance on the table at Coyote Ugly’s, and the simple reaction from the hostess is comic gold. They either don’t know who Morris Day is, or know who it is too well and want very badly to see the obscure singer behave badly. It isn’t just Day. They have “Issac Hayes” complaining to a grocery store manager about being teased by a troop of kids, Howie Mandel’s brother looking to keep away autograph singers, and (I’m laughing just thinking of it) an embittered Christopher Cross trying to get performance clearance at a club, just to name a few.
As for the “non-celebrity” bits, there are some great calls and even better follow-ups to keep together in sequence. Like off-kilter episodes in some crazed reality show, a blues crazed woman calls for an audition, then her husband calls later to apologize for her bad behavior. It elicits near aerobic laughter when it’s clear the person on the other end who was (almost assuredly) onto the first call as a prank, is comforted to hear the man go on about how crazy his wife is. Tattoo removal is another strong source; as is calling for worker’s comp questions. The phenomenon known simply as “Bleachy” is the star – an absurd statement, because of the persistent image of a fat, silly, slap happy burger obsessed guy looking to enroll in the army, among other things. He is so ridiculous and so obviously a caricature, it is amazing he pulls it off – he does, and you’ll never look at a $.99 burger the same way again.
Again, the performance entity known as Earles and Jensen thrive on context, perhaps explaining why some of these calls go on for so agonizingly long and in a good way. They call promoters, pretending to be almost impossibly ridiculous combinations of artists, or they answer want ads to those elderly and lonely types seeking Shirley Temple dolls from strangers. Like most great performance art, it points out the absurdity of the world when you hold up a mirror to it. If the Jerky Boys were exclusively for the burp/fart college boy dialectic, this is for the love/hate pop culture set that doesn’t mind poking fun (again and again) at Michael Bolton.
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