Crank Yankers is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 TV show produced by Adam Carolla

Adam Carolla

Adam Carolla is an American radio personality, television host, comedian, and actor. He currently hosts The Adam Carolla Show, a talk show distributed as a podcast on the ACE Broadcasting Network...

, Jimmy Kimmel

Jimmy Kimmel

James Christian "Jimmy" Kimmel is an American television host and comedian. He is the host of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, a late-night talk show that airs on ABC. Prior to that, Kimmel was best known as the co-host of Comedy Central's The Man Show and Win Ben Stein's Money...

 and Daniel Kellison

Daniel Kellison

Daniel Kellison is an American television/film producer and co-founder of Jackhole Productions, an entertainment group formed with partners Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla....

 that featured actual prank call

Prank call

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...

s made by show regulars and celebrity guests, and re-enacted onscreen by puppet

Puppet

A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. It is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre....

s for a visual aid to show the viewer what is happening in the call. The show premiered in 2002 on Comedy Central

Comedy Central

Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....

 and returned to MTV2

MTV2

MTV2 is a cable network that is widely available in the United States on digital cable and satellite television, and is progressively being added to analogue cable lineups across the nation...

 on February 9, 2007, running again until March 30, 2007. The show screened in Australia on SBS Television and The Comedy Channel

The Comedy Channel

The Comedy Channel is an Australian subscription television channel available on Foxtel, Austar and Optus Television.-History:...

 between 2003 and 2008.
The performers are given a basic outline of a premise by the writers, and call telephone numbers from a list of selected targets (known as "marks").