Willie P. Richardson

Prank is a comedy-centered audio genre built around practical jokes, hoaxes, and improvised scenarios intended to surprise, wrong‑foot, or break the composure of unsuspecting participants. While it often overlaps with sketch comedy and spoken word, prank recordings foreground the setup–twist–payoff structure of a practical joke rather than a scripted scene. In released audio, pranks commonly appear as phone calls, man‑on‑the‑street ambushes, character‑voice routines, and satirical media stunts. Production ranges from raw, one‑take recordings to heavily edited pieces that use sound effects, pitch shifting, and collage techniques to heighten the absurdity or to conceal identities. As a commercial genre, prank accelerated in the 1990s when cassette/CD collections of prank phone calls and shock‑jock radio segments began charting, then evolved again in the 2000s–2010s through internet-native creators and soundboard culture.