In the movie, his potential big break into films, he plays a womanizing jerk with romantic scenes with Fischer’s character. And "That Metal Show" led to his earning a part in a comedy this summer, "A Little Help," with Jenna Fischer and Chris O’Donnell. He thanks Howard Stern for putting him on the radio a lot, boosting his stand-up career. So we’ll be (messing) around and say, ‘What can we do to amuse ourselves?’ " I don’t drink like a fish or anything like that. "We’re on the road (for comedy tours) constantly. "Who would have thought heavy metal and prank calls would pay the mortgage? And now I’m on a heavy metal show for five seasons," he says. "I made prank phone calls on a show for five seasons. In a real way, Florentine is a contemporary American Dream, because he’s become richer and more famous following the passions he developed as a child - pulling pranks and listening to metal. "I say, ‘Listen to what a baby your dad was.’ And they’re like, ‘Yeah what a baby, Dad. It’s not like I’ve got a college diploma to show ’em."įlorentine already brings up this story with his brother’s grown kids. "Now I’ve got something I can tell the grandkids. "He fired me right on the spot, right on the highway," he says. One day, he was bored and hid an open can filled with poop in the back of his brother’s junky van.Ī week later, Florentine’s brother went crazy, pulled the van over on the Garden State Parkway and started ripping apart the van until he found the can. He believes if you prank someone, you deserve consequences, like when he was a kid, working construction for his older brother. "They say, ‘This guy is an idiot or an asshole, or both.’ " I didn’t want to make too many trips back and forth.’ "I’m like, ‘I’m not supposed to pull a chair up to the buffet and start eating from the buffet? I didn’t know that. He tries to allay tensions with angry victims by acting dumb. You never know the reaction you’re gonna get." But that’s the great risk of pulling pranks. I asked Florentine: If people pulled the pranks on him that he pulls on them, wouldn’t he want to punch them in the face? One day, he went on the street to interview Van Halen fans, pretending to be simultaneously talking to band members on the phone and relaying dumb messages back and forth. He’s still pulling practical jokes for VH1 Classic’s "That Metal Show," a combination prank/metal music show. "The show hasn’t been on the air for three or four years, and if I do the voice, the place goes nuts." His Special Ed still resonates with fans who go to Florentine’s stand-up shows. "Eventually, if we got through that list, we’d just open the phone book and start making phone calls. To protect myself from the potential ravages of "Crank Yankers," I started talking very cautiously and briefly to any odd squirrel who called.įlorentine now tells me that was a good plan because, normally, he and other comedians would be given a list of 30 phone numbers to call. Florentine would stay at Bellagio, then record his calls at a nearby studio.Īs the rock critic back then, I sometimes fielded bizarro calls from weirdos. The show was produced by Adam Carolla and former Las Vegan Jimmy Kimmel, who set up a lot of calls from here. Years back, he played Special Ed ("I got mail, yaaay") and other characters while making prank calls for Comedy Central’s "Crank Yankers."Īt the time, I knew "Crank Yankers" was operating from Las Vegas. Comedian Jim Florentine changed the way I talk on the phone to strangers.
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