The Tube Bar prank calls are a series of prank calls made in the mid-1970s to the Tube Bar in

Jersey City Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar ( ...

, if they could speak to various non-existent customers. The

gag name A gag name is a pseudonym intended to be humorous through its similarity to both a real name and a term or phrase that is funny, strange, or vulgar. The source of humor stems from the double meaning behind the phrase, although use of the name wit ...

s given by the pranksters were puns and

homophones A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (pa ...

for often offensive phrases. Recordings of the calls were circulated widely on duplicated cassette tapes and may have been the inspiration for a long running gag in ''

The Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, ...

''.

History

In the mid-1970s, two young men—John Elmo and Jim Davidson; later known collectively as ''Bum Bar Bastards'', or ''The BBB''—began calling the Tube Bar located at

Journal Square Journal Square is a business district, residential area, and transportation hub in Jersey City, New Jersey, which takes its name from the newspaper ''Jersey Journal'' whose headquarters were located there from 1911 to 2013. The "square" itself is ...

Jersey City, New Jersey Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark. "Al Coholic" (''alcoholic'') or "Mike Hunt" (''my cunt''). Most of the time, Deutsch would call out the names, unaware that he was being subjected to a

prank A practical joke, or prank, is a mischievous trick played on someone, generally causing the victim to experience embarrassment, perplexity, confusion, or discomfort.Marsh, Moira. 2015. ''Practically Joking''. Logan: Utah State University Press. ...

. At times, Deutsch would catch on, and when he did, he would respond with extreme hostility, shouting

profanity Profanity, also known as cursing, cussing, swearing, bad language, foul language, obscenities, expletives or vulgarism, is a socially offensive use of language. Accordingly, profanity is language use that is sometimes deemed impolite, rud ...

obscene An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin ''obscēnus'', ''obscaenus'', "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Such loaded language can be us ...

sexual references (usually involving the caller's mother), and threats of physical harm at the caller. He would utter threats such as, "I'll break dem bones on you, on your feet, you'll never be able to walk for the rest of your life!" as well as "I'll cut your belly open and show you all the black stuff you got in there!" Sometimes Red would offer the two pranksters a reward of $100 or $500 if they would show up at his bar in person, but they never took him up on the offer. By the 1980s, dubbed cassette tapes of the calls were shared between staff of several major league sports teams such as the

New York Mets The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. They are one of two major lea ...

Los Angeles Dodgers The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League West, West division. Established in 1883 i ...

and

Miami Dolphins The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member team of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team p ...

. These dubbed copies of the calls were unofficially referred to as the ''Red Tapes'' or ''Tube Bar Tapes''. The popularity of these prank calls spread throughout respective sports leagues, branching out to sports reporters and then into the larger media world.

Bar location and details

The Tube Bar itself was located at 12 Tube Concourse, Jersey City, adjacent to the entrance of the

PATH station and across the way from the Landmark Loew's Jersey Theatre. The small complex of commercial storefronts that included the Tube Bar was demolished in early 2009 to make way for the

1 Journal Square 1 Journal Square is a skyscraper complex at Journal Square in Jersey City, New Jersey proposed by the Kushner Companies. The initial version consisted of two towers with roughly 3,000 residential units and 160,000 square feet of commercial space, ...

development project.

Legacy

Animator An animator is an artist who creates multiple images, known as frames, which give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, and video games ...

and

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and g ...

Matt Groening Matthew Abram Groening ( ; born February 15, 1954) is an American cartoonist, writer, producer, and animator. He is the creator of the comic strip ''Life in Hell'' (1977–2012) and the television series ''The Simpsons'' (1989–present), ''Fut ...

has described himself as a fan of the tapes, particularly the "Garden Grove calls". His series ''

'' features a running joke of

Bart Simpson Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional character in the American animated television series ''The Simpsons'' and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in '' The Tracey Ullman Sh ...

making prank calls to barkeeper

Moe Szyslak Moe Szyslak is a recurring character from the animated television series ''The Simpsons''. He is voiced by Hank Azaria and first appeared in the series premiere episode " Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". Moe is the proprietor and bartender o ...

, asking to speak to patrons with joke names. Groening describes the similarity between these jokes and the Tube Bar calls as "creative synchronicity." Co-developer

Sam Simon Samuel Michael Simon (June 6, 1955 – March 8, 2015) was an American director, producer, writer, animal rights activist and philanthropist, who co-developed the television series ''The Simpsons''. While at Stanford University, Simon w ...

told ''

The Howard Stern Show ''The Howard Stern Show'' is an American radio show hosted by Howard Stern that gained wide recognition when it was nationally syndicated on terrestrial radio from WXRK in New York City, between 1986 and 2005. The show has aired on Howard 100 a ...

'' in 2007 that the jokes are a "homage to or parody of the classic Red tapes". * During the 1980s, several different record labels released various edits of the tapes on CD, LP and cassette tape before the Bum Bar Bastards came forward in the 1990s to claim copyright of the tapes and officially release their version.

Discography

References

External links