The Big E Family watches a prank on 911 spiral out of control, teaching a girl that jokes can have serious results.

Commentary: My level of telephone mayhem never reached heights of cruelty, but the endless hours of making or receiving prank calls in those pre-internet days became my coming-of-age story.

Prank calls forced you to learn how to improvise. While one friend may have had an idea of a canned joke or line they wanted to try, in the end, you had to ad lib what was said depending on who ...