Tough Call: Hard-Hitting Phone Pranks

Rating:
Summary: Is the book itself a joke?
Review: As a big fan of both the Jerky Boys and The Onion, I decided to give Tough Call a try. On the plus side, there are some really funny transcripts in this book, especially the finale where Mike tries to set up an arms deal with a Brazillian weapons dealer. The minus side is this: It's not as funny in print as it could be in an audio format. The book is pretty slim, so I'd advise prospective readers to check out the sample pages above to see if it's their cup of tea.

Rating:
Summary: [bad]
Review: I wish I could get my money back on this book. It took me forever
to read it and I still did not finish it. Threw it in the
trash can. It may have been more funny on a cd.
Save your money people

Rating:
Summary: [bad]
Review: I wish I could get my money back on this book. It took me forever
to read it and I still did not finish it. Threw it in the
trash can. It may have been more funny on a cd.
Save your money people

Rating:
Summary: A hilarious book, you have to buy it! NOW! BUY IT NOW!
Review: It's hard to describe how funny this book is. Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes it's blaring - but the tone is always perfect for the situation. Loew's questions have a way of steering people in a hilarious direction. Great book, great read! Makes you realize that most people are inherently stupid - but heh, they're great fun to laugh at!

Rating:
Summary: Onion in ACTION!
Review: Oh boy, this book was funny. I saw the ad for it on the Onion web page and immediately was interested. The Onion just represents quality and a writer for the Onion is going to write something of quality. I did have my doubts, however. A book of phone pranks? I thought of Jerky Boys and cringed. Maybe it'd be funny to hear the audio of the calls in progress, but written transcripts? I wasn't sure it was going to work. I took the risk and bought the book. And boy did it work! It was hilarious. It's like the themes, attitudes, philanthro-satirical force of the Onion, but in ACTION! -- the onion's mentality physically applied to the real world! The manipulation of their targets directly - molding and forming, creating and shaping from the very substance of the real! Truly performance art! Sculptural! Sorry, temporarily lost ability to form complete sentences (without use of exclamation points)! You will too. It's that funny.

Rating:
Summary: It's funny, but it's no Onion book....
Review: The front of "Tough Call" says that the author, Mike Loew is "Contributing Editor to The Onion and one of the authors of the ...Our Dumb Century". And that was good enough for me. I really love the Onion books and their website.

But this book is something entirely different than what I've become accustomed to with The Onion series. "Tough Call" is just a scribe detailing alleged prank phone calls that Mike Loew has made. But in the development of this book, one thing seems to be overlooked; Transcriptions of phony phone calls are not nearly as funny as hearing them. The joy of a phone prank is to hear the reaction o the other person on the line while they're being confused by a calm and scheming prankster. The Jerky Boys have a good system for making prank phone calls, but when you read the text, it's not nearly as funny as hearing a recording of the actual conversation.

Mike Loew is obviously a funny guy, just to think up this stuff, but writing a book of phone call translations is a prankster's equivalent to telling a fishing story; we're skeptical about the details and have no way of knowing where the embellishment is in the story.

It's still a pretty funny book, but if you think you're buying another Onion-style and humor quality book, think again.

Rating:
Summary: It's funny, but it's no Onion book....
Review: The front of "Tough Call" says that the author, Mike Loew is "Contributing Editor to The Onion and one of the authors of the ...Our Dumb Century". And that was good enough for me. I really love the Onion books and their website.

But this book is something entirely different than what I've become accustomed to with The Onion series. "Tough Call" is just a scribe detailing alleged prank phone calls that Mike Loew has made. But in the development of this book, one thing seems to be overlooked; Transcriptions of phony phone calls are not nearly as funny as hearing them. The joy of a phone prank is to hear the reaction o the other person on the line while they're being confused by a calm and scheming prankster. The Jerky Boys have a good system for making prank phone calls, but when you read the text, it's not nearly as funny as hearing a recording of the actual conversation.

Mike Loew is obviously a funny guy, just to think up this stuff, but writing a book of phone call translations is a prankster's equivalent to telling a fishing story; we're skeptical about the details and have no way of knowing where the embellishment is in the story.

It's still a pretty funny book, but if you think you're buying another Onion-style and humor quality book, think again.

Rating:
Summary: Hit and miss
Review: This book is strickly bathroom reading, and I only found one or two call transcripts to be genuinely funny. A few more gave cause to grin. Some were simply cruel for no good reason. Fine for three minutes at a stretch, but this does not compare in quantity or quality to any of the Onion volumes. Should you buy? That's a tough call...