Julio Victorio De Rissio (born November 10, 1916), better known with the stage name of Dr. Tangalanga, is a popular Argentine comedian who makes prank phone calls to unsuspecting recipients.
Born in the Balvanera barrio of Buenos Aires, Argentina, he started making and recording crank calls in the mid-1960s by way of comic relief for a bedridden friend. Since then, he has released over 40 albums of collected calls, having sold over 250 thousand copies, arguably becoming the most famous prank call artist ever in the Spanish speaking world. He speaks in Argentinian Lunfardo, and his tapes have been praised by sources as varied as Argentine philosophers Carlos "Caloi" Loiseau and Alejandro Rozitchner.
Contents |
The general form of his jokes is to make a polite call requesting information about some product or service, then randomly insult the person on the other end, generally producing a verbal altercation or exchange of insults. Part of the humour is to use crude words in absurd contexts, exploiting the reactions of his victims. In other cases, he begins the call with a made-up complaint (although often based on real life ones), regarding things that have supposedly happened to his nephew. For example: "My nephew went to get two "matafuegos" (Spanish for fire extinguisher; literally: kill-the-fire) for the car, but they didn't kill the fire, they just injured it."