Tom Mabe is an American comedian,

YouTuber A YouTuber is a content creator and social media influencer who uploads or creates videos on the online video-sharing website YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006 ...

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

ster, and

jingle A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of sound branding. A jingle contains one or more hooks and meanings that explicitly promote the product or service being advertised, usually ...

writer.

Career

Mabe, based in

Louisville Louisville is the most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeast, and the 27th-most-populous city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 24th-largest city; however, by populatio ...

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

, achieved notability with his prank responses to telemarketing calls. Upon receiving an unsolicited call, Mabe would engage telemarketers in an unexpected and often uncomfortable conversation while recording the incident. One of his best known pranks of this genre involved convincing a telemarketer that he had inadvertently called the scene of a homicide. He has been featured on ''Drew & Mike in the Morning'' on

WRIF WRIF (101.1 FM) is a commercial active rock radio station licensed in Detroit, Michigan and serving Metro Detroit as well as Windsor and Southwestern Ontario. The station is currently owned by Beasley Media Group. WRIF is a grandfathered ...

numerous times and has released three comedy

album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

s of his calls through Virgin Records Nashville. Mabe now operates a YouTube channel entitled "MabeInAmerica" onto which he uploads his pranks. His exploits now primarily focus on the

candid camera ''Candid Camera'' is an American hidden camera and practical joke reality television series. The show was created, developed, and presented by Allen Funt. Various versions of the show have appeared on television from 1948 to 2014. The program ...

style of pranking, although telemarketing related and other prank calls are still included on occasion. In 2008, Mabe was the Executive Producer, writer, and talent for the CMT (

Country Music Television Country Music Television, often abbreviated to CMT, is an American pay TV network that launched on March 5, 1983. It is currently owned by Paramount Global through the MTV Entertainment Group unit of its networks division. CMT was the first na ...

) comedy series, ''Mabe In America''. Six episodes have been produced, including two "best of" shows that showcase his most popular features. He appeared in the second episode of ''CMT Comedy Stage''. Mabe also performs as a standup comedian. The current center of focus of his acts generally revolves around issues that Americans tend to find annoying including

email spam Email spam, also referred to as junk email, spam mail, or simply spam, refers to unsolicited messages sent in bulk via email. The term originates from a Spam (Monty Python), Monty Python sketch, where the name of a canned meat product, "Spam (food ...

, bad customer service, and high gas prices. In December 2013, Mabe created a prank video, intended to discourage

driving under the influence Driving under the influence (DUI) is the crime of driving, operating, or being in control of a vehicle while one is impaired from doing so safely by the effect of either alcohol (drug), alcohol (see drunk driving) or some other drug, whether re ...

, in which he and several accomplices convinced a mutual friend with a history of multiple DUIs that he had just awoken from a 10-year coma resulting from a drunk driving crash. It became a

viral video Viral videos are video, videos that become popular through viral phenomenon, a viral process of Internet sharing, primarily through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email.Lu Jiang, Yajie Miao, Yi Yang, ZhenZhon ...

, earning over 28 million views on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

by October 2017.

Discography

*''Revenge on the Telemarketers'' (1997) *''Revenge on the Telemarketers: Round One'' (2000) *''Revenge on the Telemarketers: Round Two'' (2000) *''A Wake Up Call for Telemarketers'' (2003) *''Mabe In America'' (2006) *''King of the Ring'' (2011)

References

External links

MabeInAmerica
Official YouTube Channel
Official site"CMT/Mabe in America" websiteTranscript of attempt to raise money for homeless people
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mabe, Tom American male comedians 21st-century American comedians Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Prank YouTubers Entertainers from Louisville, Kentucky YouTube channels launched in 2009 Comedians from Kentucky YouTubers from Kentucky