"Hold on, let me put my brother on the phone..."
Michael Crane | Orland Park, IL USA | 11/24/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Let's face it, telemarketers can really ruin your day. They call at inappropriate times. They do their best to keep you on the phone as long as they can. Even when you don't seem all that interested, they still try to find a way to change your mind. Well, somebody is fighting back and giving these telemarketers "the business." And that person is Jim Florentine, and he proves it with "Terrorizing Telemarketers III," which is a hilarious album.
The people who call Florentine will wish that they had taken another career path, as he has the best time messing around with them. Always quick-on-the-draw and never hesitant, Florentine thinks of a number of ways to annoy these people that try to invade his phone line. Nothing is too ridiculous for Florentine, and he'll try anything to get a rise out of these people, and trust me, he finds the best ways to make them very uncomfortable. What else is funny is that sometimes these people will stay on the phone with him for a long period of time, no matter what he says to them!
The whole album is great, but my favorites are "h**** priests," "write it down," "brothers," "no walls," "sweetcheeks," "old bag," "no," "headache," "ridiculous" and "sir." The CD also includes the infamous "I GOT MAIL!" call that was featured on Crank Yankers. Those are really the standout tracks, but they're all great in their own sick and demented way. Not only that, but the CD NEVER gets old. It always gets a laugh out of me every time I listen to it. Another bonus is that Florentine includes a description of how each call same about inside the CD jacket, and you'll even learn about the ones that resulted in cops knocking on his door.
If you're sick of the tired and lame prank calls, give Jim Florentine's "Terrorizing Telemarketers III" a listen. It'll make you laugh and cringe at the same time. You may even feel a little guilty when you hear some of the tracks... but you'll snap out of it and listen to it some more! Very, very entertaining. -Michael Crane"
Florentine keeps us laughing
Terry Traub | Belmont, MA USA | 12/14/2002
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Jim Florentine's Terrorizing Telemarketers Volume 3 is a tour de force in the (admittedly
tiny) genre of tormenting telemarketers for your listening pleasure. The strongest
tracks, for me, were Horny Priest, Turds, Write It Down, Grandpa Has Some Lunch,
Sweetcheeks, and Wyoming. No Walls is clever, if silly. Well, really, they're all
silly. The genius in Florentine's humor is the way he so smoothly manipulates the telemarketer
with his improvisational skills. Telemarketers, as he has pointed out in interviews, are
so glad to reach someone who doesn't swear and hang up on them immediately that they are
willing to suspend their disbelief as they singlemindedly pursue the sale. Florentine
then proceeds to chew them up and spit them out. The priest, for example, has signed up
for a dating service, saying he wishes to leave the priesthood because, well, he feels
the urge. So far, so good. Then, we hear the obvious sound of a pornographic movie in
the background, supposedly in a church. The telemarketer is getting suspicious now but
she sticks to her script. Then, when she tells him the fee for the dating service, he
gets a fellow priest to break open the collection box and count the change, right on the
phone.Other brilliant moments are during the "turds" conversation with the septic tank cleaner
salesman in which Florentine complains about the disgusting state of his bathroom. It's
unbelievable that he and his two (imaginary) male roommates would refuse to unclog a
toilet, so that it's constantly overflowing with fecal matter, but the salesman gamely
accepts the situation and tries to persuade a reluctant Florentine to scoop it out with
rubber gloves on, to clear the way to use his product. Florentine angrily declares that
he's "not touching anyone else's turds!" The amazing thing is how Florentine builds up
these imaginary situations during the course of the conversation until even you, the
knowing listener, start to believe it.My main disappointment with Volume 3 is the two "Retard" segments. I love Florentine's
(politically incorrect) impressions of a mentally handicapped man on volumes 1 and 2,
where he pretends to be feeble minded but keenly interested in the products the
telemarketer is pitching. Being mentally retarded frees him up to ask the telemarketer
all sorts of embarrassing questions ("Are you one of them gay guys?") and to blurt out
information about his pedophile brother. In volume 3, however, we have the pointless
"You've Got Mail!" track and the unimaginative "Cell Phone" segment, neither of which has
the improvisational brilliance of the "5 Cents" long distance pitch on volume 1. I hope
Jim gets the message and puts some more of those delightful conversations on his next
one.My other disappointment is that he continues to entertain targeted marketing calls where
he (or one of his friends) has filled out a card for more information. While these calls
sometimes result in the funniest tracks, we don't feel quite right laughing at the poor
salesperson who thought they were talking to a qualified prospect. Telemarketers who
cold call seem to deserve the treatment they get, but if you request a call it's
different. Anyway, that said, some of them will say "you asked to be contacted" when in
fact you did not, so there's some grey area there.Overall, Volume 3 has some of the best telemarketing tracks ever, and it's well worth
owning."
Over the top
Terry Traub | 09/03/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This has to be one of the funniest things I've evr heard.
I have the first 2 CD's, they were great, but this one is "over the top". My favorite track is "Brothers",where they torment this idiot telemarketer beyond belief. I can't wait til volume 4."
Track Listings (17) - Disc #1