48 Characters Found in Pop Culture That Are Based on Real People

In The Simpsons, one of the funniest running gags is Bart’s prank calls to Moe. A lot of these jokes are gross, hilarious, and seem 100 percent original. In reality, though, this gag is a homage to a prank call bit that Matt Groening grew up listening to on cassette in the 1970s.

These tapes, called “The Tube Bar Tapes,” were a collection of prank calls made by John Elmo and Jim Davidson to the Tube Bar in New Jersey. Whenever they’d call up this bar and talk to the owner, Red, they’d ask to speak with fake customers with sneakily rude names. When Red figured out he was being played. If Groening hadn’t grown up listening to these guys, who knows if this gag would even exist on The Simpsons.