In the episode "Too Much Sugar for a Dime," Grant described a "gander" as "craning one's neck." I love the description of a gander that refers to a crane. If you have eagle-eyes, can you get away with just a peep?
BTW, I always heard that behavior referred to as "rubbernecking." That's when you stretch your neck so far to see something, it appears to be made of rubber. Typical use: "The accident was on the other side of the freeway, but our side slowed down because of all the rubberneckers."
Back in the '80s and early '90s I worked at Volvo Truck NA, and had occasion to travel to our various manufacturing plants to teach classes. I usually managed to set aside an afternoon after the class to wander around the plant floor and watch them assemble trucks, which I found endlessly fascinating. I always got the permission of the shift supervisor first, and carried around a clipboard so I didn't attract too much attention, but if any one of the workers asked me what I was about I always said I was "just rubbernecking".
Another term doesn't mean exactly the same thing but it's also useful for this activity: "prairie-dogging". That's when some unfamiliar noise occurs in an office environment and cubicle workers all stand up and look around ("crane their necks") to see what happened.
I learned that meaning for prairie-dogging about a year before the movie "Rat Race" came out, in which the same phrase was given a much more vulgar definition by a little girl.
telemath said:
BTW, I always heard that behavior referred to as "rubbernecking." That's when you stretch your neck so far to see something, it appears to be made of rubber. Typical use: "The accident was on the other side of the freeway, but our side slowed down because of all the rubberneckers."
Here we call that a gawker blocker.