In the early days of the Internet, there was this website with a list of payphone numbers from all over the United States. In my state, there were only three entries, and my home phone number was one of them. It was listed as being outside a publicly traded chain restaurant.
On occasion, radio stations would do bits where they would call a random payphone from the website. My house was called 3 times for the same bit by different radio stations. Within a month apart, I spoke to two different stations from New Zealand. MoreFM was one of them, but I don't remember the other. I do remember that that were very disappointed when I told them I had just spoken to MoreFM a month prior. Also MoreFM was the only station that didn't end the bit when I explained it was not a pay phone
In the 1980's IBM had some marketing promotion in the US and distributed brochures and posters at different computer seller chains. The prominently displayed phone number had a typo and it was instead my parents' land line.
Surprisingly, they didn't get that many calls, and IBM corrected the number in the next round of marketing. So they never had to change their number.
"The song's title, "777-9311", was Prince guitarist Dez Dickerson's actual telephone number at the time the song was written. Once the song became a hit, the phone calls started coming in, and Dickerson ended up having to change his phone number." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/777-9311
There’s a fun scene in The Last Action Hero which plays on this convention: A kid who’s gotten transported into a movie and is trying to convince Arnold Scharzenegger’s character that they’re in a movie by asking a bunch of people what their phone number is and pointing out that all the numbers begin with 555.
If youre watching an Australian show and see a mobile phone ring and it shows the callers number, ring it. You'll likely annoy someone who works on the show.
I was once on a bus and I could hear some teenagers talking. One asked a girl for her phone number and she told him a number starting with 07709, the UK's "555". I only knew that because a Doctor Who episode had recently used the same prefix.
The test prefix for test or example DOIs is 10.5555, following the American phone number convention. I have 10.5555/12345678 seared in my muscle memory.
32 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 59.9 ms ] threadhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuC0T-_ONIA
On occasion, radio stations would do bits where they would call a random payphone from the website. My house was called 3 times for the same bit by different radio stations. Within a month apart, I spoke to two different stations from New Zealand. MoreFM was one of them, but I don't remember the other. I do remember that that were very disappointed when I told them I had just spoken to MoreFM a month prior. Also MoreFM was the only station that didn't end the bit when I explained it was not a pay phone
Surprisingly, they didn't get that many calls, and IBM corrected the number in the next round of marketing. So they never had to change their number.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_telephone_country_code...
I love when film has a real world tie in
Edit: more media should do this. Fun Easter eggs on IP or numbers from the film.