Prank Calls to 800 Numbers From the 80's A comedy article
by Clive McClure 1,300 5 08/20/2011 12:12 AM 4561 views
Have you ever wondered what happened to leg warmers? How about Jim Nabors and his wonderful singing voice? Does the phrase, "In Japan, a hand can be used like a knife" ring a bell?
Before the Internet, the only way we could buy cheap knives, cooking utensils, spray-on hair and the Flowbee was with 800 numbers. With the power of YouTube and my super secret shopper skills, I recently embarked on a journey to relive the past in the present.
My plan was quite simple:
1) Find an 800 number from the 1980's;
2) Give it a call;
3) Attempt to order the product seen in the original commercial.
Unfortunately, it wasn't as easy as I thought. The operators at this 800 number, for instance, were long gone (like the guy's hair):
The people at Craftmatic Chair were laying down on the job with no answer:
And everyone's favorite laughing dead guy wasn't answering:
As my frustration grew like Barry Bonds' flaxseed infused arms, I turned serious and reached out to Old Faithful, the Michigan Rap Line. Somewhere toward the end of this jumbled mess of commercial butt cheeks montage from the 1980's is the Michigan Rap Line. It begins just after the Thundercats Commerical at 4:52.
The commercial is set in the 1980's with a lovely young girl jamming out to her own rendition of burning crap by Ass Flap and Crappers. Soon, High from That 70's Show comes along and bites her cord, sending the teen into a runaway frenzy. Working her way through a gauntlet of whore slappers and drug addicts, she arrives at a phone and the Rap Line saves her life. Teen 1, Hippie 0.
In hopes of reaching a Rap Line that was outsourced to India, I called. The shock of what happened next floored me. Instead of my normal interesting funny self, I stuttered and ran. [Listen here.]
After a great many other attempts, I finally hit paydirt with a product still in use today, leg warmers.
Instead of reaching a soothing voice of liquid leg warmer sales confidence, I reached "Jeff" who sounded as if he were at an 80's party. [Listen here.]
With a few minutes left in my day, I attempted to buy a Power Driver as seen in this 80's commercial:
Unfortunately, the Global Tool Company has now been replaced by an impersonal AT&T machine lady who doesn't understand English. [Listen here, but be warned that this is over two minutes long, and disappointing.]
Knowing that my time on this planet was short due to global warming, I picked up the pace.
The Power Jet line was not answering, and its model had grown tragically older:
The Commodore Plus 4 was no longer available to dazzle us with its spectrum of 128 colors:
And I was sadly disappointed by my Chinese brothers when the Chinese Wok line was gone:
But with Kung Fu on my side and a horrible Russian accent, my persistence finally paid off! Music was my savior as I remembered the lovely beach music compilation known as Ocean Drive. It was buried in this torrent of toe cancer warnings and Star Trek video games. At 3:37 though, the love begins.
Without a pause or the slightest hint of Coty Cologne, I called, hoping to buy these oldies but goodies. And 25 years later, someone answered! [Listen here.]
Ocean Drive 800 Number: Hello, this is Joanne. Thank you for calling the Goldwater, Zoloft hotline. May I have your zip code please?
Clive McClure: Zip code is a, 1 zero 1 zero 1.
OD: May I have...
CMC: [Interrupting] I'm calling for beach, a beach music, uh, commercial to buy uh music to, uh, to a listen to...
OD: Um ... no, you have reached the wrong number sir. This is for Zoloft.
OD: [Interrupting] No, this is a medication sir, that you are calling about.
CMC: Music, uh, what?
OD: OK. You're calling about a medication that someone took?
CMC: Oh, I, uh, not taken medication.
OD: Right.
CMC: So, oh, OK.
OD: So you just misdialed, sir.
CMC: OK, have nice day.
OD: You too.
CMC: Goodbye.
In the end, I found that old commercials can provide hours of dialing, viewing and hearing pleasure. I leave you with this fascinating example: at 2:01 of this video, 1.800.HOT.ROCK provides you with an easy number to get all your hot rock hits. Today, this number is a phone sex number. I don't know which is more outdated.
Great idea. I enjoyed the old videos and your audio. The quality of the audio could be about 100x better, though. Are you using a cassette tape deck and a suction cup to record your calls?
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