Ask Mike: Dial 555-Whatever
Hey Guys,
Seen a movie or TV show in the last 25 years? If so, you probably noticed that on screen, 99% of phone numbers start with “555.” Is this a law of some kind, or just a case of Hollywood not wanting to accidentally use a real phone number? Here’s the deal…
The 555 phenomenon is well documented on the Web. And the expert researchers at The Straight Dope covered this exact topic way back in 1978. According to TSD, the “555″ prefix was “created in 1973 — no matter where you are, dialing the 555 number plugs you into directory assistance.” Interesting, and no doubt accurate when it was written, but I suspected phone conventions have changed a bit in the last 30+ years.
TV Acres writes that movies and TV shows use 555 mostly as a favor to the public. The convention “was designed to prevent people from receiving crank calls when a phone was mentioned on a TV show or movie.” Ask Yahoo!, a site I used to write for, explains that the number 555 was likely chosen by the entertainment industry because “in the old exchange-name telephone number system (think Pennsylvania 6-5000), no English place names contained the combination of the letters J, K, and L — all assigned to the digit “5″ on the phone. So, the prefix 555 went largely unused.” A “mind-numbingly comprehensive” site lists just about every movie or TV show to have used a 555 number.
While most movies and TV shows use 555, there are some rebels who don’t. For example, I watched the movie “House of the Devil” (obviously not a romantic-comedy) several weeks ago, and one of the characters mentions a phone number that does not begin with 555. I’d gotten so used to hearing “555-whatever” that I actually did a bit of a double take.
The most famous instance of an artist not using the 555 prefix is, of course, the 1982 song 867-5309 by Tommy Tutone. There are countless stories of people who were unfortunate enough to have that number when the song came out. No doubt that their having to explain that “Jenny doesn’t live here” got old very quickly. I couldn’t find any proof, but I suspect that understandable outrage had a lot to do with movies and TV shows sticking with 555-XXXX.
Thanks for reading,
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A favorite expression (or running gag) between me and a bunch of my friends is:
“If you’ve got a problem with that, the Complaints Department is on the 6th Floor.”
Of course, wherever we may be, there is no 6th Floor.
Thanks to you, perhaps I can now use the line: “If you’ve got a problem with that,
the phone number of the Complaints Department is 555-XXXX.”
KLondike 5- was the fictional exchange corresponding to 555, and that was used on occasion in a production.
There was one person who intentionally ASKED the phone company for 867-5309 a while back. Not sure why, though.
very interesting. I had also wondered about the 555-xxxx concept of orign. now I know a little more than I did 5 minutes ago
Great info! I wonder if more famous people should use real numbers, like the phone number of a pizza place. Imagine all the business you’d get!
Nice! I never really chose to notice that, but now that I think of it, they did use a lot of 555-XXXX
Ruthie Camden’s (7th Heaven) number was not on the list. I think it was 555-0165
It’s like designers only using lorem ipsum when they fill in content (with dummy text as placeholders) – it makes them feel grouped/special to a certain industry, besides it’s also shows the audience/or client that we know that it’s “lorem ipsum”, we already know!, and we know you know too, so no need for the fancy flowery curtains over the show.
If Tommy Tutone were fined $1,000 for each junk call that someone received, he would learn to behave himself.
How about blogging about something relevant like fixing Yahoo Answers so that when you search for something it actually comes up?
I called 555 but it says “your call is not authorized …” something like that.
ahhh that makes sense!!!!
How about 867-5309 Hall and Oates song:) for bucking the 555 trend.
Back in 1970 the phone company (AT&T) New Jersey Bell came into the school to teach us 5th graders how to use the phone. We used real phones to call classmates but they had a “switchboard unit” so that it was a closed system. I wrote down the 555- number and called it when I got home. It rang and someone picked up; then I asked who they were and the lady explained that I had called the telephone company so the numbers were assigned to the telephone company years before 1973. (area code)555-1212 can get you directory assistance in that area code but I’m not sure how much that costs today (It was free back in 1974).