Phone numbers??

The unemployment lady asks George for the Vandeley phone number and George gives Jerry's as KL5-???? what the hell is with KL5??? Does New York have phones with an alphabet and number set on them???

Byron

"KL5" is the same as "555". It's the 1st three numbers that all TV shows and movies use. 555 numbers don't really exist anywhere (except for information and a few others), I guess they feel too many morons would try to call the phone numbers they hear on TV or in the movies!!! KL5 is used because it sounds less "made up" than 555.

Implied i

It's not like I didn't know that letters are on the buttons...... It just seemed stupid to say a number with keypad letters which make it less easy to remember! And I don't think they care if anyone phoned a number off the TV either.....

Byron

Hell yeah, they would.

Ask anyone who's phone number happened to be 867-5309 the year Tommy Tutone came out with that song.

For that reason and others, they stick with bogus phone numbers. 555 was set aside specifically to provide fake numbers for TV/movies/songs with no fear of some poor shmoes getting thousands of unwanted phone calls and complaining to the network/production company/whatever. No real phone numebr starts with 555.

Dave wrote in message ...

I don't know if you've seen Last Action Hero, when the kid is trying to convince Arnold Schwarzenegger than he's a character in a movie. He asks him if the doesn't think it's strange that everybody's number starts with 555.

Brian

Yes! Perfect example. He said there are 7 million people in Los Angeles, and they all seem to have numbers starting with 555, but there can only be 10,000 numbers with that exchange. As I recall, Arnold explained it away by saying that's why they have area codes, and the kid let it drop.

But they don't have 700 area codes just in LA, Arnie!!

Dave wrote:

7,000,000 people need 7,000,000 (700 x 10,000) numbers? Are you saying there is a 1:1 ratio of people to phones? In fact with FAX numbers, land line phones, kid's numbers, business numbers, cell phones, etc. there could be even more. Wonder what the ratio of people to phone numbers is in a large metropolitan area?

Actually, 555-0100 thru 0199 are "reserved" for fictious use, not that most studios seem to know that.

All other 555 numbers are valid for information services, see http://www.nanpa.com.

bill

They used to use letters. Your exchange was determined by where in NYC you lived. When I was a child my family lived in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, and our phone number began with 743, or SH3 or "Sheepshead 3." If you've ever heard of or seen the movie "Transylvania 6-5000", the title referred to the phone number 876-5000. This title spoofed an old Glenn Miller song, "Pennsylvania 6-5000."

For a decent essay on the old exchange names, check out this link: http://ourwebhome.com/TENP/Times.html

Wasn't Michael Richards in Transylvania 6-5000?

John Buchanan wrote:

Yes, he was, Fejos

In article ,

NYC

an

Thank you Dave! When I was growing up in New Jersey, we only had one digit in our begining phone number. Like, 7-7202. I knew you guys in New York had letters, do they still? (XXX

[email] wrote:

Technically, no. But I can still dial Sheepshead 3 and the rest of the number, and get my Nana on the line, so who's to say?

[email] wrote:

My brother lived in a small town in the '70's. People would give their phone numbers as three digits. Obviously there wer eless than 1000 phones in that exchange.

When I was growing up in Queens (near the Costanzas) my exchange was OL7- (657-) which later changed to 380.

Don