52: 1 (900) Numbers; Or, Call Me Maybe

This Was A Thing: The Retro Podcast

Aug 23, 2022•44 min•Season 1Ep. 51

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Episode description

In the ancient, pre-Google days, if someone wanted to get sports scores, or chat with a “naughty friend”, or obsess over your favorite celebrity, you couldn’t just type into a browser - the world wide web was a long ways off. But never fear! Just call this number, pay a incidental (read: exorbitant) fee per minute, and you’re guaranteed to find what you’re looking for.

Ray teaches Rob about the meteoric rise of early 1-900 number entrepreneurs; why cats should stay away from phones; Santa’s (w)rapping skillz; and how seedy scammers gave a bad name to this new telephonic frontier.

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