History of Fake 555 Numbers
Breif history of Fake Moive Telephone Numbers.
For many years North American film
productions have used fake 555 phone extensions
in movies.
It is not clear why 555 was chosen as the fake
numbers. An interesting, and possibly true Urban
Myth, is that MGM and the tobacco company 555
made a deal to increase the brand recognition
of the 555 cigarettes.
Even though this sounds credible, before the 555
numbers , older shows of the 50's and 60's used
"KLondike 5" and KLamath 5" as phone exchanges
still used letters. The K & L on American phones
are found on the "5" button, so in the 70's phone
companies encouraged the use of 555 numbers ,
with one of the earliest being 555-3268 in the
Movie A Patch of Blue (1965).
In a variation of this, early episodes of the
Simpsons used KL5 numbers (KL5-3223 for Mr. Plow
business home number and KL5-3226 for the business
number). br> Not all 555 numbers are fake. +1
-555-1212 is one of the standard numbers for Directory
Assistance in the USA and Canada. Only numbers
from 555-0100 to 555-0199 are now reserved for
fictitious numbers.
Many shows now use real numbers which they have
allocated, either to make the show more real,
or to use the number as part of the marketing.
Sneakers used a real number when one of the characters
asks a girl for her number. In the TV show , 24
, producers used a real number that was "manned"
by the production crew, and in show Scrubs, the
fictitious number goes to a recorded message from
various members of the crew.
In the 2003 movie God Almighty, the fictitious
prefix was omitted, and certain numbers used in
the movie constantly receive calls from people
looking for God.
Other numbers have caused problems in when used
in lyrics.
De la Soul's 1990 hit "Ring Ring Ring" includes
the lyrics "...take my number down, it's 222-2222,
I got an answering machine that will talk to you".
Unfortunately this is not a fake number, and because
of this video hits and radio shows often bleep
out the number.
Tommy Tutone's 1982 hit "867-5309/Jenny," is also
real and receives calls looking for Jenny. There
are some seiously bored people out there !
In modern times, getting real web-sites has also
been a marketing ploy for producers. sylviaimports.com
used in the show 24 was used to promote the show,
and oceanic-air.com is used in the show "Lost"
and almost looks like a real airline page.
You can get more history on 555 number from
Wikipedia's 555 Numer Page
