Do you remember your first answering machine?

[Bertha Venation]

Do you remember your silly or creative outgoing messages?

Did you get funny messages - like, your mom saying "Hello, this is your mother, Jane Smith . . . "

Did you get excited upon arriving home at the end of the day, hoping that messages would be waiting for you?

Do tell.

[av8rdave]

1. Indeed I do

Complete with a standard cassette tape that had to contain both the greeting and any incoming messages. Waiting for the tape to fast forward was such a hassle that I only used the machine to find out if anyone had called or not.

My Squadron Commander gave me grief about that. I had to respectfully remind him that (1) Air Force regulations did not require me to have an answering machine, and (2) the machine was intended for my convenience, not his.

[Arkansas Granny]

2. Since I'm a little late to the game when it comes to technology, I just got

my first answering machine phone a few months ago. There's a recording of a nice man already on it, so I just let him answer the phone for me.

[woo me with science]

16. lol

We let the nice man answer ours, too. :)

[Brickbat]

3. I used to spend a lot of time getting my outgoing message just right.

Mr. Brickbat still has the little cassette tape that I left my first messages to him on, even though we have nothing to play it on.

[HopeHoops]

4. "Hi. You've reached my car phone. I'm at home right now so please leave a message and I'll get....

...back to you if I decide to go somewhere."

[krispos42]

5. Yeah.

My parents had a little beige one with a single micro-cassette in it for storage and a single tiny red LED. It was about as big as a fat paperback. I think AT&T made it.


They didn't do anything too cute with it, though, thank god.

[Bertha Venation]

6. I had that one, too.

It was a cute little machine.

[krispos42]

10. It worked pretty well. Had it for a long time, as I recall n/t

[OriginalGeek]

7. I don't remember

and I never did anything "funny" with it because it always annoyed the ever-living fork out of me when my friends did all the same things with theirs thinking they were funny and original (For example: The fake out where they act like a person answering and then spring it on you that it's the machine. ha ha ya got me. Or the TERRIBLE impersonations of famous people answering the phone like my idiot friend thought they would. Damn I had some unfunny friends.)

but then a couple years ago I was at a Comicon and George Lowe was a guest and for 20 bucks he would record your cell phone answering machine greeting and I couldn't resist as I love me some SPace Ghost. It still cracks me up.

Now I am one of my idiot friends.



I will add that it is funny to me that my mother in law calls the cell phone and still thinks there is an answering machine that we can hear and monitor. "hello? Are you there? Pick up the phone! It's your mother! I know you can hear me....."

[krispos42]

9. That's funny!

"...it is funny to me that my mother in law calls the cell phone and still thinks there is an answering machine that we can hear and monitor".

So true! :rofl:


I took inspiration from Fox Mulder... "Hi, you've reached krispos42. You know what to do and you know when to do it. *beep*"


The fakeout message is from "Terminator", and now imbedded forever in our collective consciousness.

[MilesColtrane]

8. Believe it or not, I'm not home!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caoYdiq3kak

[polly7]

11. I've never had one, but I love the messages that prank you out...

like "Hi, how are you?!?!? Long time no speak, blah, blah, blah" ......... meanwhile you're answering back glad to catch them home. Then ........... BEEP, leave a message dumbass.

[av8rdave]

12. I am very fond of my current outgoing message (cell phone)

Tommy Chong shouting "Dave's not here!"

[mainegreen]

13. Indeed, but I could never get mom to do the greeting right.

It was always a little different every time.
And the message recording quality! Talk about crappy! Sure, most of the time she got the message basically right, but there was always a frustrating lack of details! And at least one of every ten calls or so was randomly deleted from my message list! Not to mention that she would sometimes ASK MY FRIENDS QUESTIONS!!!

No, when I finally ditched her and upgraded to a digital machine, I was a happy camper. Never looked back!

:D

[meegbear]

14. Ours was a "group effort" ...

there was a group of us guys and gals living together after college, a friend labelled the place "Crackerbox Palace". Our message was this ...

"Sorry, can't come to the phone ... we're a little ... ummm ... busy right now. So leave you name and number and we'll get back to you."

In the background was all of us moaning and going "Oh! OH!".

Bloody parents, no sense of humor.

[Brother Buzz]

15. Hello? Hello? HELLO? I can't hear you. I can't hear you because I'm not here...

at the tone....

[FloridaJudy]

17. "Bates Hotel. Norman isn't here: this is his mother"

Leave a message at the beep. I'm in the shower...

[Xithras]

18. Hello...

(in a scared little kids voice)

"Hello? Hello? Nobody is here right now, and I'm trapped in this machine! It's really, REALLY dark in here and I'm really scared! Can you pleeeeease leave a message so the little light will turn on?"

That was my first message on my first answering machine (a secondhand Radio Shack cassette machine, IIRC). About half my messages started with the person on the other end laughing. About half the remaining started with comments about how my message was weird.

Hey, whaddya want from a 17 year old? :)

[Curmudgeoness]

19. I still have my first one. It has a micro-cassette

and still has the only message I ever made. People who call don't know for sure if they have the right number because "it doesn't sound like" me. Oh well, call me frugal.

I remember my sister has a message that was a rap and too funny. Somehow, someone passed the phone number around and she would come home to hundreds of missed calls. I wish I could remember the message now---I thought I would never forget it since it was a little long and got old after hundreds of calls to her when she wasn't home.

[Shagbark Hickory]

20. Yes I remember it fondly. The most creative message and best idea

ever was a recording of "The number you have called has been disconnected or is no longer in service. Hang up and try your call again" lady

[struggle4progress]

21. I had a friend whose answering machine message was recorded from the phone company:

... bwee wee wee! we're sorry! the number you have dialed is not in service. please check the number and dial again. bwee wee wee! we're sorry! the number you have dialed is not in service. please check the number and dial again ...

eventually you'd hear the beep! and could leave your message

[RFKHumphreyObama]

22. I remember the first answering machine that my parents had after I was born

My poor grandmother had terrible trouble with our answering machine. She would hear the automated message recorded by my parents and think that she was talking to one of them. So the rest of the message would be my grandmother having a one-sided conversation with the machine until it trailed off.

A few years later my cousin moved in with said grandparents and, because he was a very popular outgoing guy with an active social life, he would get calls all the time which my grandparents would have to answer and, considering they were in their mid-to-late 80s and early 90s by this stage, it got very tedious for them. So he installed an answering machine. Being the smart alec he was and knowing my grandparents had health problems, he recorded a message saying something to the effect of "Mr. Smith has poor eyesight and can't see where the phone is, Mrs Smith is deaf and can't hear the phone and I'm out so please leave a message". Within days my grandparents were innundated with worried relatives who had misinterpreted the message to mean that my grandparents were very ill so he sheepishly had to change the message to something a bit more suitable

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

23. It was a contraption with a cassette tape.

I don't remember exactly how it worked, but I recall having to rewind and listen to the whole tape in order to retrieve the messages. There was a blinking light if there were any new ones. I don't think I got especially creative with the messages, but I knew a guy who sang his outgoing message to "Louie, Louie," accompanying himself on the guitar.

[mikeytherat]

24. Yes. It lasted for almost 30 years, and died two weeks ago.

It used two full-size cassette tapes, and the sound quality was fantastic. I miss it already.

mikey_the_rat

[mopinko]

25. i had a friend who was considered stunningly rude for

not answering until she knew who it was.

i have a physical machine on my land line. it has the generic robot message. i remember when people heard that and thought they had the wrong number.

[tigereye]

26. my mom was still doing that years later..

I think the machine was very small and brown and looked like a clock-radio. :hi: Bertha! What's new?

[Bertha Venation]

27. hey, tigereye

You may not see this but I'll say hi back anyway. :hi: :)

[Rochester]

28. Remember it? I still have it and use it.

[Ahpook]

29. I always had the basic message

"This is Jody, I can't come to the phone........


But:) A friend had some kind of equipment that could record from the phone and he subsequently recorded my message and reworked it on reel to reel. Fucking asshole :D

Next time visiting his house I hear through his door a drum beat with some bass playing and parts of my answering machine message saying " Jody, Jody, Jody can't come when at home" etc.

It took a second to register :)

[NewJeffCT]

30. I never had any silly message - however, I had a friend

that had an answering machine message that sounded like the Mako-read prologue to the original Conan the Barbarian movie... however, his was kind of over the top and it descended into unintentional silliness.

the original starts around 35 seconds in here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZY2mRG5mzg

[alphafemale]

31. I remember my Mom visiting and freaking out when we'd let the machine "get it"

This was very early "90's" maybe.

"aren't you going to answer that?"

"We're eating. That's what the answering machine is for."

"But what if it's important?"

"They'll leave a message."

"But what if they don't leave a message?"

"Then I guess it not important."


I think ours was the first generation that was comfortable letting a phone ring.

[arbusto_baboso]

32. I used to have John Williams movie music behind my outgoing messages, which I'd change monthly.

I had some people calling me on a regular basis just to see if I had a new outgoing message.

I retrospect, it was all pretty damned stupid. But I was in college, so what the hell?

[Kennah]

33. Then GF and I shacked up in 1989. We got one second hand from the apartment manager.

Thing was very large and had two full sized audio tapes. One was a universal loop for the outgoing message.

Whenever my parents would call, and it was ALWAYS my Mom, never Dad, they wanted something. I only lived like 8 blocks away, I lived closer than any other relative, and I would do anything for them. But it was always a ruse. Invite me to dinner, and ask me to set the VCR to record something. In the spring and fall, I could count on a call to set Dad's watch back or forward an hour. I love my parents, but they aren't mechanically inclined.

My late grandmother would leave the funniest messages ever, but I don't think she ever saw the humor. She would call my Mom, her daughter, get the machine and leave a message, "Mother called." It was almost as though she thought there was a house elf that would transcribe the answering machine messages onto a message pad.

[Auggie]

34. A friends' message began with the Johnny Carson Tonight Show theme...

Dah-da-da-da-dah......

"It's the Telephone Show starring (my friend)." (music continues)

"(My friend's) special guest host tonight is Dee Tone."

"Join Dee and her guests Norwegian adventurer Leif Urname...

Singer N. Annie Messages...

And food expert Thyme Called."

(music builds}

"And now... heeeeeeeeeeere's Dee Tone:"

*beep*