Storytime With Uncle Jeffy	Drama
The Farmer & Nate	Dawson's Creek: Big Jake
Green Peas	Steinbrook Billingsly, Private Eye
The Al Bernay Story	Last Train To Shanghi

Stu As Guest and Commercial Spoofs

Guest Voice Stu	Commercials
Dog Doo	Concord Brand
Zackery Some	Alpo Brand Dog Food
Late Late Late Show	Balpha Ada Markets #1
Bad Breath	Jell-O
Gargitan for Women	Blue Chip Stamps
Good For Nothing Kid	Illness Fane
Dying Of Thirst	After The Pepsi Test
Fal Stereo	Starkist Tuna
Want A Baby Kitten	Worthnothin' Dodge
Stu Taping Jeffy's Voice	Molgers Coffee
Overdrawn	Balpha Ada Markets #2
Calling Home

Remaining Fluke Recordings

7-Up Salesman	100,000th Caller	A Fluke Representative
A Hint To Baseball Players	A Statue	Analyzing The Script
Answer Live Night	Antibiotic Woman	Bar Room Life
Battle Of The Network Extras	Behind The Scenes: The Joke Inspector	Best Idea Contest
Best of Fluke Intro #1	Best of Fluke Intro #2	Bicentennial Briefs
Boy In Department Store	Can You Beat That	Celebrity Roast
Changes #1	Changes #2	Chick Hearn: Lakers Tickets
Coming Attractions At Fluke	Congressman At A Reservation	Cucamunga Int'l Airport
Defective Saw	Dentures	DJ School
Directory Assistance	Dirty Joke Request	Editorial Reply: Pig Latin
Eye Missed It News	Experimental Mice	Falling Asleep
Fluke Editorial: Women's Movement	Fluke Follies	Fluke Identification
Fluke Money Monster	Gameshow Host At Home	Giant Purple Elephant
Holiday Greetings (1975)	House Of Relief	In The Beginning
Interviewing A 108 Year Old Man	Johann Sebastian Bach	Junk
KILL Radio: Al Bernay	Kipah	KMOO Radio
Knock Knock: Banana	Knock Knock: Madda	Knock Knock: Ring
Locked Out Of Car	Lost Boy & The Old Man	Luckily Unluckily
Missing Patient	Moron Drinking Milk	Most Asked Question
Mouse And The Martini	News For The Hard Of Hearing	No Introduction
On The Line Talk Show	Physical Examination	Poor Manners
Price Of A Chair	Rabid Lady	Response To Answer Live Night
Seasons Greetings	Shooting A Blue Elephant	Short Clip #1
Short Clip #2	Short Clip #3	Short Clip #4
Sign On The Door	Snot Paper Towels	Special Report On Pickles
Spitting Contest	Sports World	Studio Live Easter Week #1
Studio Live Easter Week #2	Talking Dog	Tape Deck
The Better Sounding Fluke	The Butler	The Moron Lady
The Moron Raking Leaves	The Sea And The Falling Rainbow	The Vending Machine
Typical American Kitchen	Typical Housewife	World Of Fluke
Worlds Dumbest Astronauts	Watch Repair Shop	Woman That Thinks She's A Dog
Zoologist Sidney Cromwell

 IT 
Bill, Dean, Michael & Raymond
Located in Mar Vista 391-1111 & 397-2774
Started Around 1970
During the first few weeks of "IT", the phone number was 397-2774.  That number was soon replaced by 391-1111.  The phone line was located at Bill's parents' house.

The "IT" answering machine was their own design, using relays, open-reel endless tape loops, and some other hacked-together stuff. An AC-powered electromechanical call counter (which Dean still has) went CLICK-CLACK when the machine would take a call. In the wee hours of the morning, the call counter could wake the dead.

Back then, linerunners all lived in fear of the phone company. Putting your own answering machine on the phone line was illegal, unless you had a DAA provided by the phone company, which hardly anyone did. The "IT" guys eventually got in hot water with the phone company, and had to rent a DAA from General Telephone.

General Telephone sent out a phone man who had no clue of how to install a DAA. After giving up on installing the DAA, the phone man suggested that they just continue using the machine hooked directly to the line. The phone man told them that, as long as they paid for the DAA, there wouldn't be any trouble. He wasn't about to admit to his supervisor that he couldn't figure out how to install the DAA, so the secret was safe with him. The DAA just sat, gathering dust, and General Telephone never bothered them again.

The answering machine was housed in a wooden box, which they nicknamed "Pandora's Box", since opening it would often cause the circuitry to fail.  There were lots of wires running every which way.  A later design was built on a homemade printed circuit board. Tape, donuts and ferric chloride were the technology. They taped directly onto copper-clad board, and etched it in a Pyrex beaker while heating it over Bill's mom's stove.  No matter how careful they were, ferric chloride stains ended up everywhere.

There was a soft drink back then called "Simba". The ads for it were just screaming to be made fun of.  The ads featured a gruff-voiced announcer telling about how, when on an African safari,

"The African sun beats down on you.
The African thirst strikes!
You reach for -- Simba. SIMBA!!
IT GOES FOR THE THROAT!!".....

One of IT's most popular recordings was a tape called "Bimba", making fun of those ads.

 Laffline 
 Located in Northridge 993-1010 
Started in 1973
"You've Reached That Far Out Feeling Of Friendly Phone Fun"
Laffline had good original content.  A bit like Fluke and "Z".
I won an album from their answer live night in 1975.  Their sponsor was "Moby Disc" in Van Nuys when it was on Victory near Van Nuys Blvd.

Recordings
from the phone

Stuff 'n' Mold	DJ School	Vegetable Matic
Speed Reading		Stupid Questions

Recordings from the Master Tapes
Promo

Promo #1	Promo #2	Promo #3	Promo #4
Promo #5	Promo #6	VOC1	VOC2 &bsp;
VOC3	VOC4	VOC5	VOC6
Shell Answer Man		Used Callsigns

Reel #2a

411	Advice	Analogy #1	Daffy Deffinitions - Light
Bills 2 Pay	Bluebox	Carrots	Daffy Deffinitions - Molotov
Disconnected	Etiquette	Diahrea	Daffy Deffinitions - Sheet
Don't Shoot Up	Dripstan	Electric	Jokeline Exorcism Part 1
Time Lady	Gibbons	The Bar	Jokeline Exorcism Part 2
Disconnected	Insomnia	Falling Rock	General Eccentric
Logo Contest	Jello	Joke Week	Pacific Hospital
Live Promo #1	Leak	Line Man	Radio Station
Live Promo #2	Old Tapes	Mike Kramer	Staff Meeting
Seymour #1	Pick	Repair	Stupid Questions #5
Seymour #2	Steal	Star Trek	Stupid Questions #6

Reel #2b

Second audio reel.

Accident	Analogy #2	Apple	Answer Live #2
Butcher	Canibals	Brown	Answer Live #3
Cheese	Chicken	Chuckle	Answer Live #4
Circus	Dough	Elephant	Charlie Tuna
Flat	Germs	Grumpy	Greek Urn
Gulp	Hair Biz	Hang Up	Good And Bad
Helena	Mental	Nixon	Help Thy Neighbor
Operation	News Flash	Pencils	KKHeyHey Radio
Pardon Me	One Liners	Pollution	Poster Contest #1
Proverbs	Quickie	Secretary	Poster Contest #2
Saps	Sea Food	Streak	Stupid Questions #1
Smoking	Something	The Bet	Stupid Questions #2
Whine	Stu Smokestak	Unfinished	Stupid Questions #3
Unusual City	Waste Away	Water	Stupid Questions #4
Winner		Worthless

 The Machine 
 Run By Tom, Steve & Tom 
 San Pedro 833-3339 
 Mar Vista 822-2329 
 Orange County 714-833-3339 
The Machine was started on September 12, 1968
The original members were Tom and Tom, then Steve. Very quickly then Robin, Holly, Lewis , Jerry, Paul, Mike, Mike (two of them). Still later add Carl and Jose.
The Machine was once disconnected for frying the step-by-step equipment it was on. Having peaked at more than 2,000 calls in one day on a single line in a residential connector group, you can imagine. A worried switch man said that, of eight local connectors serving the phone numbers which were then 213-833-33XX, one was almost always connected to The Machine. One was almost always broken because of the high volume. At least half of the rest were dialing in or listening to a busy signal.
Sometime after that, it re-emerged with a different number. 213-833-2405. For about one year, it operated with 5 lines in rotary. Later, when the 833 prefix was moved from step to ESS#5, The Machine moved back to 833-3339.
The Machine operated on a variety of other numbers, including 213-836-5556 (selected to be in the miss-dialing shadow for Zzzzzz), and 714-833-3339 and 213-822-2329 among them. All of these were considered satellite numbers to the "The Machine Telephone Entertainment Network". The term was mockingly pretentious.

The Machine runs on rare occasion right now.  Need new gear, and have little time to set it up -- let alone make decisions as to what gear to get.

Most of its recordings are archived in storage. The cast and crew (first, second and third companies) have all scattered to different parts of the country and world.  Many of the recordings are now very dated. There are some commercial products, for example, that are now more outlandish than some of our satires.

Comment: I use to call the number once in a while at 833-3339. Later came the number for Mar Vista 822-2329. That was local to me since I lived in Van Nuys at the time. My group of friends had the opportunity to run the Mar Vista area's Machine. Our project ended and we couldn't provide a new home for it.

Recording #1	Recording #2	Recording #3	Recording #4
Recording #5	Recording #6	Recording #7	Recording #8

 Mainline 
 Located in North Hollywood 765-6000 
Started in 1973
Stu gave me this number when he was running "The Shokus Hotline" when he had a "Request Night".  It must have started in 1973.  It ran for two years and revived in 1979 by Bryan W. Feedback for two more years.  I wish I still had my copies of the Mainline.

Here is an exerpt from one of the guys that ran Mainline (6/2/2006):
That was run by a very close friend of mine, Mike Levey. In fact just last year I actually set the old Mainline equipment out in the trash after storing it for the past 25 + years. I may even have the original recordings some place. The old tapes from the mainline were on 4-track and were lost many years ago due to water damage.

The system used Altec line amplifiers to connect to the phone line, it was illegal back then to hook anything to the phone line so we were kind of skirting the law. A home made breadboard was used to sense ringing and connect the line to the amplifiers and turn on the tape. The tape machines were 4 track type made by Telex with foil sensors for EOT.

We only had 3 lines in rotary and they were always busy. Now and then we would put an old Code-a-phone answering machine on it and hear what people thought about it and where they were from. They were from all over the country, a lot of phone operators and telephone linemen would call to test their lines and listen to the latest jokes.

Mike, of infomercial fame, was one of the people that started the mainline and it is his wife at the time, Paula that you hear as the sexy bimbo in many of the recordings. It is a shame that your recordings are of such poor quality, all of the originals were done on 15 ips 2 track tapes in a real recording studio in Hollywood, and the quality was perfect.

The Mainline was actually built as a prototype to sell to places like MacDonald's and Jack in the Box. The plan was that we would place a machine at each of the stores and supply them with fresh material on a monthly basis with a short advertisement at the end for the company. It was getting a bit of interest but for some reason no one wanted to be the first one so we gave up on it and all went our separate ways. I had hosted it at my house for a year at 213-783-8738 (back when Encino was 213) for a year before I finally shut it down and stored it in the garage. By then the material was getting old and no one had the time to go play in the studio.

Mike who started it went on to infomercial fame with his show Amazing Discoveries and Ask Mike, and did very well for himself. Sadly he passed away 2 years ago from asbestos induced cancer. Not sure where that came from as he never worked with it as far as we know.

Recordings

Recording #1	Recording #2	Recording #3	Recording #4
Recording #5	Recording #6	Recording #7	Recording #8
Recording #9	Recording #10	Recording #11	Recording #12
Recording #13	Recording #14	Recording #15	Feedback Intro

 Marshall O'Dell 
 Run by Marshall O'Dell 
 Located in the San Fernando Valley 
Started in the late 1970's

 "R" 
 Run by Randy 454-1904 
 Located in Pacific Palisades 454-1904 
Started in 1973
"You've Dialed 454-1904, The Home Of "R".
They had a write up in the Los Angeles Times and at one time had to shut down temporarily because of the phone calls overloading the central office. It came back on again but for a short while.  Some of the material I had heard on available records.  Two skits where from a stereo test record that Radio Shack sold from "Audio Fidelity Records".  One was the "Elevator" and the other was "Russian Roulette".

 Superfone 
 Run by Joe Klein, with partners, John LaSalle, & Dick Peabody
  Located in Sherman Oaks 986-9800 
Started in 1973

Formally known as John Shannon, producer and the primary voice of Zzzzzz, Superfone was started by Klein and his partners as an early attempt to monitize a world wide network, spacifically the telephone network. The line was run out of Joe's apartment in Sherman Oaks. The plan was to create a series of comedy recordings and, later, audio cartoon serials for major fast food retailers. Mark Robbins of "Dial-A-Joke" fame designed and built the answering system and had also designed innovative circuitry allowing the callers to blow into a "Secret Whistle" obtained at the restaurant to access the program material. Although the whistle-access technology was never actually implemented, Superfone served as the pilot program to demonstrate the concept to the corporations and advertising agencies. It was also used as a research tool to gather call statistics (ie. calls received, busy signals, etc.) to supply to prospective advertisers. At first, random comedy skits in the genre of "Z" ran on the line. Later on, the first series, "The Adventures Of Napkin Man" was featured, followed by a "spinoff" series entitled "The Life Of Rodney."

The line was operated for less than a year and discontinued when the fast food chains that the promotion was created for decided that the technology involved would be too costly to implement on a national scale.

Klein's last foray into telephone entertainment was about ten years later when he started a promotional telephone recording line called the "Spotline." This was a line used to promote Klien's production company, L.A. Trax, Inc., which was the leading producer of commercials for major label record albums. The "Spotline" featured a new national radio spot from the company every week and operated for aproximately one year in the early 1980's.

In 2005 Klein started a new company, The Podcast Voice Guys, which specializes in producing voice overs and fully produced audio elements for major podcasts worldwide.

Recordings 1972 - 1974

Recording #1	Recording #2	Mouthwash     32K    100K     32K    70K	Apple Juice     32K    100K     32K    70K
Ask Professor Gizmo     32K    100K     32K    70K	Improved Gasoline     32K    100K     32K    70K	Out Of Soap     32K    100K     32K    70K	Songs Of The 50's     32K    100K     32K    70K
University Medical Center     32K    100K     32K    70K	Contest Of The Century     32K    100K     32K    70K	Discount Appliance Company     32K    100K     32K    70K	Little Orphan Annie     32K    100K     32K    70K
Make Your Request     32K    100K     32K    70K	Season's Greetings     32K    100K     32K    70K	Secret Fruit Of The Month     32K    100K     32K    70K	Tapping The Line     32K    100K     32K    70K
Telephone Driving Instructor     32K    100K     32K    70K	The Mad Doctor     32K    100K     32K    70K	Tongue Twister Of The Week     32K    100K     32K    70K	Man On The Street     32K    100K     32K    70K

The Adventures Of Napkinman

Napkinman Episode #1     32K    100K     32K    70K	Napkinman Episode #2     32K    100K     32K    70K	Napkinman Episode #3     32K    100K     32K    70K	Napkinman Episode #4     32K    100K     32K    70K
Napkinman Episode #5     32K    100K     32K    70K	Napkinman Episode #6     32K    100K     32K    70K	Napkinman Episode #7     32K    100K     32K    70K	Napkinman Episode #8     32K    100K     32K    70K

The Life Of Rodney Series

Recording #4	Recording #5	Recording #6	Recording #7
Recording #8	Recording #9	Recording #10	Recording #11
Recording #12	Recording #13	Recording #14	Recording #15
Rodney & Lester Poster Offer		Answer Live Night Announcement

 Tummies 
 Located in Northridge 886-6437 
Started Sometime in 1975 running until 1977
One of the first lines Nino was involved with.
The number spelled out "Tummies" 886-6437.  After the line went down, I heard some of the recordings that where left on one of the comment lines.  The recordings where very short starting with "You've Dialed Tummies".  They must have been 10-seconds or less each.

 Uncle Bill 
 Located in San Pedro 548-6000 
Uncle Bill was born after "The Machine"went away. Two of the 3 main people that ran The Machine are friends of Uncle Bill. The actual answering machine that was first used for Uncle Bill was the old one Tom had built for"The Machine". It worked fine, just kept killing 8 track tape players. At its peek Uncle Bill received about 1200 calls a day. The master tapes still exist on reel-to-reel as well as copied onto cassette.

Here is one recording:
     

 Vermont 
 Located in Culver City 837-6668 
Maybe the oldest of all the joke lines.
Not very many recordings made.  It was off the hook most of the time.  They ran the same type of recordings as "Zzzzzz".  Heard that they where neighbors with the people that ran "Zzzzzz", in the same apartment complex in Palms.

The Wrong Number
 Run by Rich & Jim 
 Several Numbers in 714 & 213 
Ran during late 70's.  The Wrong Number was started long before Zygot but well after "Z".
It sounded like a mixture of recordings that where a cross between Zygot and recordings from Zzzzzz.  There where several numbers located around the 714 & 213 areacode.

There used to be an answering machine that was dubbed "The Ear".  It was run by a group called SERTOMA,"Service To Mankind".  It actually attempted to administer a hearing test over the phone lines!!!  It appeared to meet the old PacBell rules about non-danger to phone lines by being battery powered (no AC power connections).  There would be contests to see how many calls it would take to bring the Ear down. One day Rich, who had quite a nice home-built recording studio, taped the Ear and then re-dubbed it with sound effects, music, and comments. Jim said that we should have our own Ear, or "The Other Ear" and built a VERY crude answering machine using a cassette player.

The original Ear's number was 714-532-5252 so I obtained 714-535-5252 in an Anaheim step office. Rich modified his dubbed Ear tape to say something like

"If you were trying to reach SERTOMA, you've gotten

'THE WRONG NUMBER'

Hence, the name stuck and even 411 Operators knew to refer people to 535-5252!

One of the best PR occurrences was when either Jobs or Wozniak admitted on a TV talk show that he used to phone phreak and would call the Wrong Number.....

The machines went through a number of 'morphings but the final "Mass Production" version was as follows;

• AC powered 8-track drive with integral cooling fan for constant speed and longevity.
• Built-in EQ circuit to match the typical phone line audio response.
• A "power" amp audio driver and matching transformer to deliver the EQ's output.
• Line-reversal detect to reset upon early hang-ups rather than wait for the end of a selection.
• Two-tone cueing was used to make the pick-up and hang-up timing match the recorded materials timing.
• A little bit of logic and timing to make the pick-up occur after ring voltage had occurred. Less of a voltage hit on the audio output circuits.

Recording #1	Recording #2	Recording #3
Recording #4	Recording #5

 Zygot 
 Run by Joe "Zygot" 
 with the help of many 
 Numbers in 714, 213, 415, 602 & 215 
Started in 1978 and is still going today
It started in Orange County by "The Link's" Joe Zygot.  Later spreading throuout Los Angeles.  So many that there where three communities that where not local to one.  Zygot had spread to Philadelphia, Phoenix, & the San Francisco area.

Zygot is now an automated conference and bulletin board system like K-Fone.

- Recorded Off The Phone - 714-839-3000 | 714-839-3030 | 714-894-9000
Irrational Enquirer	Intro: And The Beat Goes On	Joe Zygot #1
Joe Zygot #2	Joe Zygot #3
Bubblegum	Candle Factory	Just Got Married
Just A Joke	Little Man In The Freezer	Lobster Joke
Old Math	New For 1980	California Roast Wokie
Stronger	Swimming	The Wrong Number Plug
Universal Studios Farm	Radio Station FUN-Q
- Recorded From The Master Tape -
Fern Meadows Mortuary       Featuring Bryan W. Feedback	The Future       Also Featuring Bryan	Man Here To See You
After The Zygot Challenge	Ater The Zygot Challenge 2	Bubblegum
Caller's Joke       (From The Master Tape)	With Delight	Dial-A-Prayer's
Directroy	Three Men In A Tub	Film At 11 #1
Film At 11 #2	Film At 11 #3	Film At 11 #4
Film At 11 #5	Film At 11 #6	Film At 11 #7
First Day Of School	First Plane Trip	Friskies
Grades	Zygot Groanies	H2O
Halloween	JTE Phonemart	Little Man In The Teapot
Little Man In The Bathtub	The National Bald Test	Zygot Numbers - Star Wars Theme
Uncle Ben's Perverted Rice	Popping Out Of Bed	Restaurant Manager
California Roast Wokie Sandwich	Showering	Suicide
Learning To Swim	Elevator	Stolen Towels
Wallpaper	Write To Zygot	Cat & Mouse
For Zygot Personel Only	For Zygot Personel Only 2	Zygot Outtakes
Candle Factory	Zygot Numbers

Check Out The Newsletters

 Zzzzzz 
 Run by Bob Bilkiss 
 Located in Culver City 837-5566, 836-5556, 836-5566 
It began in February 1970
Originally 837-5566 on a Step-By-Step exchange. When the call volume rose to about 800 calls a day the phone folks moved it to a crossbar line which could better handle large call volumes, and that is when the 836-5566 number came in.
"The Last Listing In The Los Angeles Telephone Directory"One of The Oldest Of The Phone Recording lines first running on a Code-A-Phone 700. It first started out at his parents house and then it moved into his apartment in a very large apartment complex in Palms.  Started I guess on or just before 1968.  One of the original "Z" 8-track machines is still sitting in a garage in a box collecting dust.  All of the master tapes still exist.  They are on tapes with final recordings and are mixed up with original takes.  If there are any old-timers that remember a recording that went"This moment of softness, has been brought to you by Z. ZZ. ZZZ."outro, which had some "Music Box" type music behind it.  Anyone know what that music was from?

Here's a clue--it was the intro music (which then continued in the background after the main melody of the piece started) arranged in a particular manner for a specific rendition of a very well known song.  As such, it was not the*melody*line of the song itself.  It can be heard Muzak music systems and such occasionally.  It is a song the melody of which, and the words to which, most adults in the U.S. would know.

Recordings

Recording #1

Playing Dial-A-Joke Recordings

Recording #1	Recording #2	Recording #3	Recording #4	Recording #5
Recording #6	Recording #7	Recording #8	Recording #9	Recording #10
Recording #11	Recording #12	Recording #13	-	-

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