We had phones like this when I was a kid. The anonymity of calling strangers and playing jokes on them was a rascally entertainment. We'd send taxidermists to the neighbor's house and watch from behind cover when he arrived. We'd call drugstores and ask if they had Prince Albert in a can. "Why, yes we do," they'd say. "Well, you better let him out. Hahahahahaha." We were so clever.

Then there was the game where we'd call someone and inform them that we had a singing telegram for Miss Anne Summers. They would naturally respond that no Anne Summers lived there. To which we would reply: "That's okay; we'll sing it anyway!" Then the phone would be handed to which ever one of us was the designated singer for the call and he would launch into the song: "May you live a million years, may you drink a million beers, Get plasssssstered, you bad girl(or boy), Happy Birthday to Yuuuuuuu."

Most of our victims had hung up by that point. But if they were still there, playing along, they'd be asked "How did you like that?" They'd laugh and say something like "Oh that was just dandy."

"Great, then we'll sing it again!" And back the receiver would go to the singer who would again commence roaring the little ditty, during which most remaining victims would finally hang up.

On the Saturday morning that I was the designated singer, my friend Paul's brother Richie made the call. He went through the bit. "Oh well, there's no Anne Summers at this number" the victim must have said, or words to that effect. "Well, we're gonna sing it anyway," pronounced Richie gleefully, and passed the phone to me.

"May you live a million years..." I sang. "May you drink..."

"STEVEN!!!!" came my mother's enraged voice. "YOU GET HOME RIGHT NOW!!!!"

Richie, the sneaky SOB, was playing a little game of his own without telling me. I didn't know he'd called MY HOUSE. So much for that phone game, or any other games, that day for me.

My mother would probably have worried that I'd grow up to be a telemarketer, except there were no such thing as telemarketers in those days. My fate was almost as bad...I grew up to be a lawyer. Hahahahahahaha....

Comments:

Those were fun and innocent times!

You wascally wabbit!

Does your nose run and your feet smell? Well! You were built upside down!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Oh! What devils we were, eh???? And then Caller I.D. went and ruined everything!!!!!
By the way, if I were you, I would have KILLED your friend Richie!!!! (Funny as hell though!)

We'd say, "is your refrigerator running?" "Well you better go catch it" and then another one was calling a store and asking "Do you have Prince Albert (tobacco) in a can?" They'd say yes. We'd say "you better let him out!" Back then it was funny!

We'd ring and ask 'excuse me, are you on XXX road?' 'yes' 'well you'd better get off there's a bus coming.'
local phone calls were free in those days... we only paid a rental and for trunk calls. But I don't want to go back... I prefer being my age.

Although my phone prank days were a little later than your's, I still got to play them before caller i.d. was developed. Most favorite memory was the unfortunate old couple who actually took messages for us when our parent's supposedly grounded us from the phone... and when we called the next day for our fake messages, they delivered them word for word, phone number and all! I miss being a kid

That reminds me of how much I hated Candid Camera. I never saw the humor in watching the befuddlement of others.

I have to say that game was still as funny in the 1970's, as when you did it back in the 1940's!!!
The old party line # was always fun, it was who ever could out yell the next person....kinda like the old # to call the time and date!!???
Ahhh the good old days of free telephone entertainment!!!!!