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Celebrity AnswerAlls #2

This week Media Monday features another celebrity telephone answering machine message. This collection has many of the same voices as the Radio Shack collection.

This tape is from 1982. I can't recall exactly where I got this one. Maybe Caldor or Radio Shack.

There is another "best-of collection" with a similar name. That collection is the best of all the Celebrity AnswerAlls from the series.

This collection was made by the Project Market Group from Boca Raton, Florida. I wasn't able to find any information on the company. I suspect they must have closed sometime in the 1980s.

Celebrity Impressions

1. WC Fields
2. Jimmy Carter
3. Barbra Streisand
4. Charles Dickens
5. Cheech & Chong
6. Lou Costello
7. Frank Sinatra
8. James Cagney

Question

After hearing this tape, would you actually use any of the voices that you heard?

Classic Internet Commercial

Here are some classic Internet commercials that I found in my VHS collection. These all aired around the early 2000s.

• Circuit City - "Find it, Love it"
• Earth Web - "Win a Million Dollars!"
• Webstakes.com - "The Easiest Place on Earth to Win a Prize"
• Nokia - "The Petersons"
• Issuz - "Joe Isuzu and the Axion"
• MSN - "Welcome to MSN Broadband"

Radio Shack Outgoing Message

In the 1980s, you could go to Radio Shack and get some cool things. One thing that I found was a cassette tape that featured celebrities' impersonations to spice up your answering machine. The impersonations weren't all that good.

These tapes were to be funny and encourage people to leave messages. I have a couple of different cassette tapes in my collection. I don't know why I felt the need to buy a series. As I recall the tapes cost about $5. They were placed near the phones and answering machines.

Tape Contents

• Introduction
• W.C. Fields
• Mae West?
• George Burns and Gracie Allen
• Mad Scientist
• Rodney Dangerfield
• Groucho Marx
• Columbo
• Barbra Streisand
• Alfred Hitchcock
• Gilda Radner

Video Professor

In the late 1990's one of the late-night infomercials was Video Professor. They produce training CDs on how to use the computer. In the half-hour-long Infomercial, they were promoting the ability to try out their videos in any subject that people want. All you had to do is pay for shipping and handling.

What Video Professor didn't talk much about is the "fine print." Customers would be signed up for a subscription service where future videos would be charged to the credit card on file. They wouldn't get charged if they canceled their subscription. Some of the videos would cost between $50 to $399.

Due to various lawsuits and lagging sales, the company folded in 2002.

Here is a clip of the commercial that I recorded on April 24, 1999 - nearly 22 years ago.

Phone Call gone Wrong

Just about everyone has gotten the extended car warranty phone calls. My favorite is when they call me about a car that I have never owned.

The following phone conversation happened about a year ago. They called me about a car that I have never owned.

This call ends a strange way. I think the lady didn't understand what I said and pretty much wrote off the call.

Job Commercials

This week's Media Monday is a look at some classic Internet Job Commercials and a segment on the Dot Com Guy.

Features:

• Hot Jobs Commercial - "ipo//ipo"
• Monster.com - "Where will Ted Go?"
• Dot Com Guy - KTVU segment about Mitch Maddox being the DOT COM Guy.

There were some other clips that I had, but I couldn't find them. These will have to do this week.

Driving in San Francisco

San Francisco has one of the worst traffic in the country. It wasn't all that great in 2000.

Here's a mix of the Traffic Report from TV and the Radio.

I am not sure about the date of the radio piece. I believe it was sometime in the 2000s.

Classic New England Commercials

This week, I decided to feature some classic New England Commercials.

These I had digitalized in 1998 on my Macintosh Centris 660AV computer. I may still have the orginal DVDs and could create a better quality version in the future.

In this week's video:

• Bank Of Boston - Great Tune!
• Ames - Classic Department store. (I remember the one in Acton, Massachusetts.)
• Breakfast Mate - Not Really New England, but on a VHS tape that was New England.
• Eastern Airlines - This one is pretty old. Not exactly sure of the date. Care to guess?

Capital One and Student Loan

Here are a couple of scam voice messages that I got in the past few months. These don't actually seem to be real people but just computer-generated messages. I guess they want to see if I am gullible and will respond to the voice messages to get more information.

Enjoy!

Capital One

Missed Call from 800-258-6019. This isn't a Capital One phone number and I don't even have a Capital one Credit Card.

Student Loan Processing Department

Missed Call from (617) 380-3109. Note the caller never mentions the actual name of the company, just as "student loan processing department."

Suspicious Package in San Jose

Back in 2000, there was a bomb scare by the "Gold Building" in Downtown San Jose. Many streets were closed off because they didn't know how dangerous the package was.

Watch the 6 pm coverage by KRON TV. The video features Pete Wilson at the anchor desk, Sgt. Steve Dixon, and Jim Goldman reporting from the field.

Fun Fact

I was there!

The interesting thing about this story is that I was actually n the building when this was all going on. I had arrived at work really early that morning. There wasn't an announcement to the people in the building to leave.

I remember calling co-workers letting them know what was happening.