While Reddy Kilowatt (with more than 50 blog posts devoted to him) is a favorite, I'm also a fan of the one I loosely refer to as "That Telephone Guy" (shown above). He seemed to have originally been a creation of the Bell Telephone System in the 1930s, and proceeded to be featured in a series of Bell ads that ran all the way up to the early 1950s.
Later, some local phone companies (like Lorain Telephone) used a simplified version of the character on customer billing paperwork, and in their own advertisements.
Here's an example of one of those ads. It ran in the Lorain Journal back on October 13, 1953. I like the way the couple is walking hand-in-hand with the oversized Telephone Guy. Just another everyday occurrence in Anytown, USA.
The ad does have some helpful hints about keeping the phone away from a damp environment, including using a wall phone. I wonder if wall jacks are still an option in today's construction?
I had a wall jack in my condo. But at some point, a previous owner covered it up. You can see the lump on the wall where it's been imprisoned forever. But that's okay. My condo still had a few phone jacks that were in use up until a few months ago, when I finally got rid of my land line. I think I was the last person in Ohio with one.
Sorry, Telephone Guy.
You are not the last line line, Dan. I have one packaged with my internet and cable. In fact - this may be hard to believe - but as late as about 5 years ago a friend that lived just outside of Oberlin still had a dial phone! The short line running down Garfield Rd had not been upgraded to touch tone yet. Haven't talked to him since then so it may still be the case.
ReplyDeleteMy father still has a land line Dan.I tell him to get rid of it all the time as he doesn't even use it.But it must be nostalgia or something that he still must have a house phone with his old original phone number.Of course he has a cell phone but he still won't give up the unused land line.It's just a total waste of money.
ReplyDeleteWe had a land line until just a few years back but got rid of it when we decided to transform it into a dedicated line for Internet DSL.
ReplyDeleteWhen we renovated our present home, we removed all the telephone lines. We have a cell base-unit with our old number that we can take anywhere in the U.S., plug into power, and still have the same number.
It's pretty cool. But I do miss the land line. Doggone thing was bullet-proof and the reception was always perfect. When a caller's phone cut out, we knew exactly who had the problem and it was never us!
I have one of those old phones in the basement. It's perfectly functional but I no longer have a land line to plug it into. The phone weighs a ton; it was built to last.
ReplyDeleteMy grandparents had a candlestick phone when I was very young.