Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-03-09 (Saturday)

Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

The Twilight Zone S3E27 'Person or Persons Unknown' - DVR
David Gurney wakes up with a hangover, but that's the least of his
problems.  (Comcast)
Paying homage to It's a Wonderful Life (1946), David Gurney wakes up to
another ordinary day. Except today, nobody knows who he is including his
own wife Wilma.  (IMDb)
Trivia: One of the first instances on television to show a couple
sharing a single bed, sleeping next to each other. Around this time, TV
shows could only portray couples sleeping in separate beds due to
television's strict standards & practices. In season five's Stopover in
a Quiet Town (1964), a very similar situation occurs. In both cases, the
man is sleeping on top of the covers, is still fully dressed (even
wearing his shoes), and they are hung over from a bout of heavy drinking.
The two phone numbers Richard Long calls are Klondike 5-2131 and
Klondike 5-3472 and may be the first 555 numbers used in television history.

To be fair, AT&T had just designated area codes in 1947 and the dialing
plan N(0,1)X NNX-XXXX, which took decades to be adopted throughout the
United States and outlying territories, Canada, Bermuda, and a portion
of the Carribean (and a couple of other places). Even in big cities,
there party lines and six-digit telephone numbers in the 1950s.

It's entirely possible that the location in the fictional story had not
yet converted to seven-digit local telephone numbers.

Numbers of the form of N(0,1)X 555 (KLondike 5)-1212 were reserved for
access to directory assistance from foreign area codes, and other 555
line numbers were reserved for other purposes. Today, it's largely
available for line number assignment. That's why it was convenient for
use in movies and tv.

. . .