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sort of melting pot ... a cross-section of interests ... a combination of long-hairs and short-hairs. We are all in college except for Jeff and we're all 21 except for John, who is 19". He and
Friedman initially spent two to three days a week recording jokes, which at the onset were spoofs of contemporary radio and television advertisements and programs. They later gained access to a small professional recording studio by way of a friend in broadcasting. Friends and acquaintances volunteered their voice talents, while Bilkiss and Friedman acquired a stack of royalty-free production music and produced their own sound effects for use in skits. To prevent the recordings from wearing out due to the heavy traffic the line received, the answering machine was built to be rugged and outfitted with high-quality, high-fidelity tape stock.
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hour-long "live" shows, wherein callers could talk to
Bilkiss and company, twice a week. It was through these shows that the crew discovered the young Shannon in 1970, who had considerable experience in production work. Shannon became Zzzzzz's announcer and was responsible for the line's format refresh in September 1970.
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The first recordings on the answering machine was a teaser reel comprising humorous impersonations of people curious to the purpose of Zzzzzz's entries in the phone book, as a way to build further interest for the launch of Zzzzzz as a dial-a-joke service. The line was updated weekly, and the number
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enough going on with Z to turn us on". Bilkiss and
Friedman occasionally hijacked the line from the answering machine to talk to their callers directly. From doing this they found that their audience comprised a varied audience: children, switchboard operators, businesspeople calling from expensive
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Though
Pacific Bell was rumored to have split the profits they made from calls to the line with the Zzzzzz staff, Zzzzzz was an entirely non-profit affair, with Bilkiss paying for the monthly telephone bill (about $ 5.85 in 1979). In 1971, Bilkiss explained that he and his colleagues represented "a
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Bilkiss defined the skits in Zzzzzz as middle-of-the-road and apolitical, explaining that "We like humor that doesn't point a finger at anyone or insult anyone". In addition he explained that he and his staff were drug-free, stating, "Somehow we never find neither time nor desire for it. We have
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The number of reels of tape the Zzzzzz staff recorded had grown to several hundred by 1979. New weekly recording mostly ceased by 1974; afterwards
Bilkiss and Friedman only recorded when the inspiration struck. After Bilkiss graduated from Santa Monica College and UCLA, he worked at Magtec, a
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Bilkiss and
Friedman rented an apartment on Los Palmas Avenue from which to run the service. By 1971 the service had grown to a staff of five, including writer Jeff Robbins, announcer and tape editor John Shannon and cartoonist Jerry Leibowitz. Starting in June 1970, Zzzzzz began advertising
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to work as a national sales manager for their
Recording subsidiary in 1975. He and Friedman later worked full-time as telephone systems designers and consultants in the late 1970s, still running Zzzzzz as a hobby on the side. The line was still operational in 1982.
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service—rang nonstop on the first day of
February as a consequence, much to the chagrin of his parents, who had to set up another phone line in the household because of the sheer volume of calls. Bilkiss recruited his friend Dave Friedman, an engineering student at
90:. To obtain the last listing in the book, however, Pacific Bell required Bilkiss to prepare a notarized statement that "Zzzzzz" was his official nickname. He got a friend to bear witness that his "nickname" was due to his propensity for falling asleep in class.
61:. Emerging from a wave of dial-a-joke numbers in Los Angeles in the turn of the 1970s, Zzzzzz enjoyed a high level of popularity in its day. For several years, it was the busiest residential telephone number in the United States, if not the world.
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Select excerpts from Zzzzzz have been digitized and uploaded to DialAJoke.us, an online repository run by Ronald Gibson dedicated to dial-a-joke lines of Zzzzzz's day. More recordings are available online from phone phreak Evan
Doorbell.
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of calls per week were logged. The line initially attracted hundreds of callers per day. By 1972, this had grown to 1,500 per day; it reached 100,000 calls in
December 1970. Callers frequently encountered
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The February 1970 issue of the Pacific Bell telephone directory was the first time Zzzzzz's number, 837-5566 (later 836-5566), was published. Bilkiss's phone line—by this point not set up as a
78:, said that Zzzzzz grew out of a whimsical desire to have the first and last entries in the Los Angeles telephone directory. He was able to obtain the first listing because the phone books of
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as a second sort key when two entries had the same name. There was already an entry with the name "A"; Bilkiss's appeared above it because his street name started with a
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Zzzzzz was launched by Bob Bilkiss of West Los Angeles, who originally operated the service from his residential phone line, in February 1970. Bilkiss, then a student of
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151:. The nationalities of their callers also ran the gamut, with Bilkiss in 1973 saying that they received calls from Europe, New Zealand, Japan and Vietnam.
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Tired of getting the busy signal every time you call Z? Want to do something about it? Well, we have an idea for you. Try misdialing to a wrong number.
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Robbins and Leibowitz joined Zzzzzz in March 1970 and June 1970, respectively; Shannon joined shortly after June 1970.
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when trying to reach the line due to the volume of traffic—a fact that was spoofed by the line in one skit.
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for the line, along with a counter that would advance every time the answering machine would take a call.
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504:. Vol. 81, no. 20. Billboard Publications. p. 4 – via World Radio History.
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Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws who Hacked Ma Bell
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Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws who Hacked Ma Bell
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service active in the 1970s and early 1980s. Started by Bob Bilkiss (1949–1989) of
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Zzzzzz as it appears in the June 1971 issue of the Los Angeles Central White Pages
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456:. Ridder Publications: 29 – via Newspapers.com.
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525:] (in German). Mosaik-Verlag. p. 218.
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482:. National Public Radio – via ProQuest.
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430:(7). Rochester Institute of Technology: 13.
674:Z excerpts with narration by Evan Doorbell
655:Z excerpts with narration by Evan Doorbell
636:Z excerpts with narration by Evan Doorbell
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712:Telephone numbers in the United States
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388:de Wolfe, Evelyn (February 25, 1971).
346:de Wolfe, Evelyn (February 25, 1971).
702:1980s disestablishments in California
448:Carlton, Mary Ellis (March 1, 1973).
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308:Townsend, Sylvia (April 22, 1979).
316:. E. W. Scripps Company. p. 4
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697:1970 establishments in California
594:"Evan Doorbell's Telephone Tapes"
535:– via the Internet Archive.
415:Staff writer (October 24, 1980).
19:"Zzzzzz" redirects here. For the
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546:Staff writers (April 21, 1989).
571:. Grove Atlantic. p. 404.
390:"ZZZZZZ: Sleeper in Phone Book"
348:"ZZZZZZ: Sleeper in Phone Book"
266:. Grove Atlantic. p. 181.
450:"Zzzzzzzz is always buzzzzzy!"
237:. Find a Grave. Archived from
53:in 1970, it operated from the
1:
134:Content and technical details
493:Staff writer (May 3, 1975).
554:– via Newspapers.com.
404:– via Newspapers.com.
362:– via Newspapers.com.
324:– via Newspapers.com.
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206:One such show occurred on
70:Conception and development
18:
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581:– via Google Books.
276:– via Google Books.
235:"Bob Bilkiss (1949–1989)"
168:Bilkiss died in 1989, in
592:Doorbell, Evan (n.d.).
518:Lexikon der Superlative
515:Verlag, Mosaik (1982).
565:Lapsley, Phil (2013).
260:Lapsley, Phil (2013).
113:
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495:"Executive Turntable"
480:All Things Considered
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314:The Pittsburgh Press
310:"The Joke's on Them"
241:on November 16, 2021
76:Santa Monica College
600:on August 21, 2021.
417:"Is 'Zzzzz' There?"
210:1971, at 7 p.m. PT.
145:long-distance lines
59:telephone directory
16:Dial-a-joke service
474:(April 30, 1971).
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552:Los Angeles Times
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352:Los Angeles Times
104:answering machine
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55:213 area code
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41:, later just
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23:episode, see
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681:(part three)
598:the original
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548:"Obituaries"
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400:November 16,
398:. Retrieved
396:. p. B5
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358:November 16,
356:. Retrieved
354:. p. B1
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320:November 16,
318:. Retrieved
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245:November 16,
243:. Retrieved
239:the original
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124:busy signals
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80:Pacific Bell
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21:Outer Limits
20:
707:Humor media
472:Jim Russell
170:Culver City
155:Final years
95:dial-a-joke
84:street name
47:dial-a-joke
691:Categories
662:(part two)
643:(part one)
218:References
502:Billboard
82:used the
424:Reporter
176:Archives
162:AT&T
45:, was a
679:YouTube
660:YouTube
641:YouTube
208:May Day
65:History
615:Zzzzzz
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270:
39:Zzzzzz
521:[
498:(PDF)
420:(PDF)
185:Notes
25:ZZZZZ
573:ISBN
527:ISBN
402:2021
360:2021
322:2021
268:ISBN
247:2021
147:and
100:UCLA
677:on
658:on
639:on
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116:Z
88:B
43:Z
27:.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
