Originally published at: Can you dig this cassette tape of Radio Shack answering machine songs from 1985 | Boing Boing
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And by 91 the entire industry had collapsed, replaced by millions of tuneless renditions of De La Soul’s “Ring_Ring_Ring_(Ha_Ha_Hey)”.
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I spent several miserable months working at Radio Shack in the eighties, and discovering all of the ways that commissioned workers can be exploited by a rutheless corporation. I can’t sufficiently express how little I want to hear this tape again.
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My first answering machine played the Jeopardy theme. I got a lot of compliments…
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Yeah, I did that. Just the hook, with a little slap-your-hands-on-the-desk percussion in the background.
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At the beginning I was thinking about how much fun it would be to change my message to one of these. By the end I was thinking how glad I am that millions of these are at the bottom of a landfill somewhere.
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Nothing had changed about that when I worked there in 2008 and 2009.
RadioShack deserved to die the death it did. It’s only too bad it didn’t happen sooner and physically painfully for their leadership.
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The only thing that belongs on my answering machine’s outgoing message is Carl Kasell
But, man, he is kind of harsh… Guess that will cut down on people calling 
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I’ve digitized over 100 of these kinds of tapes, why don’t you give me a writeup, Boingboing? @boingboing
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The Monty Python’s Complete Waste of Time thingy also had some nice answerphone messages.
Eric Idle singing a few very short ditties in the subject, the Whizzo Chocolate Fatory’s answering machine, that sort of things. I might have used the “At the sound of the beep, I will wave my private parts in your general direction.” message at some point.
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Obligs…
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The messages were a miss for me, but that Pioneer CT-F900 Stereo Cassette Deck Tape Recorder is a work of art.
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I was sharing an apartment with a fellow student (late 1970s) when we got our first answering machine. We were avid listeners to KPFK, the Los Angeles listener-funded station. I don’t remember his name, but there was a programmer who would give these Zen meditations in incomprehensible hippiespeak spoken in a low, dreamy voice. For a laugh we recorded a 30-second parody for our outgoing message. We thought it was hilarious. Our very first incoming message was from my roommate’s mechanic, hopping mad, roaring, “I just wasted half my day listening to your stupid message! Your God-damned car is ready!!”
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RadioShack: You have questions, we have blank stares.
The instrumental do-your-own-speech ones are at least tolerable. Maybe they could be useful for small business back in the day.
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