Unless you obsessively call every single real phone number presented to you in television shows, it's unlikely you were ever going to notice this fan-service easter egg hidden in a Season 3 episode of The Wire, titled "Back Burners."
See, way back in 2004, people actually used to "call"people. And they would take to them over the phone using their "voices." I know, I know, it's weird. But it was a different era.
Anyhow, because film and TV producers didn't want to provide a real person'sactualphone number, they would normally use a fake number that starts with "555." But The Wire wasnothing if not dedicated to creating a sense of realism, and the writers of the show knew that using the ol' 555 trick would immediately take viewers out of the scene. Soin a scene where Marlo Stanfield gives out his personal number, they used a real Baltimore-area line.
However, in order to make sure fans of the show didn't keep calling the phone number and bugging a real, live person, an employee at the Baltimore-Washington Telephone Company (who happened to be a big fan of The Wire, as is...everyone?)redirected callers to the then-inactive numberto a recording of Marlo speechifying about the importance of his name:
Jacob is a part-time contributor for WhatCulture, specializing in music, movies, and really, really dumb humor. You can follow him on Twitter @JakeTrowbridge.
See more from Jacob