A roommate and I once used a clip from Pigs in Zen.
“I’m in the midst of a trauma. Leave a message and I’ll call you back”
We used to leave stuff like “If this is Joe or Steve (or any number of friends we were expecting), we’re at the Front Row for Happy Hour, meet us there. If this is our parents, we’re at the library, studying. We’ll be there probably all night.”
Maus Magill, Jenaroph, can I steal those answering machine messages?
The ex did one that made me giggle-
Ex: “Hello?”
Caller would inevitably say Hello back
Ex: I said, HELLO?!?
Caller would inevitably say Hello louder
Ex: You know, it is quite rude to call someone, pant into the phone like a lecher.
Ex: Oh yeah. This is the machine.
The amusement came from watching my very uptight mom deal with the message. “What? What did HE say I am?”
One client has a porn answering message on her home phone, complete with moans, grunts, giggles. She ends with telling the caller she will “return their call when she gets off who, I mean, what she’s doing”. :rolleyes: I’ve seen this woman’s picture. ~shudder~
My current message is boring. However, I have taken to picking up the phone with “Anoka State Mental Institution” or “Gus n’ Al’s Diner- you killem we grillem”. No, I don’t have a caller ID.
If I weren’t so lazy when it comes to the answering machine that mine still had my old phone number on it a year after I moved, I’d steal Jenaroph’s, Maus Magill’s, or AskNott’s answering machine message.
My spouse has a weird sense of humor, so our answering machine message says:
“Hello, this is xxx-xxxx. We can’t come to the phone right now, but if you leave your name and number, one of the cats will take down the message in shortpaw and have us get back to you. Thank you very much.” BEEP!
Sometimes we get messages consisting of nothing but “Meow? Meow meow…” etc. but I suppose we did kind of ask for it. 
You’re welcome to make your own radio serial, but for the sake of your callers, make sure your machine has a way to bypass the outgoing message, and make sure you advertise it.
Another one we had before we started our serial: We asked a couple of (female) friends to leave our out going message using our names. It would throw people for a loop.
Caller: “Uh… Tim, Paul? You guys sound weird.”
On my mobile phone, right now, is the following message:
<typical female answering system voice>
Hello, you’ve reached Montecristo’s Pizza and Penguin Emporium. Please listen to all options before making a selection.
If you’d like to order a pizza, press 1.
If you’d like to order a penguin, press 2.
If you’d like to order an emporium, press 3.
Please make your selection now.
.
.
.
.
I’m sorry, I didn’t understand your selection. Please enter it again.
.
.
Thank you. Please enter the number of items you’d like to order, followed by the pound sign.
.
.
Thank you. An order of <computerized>fifty</computerized> penguins will be delivered to you in <computerized>two</computerized> hours.
<sultry, computerized>Good bye.</sultry, computerized>
Sometimes I wish my home number were not also my business line.
(Yes, I know I could just get another line, but I already have a second line for the computer and I don’t get enough calls to make it worth the cost/trouble.)
LOL!
“If your team scored more points, press 1.”
I used to have Laurie Anderson’s answering machine message from “Oh Superman” on my answering machine.
“Ah … ah … ah … ah … ah … ah … ah … Hi! … I’m not home right now … but if you want to leave a message … just start talking … at the sound of the tone … ah … ah … ah … .”
(In fact, whenever I record an answering machine message now I find it impossible not to use Laurie Anderson’s exact wording … .)
from "sympathy for the devil’ by holly lisle
“You have reached a number that is currently under surveillance, Under FCC regulations and state and federal wiretapping and recording guidelines, I am required to inform you that all calls to this number are being recorded, and will be admissible as evidence in police procedures and in a court of law. Leaving a message implies informed consent. If you still wish to leave a message, do so after the beep.”
I have also used a busy signal as an outgoing message, and a ‘this number has been disconnected’ one - both taped from the telephone. If you set your machine up just right on 1 ring, frequently you can have a no ringback occur and the machine pick up and the person calling in never knows that it is a recording. Was 10 of the busy tones, then me saying leave a message at the beep. Amazing how annoyance callers will give up trying to call when they only get a busy signal … and of course i warned all my friends to wait for the beep or at least let it ring busy for a minute to see if it really was busy=) and telemarketers will NEVER leave a message if I pick up after getting teh sympathy message=)
Anyone who asked can use my message, if you like.* It’s an original; my roommate in college and I had a little too much fun making new messages. “Hi, you have called Jenny and Heather’s** House of Ill Repute. For whips and chains, press 1. For leather and lace, press 2…” I forget how that one ended. We had a tape of Star Trek sound FX, and did a long involved scene where we couldn’t answer the phone because the Romulans were firing on us.
There was also the Disgruntled Answering Machine. “Hi, we’re not in right now, leave a message, blah blah blah…Look, I didn’t want to be an answering machine anyway. I’d rather be a toaster. Warming up fresh bread all day, so it’s nice and hot and toasty, mmmm…This job sucks. Yeah, beep, whatever.”
*Those who didn’t ask are up the creek. Shyah. Heck, how would I know if you used it?
**Not our real names.
When I was in college, my answering machine message was fifteen seconds of obscenely heavy breathing. That’s it. Just a breathy “huh huh huh huh…” followed by beep.
Not a lot of offbeat comments or responses (hey, I was in college, the only people who called me already knew me), but there was one day where I got a message regarding a prospective job and then like five more in a row from people at that office who “had to call to hear the message.” Hmmm.
The weirdest prompt I ever made was me zombily intoning “I’m not here right now, please leave a message” over the instrumental of “Candy and a Currant Bun” by Pink Floyd. I kept it, as the recorder on the machine made my monotone voice into an echo very consistent with the psychedelic flavor of the original.
Can’t say the strangest prompt I’ve ever heard, but the most annoying was a prompt saying “please leave a message at the beep”…followed by the first eight notes of Fur Elise, followed by a beep…that wasn’t in tune with the rest of the notes…it was just the regular beep. It annoyed me to no end, and I guess I do consider the occurence a bit weird, since it shouldn’t really annoy me that much but it did.
My friend’s message was her older brother, singing, very badly:
Wild thang, you make my phone ring
you make everythang
grooooooovay
Wild thang
BEEP
[college answering machine]
WE"VE GOT THIRTEEN POUNDS OF COFFEE AND A SHOTGUN AND WE’RE NOT COMING DOWN FOR ANYBODY!
[/college answering machine]
confused
I must not be pronouncing it right - what’s it supposed to sound like?
It’s spelled as phonetically as possible. I still have it, if anybody wants me to e-mail them an mp3 of it.
I think I thought that if you kept saying it, you’d realize it it sounded just like something else.
I know some people that stuff like that is their entire repertoire of adult humor…so I thought maybe that was similar.
Nah, it was just a bunch of silliness. I’ve never been given a mantra, but I understand that it is a word or phrase or sound that makes no sense. This fits the bill pretty well!