Years ago, I had an answering machine message where I recorded the first few lines of War’s “Low Rider” and gave the standard message in between the lines:
All…my…friends, know the low rider
(You’ve reached XXX-XXXX)
The low…ri…der, is a little higher
(At the beep, leave a message)
[Horns:] Doot doot doot doot doto doot DOOT Beep
I was kind of proud of that, first because there’s just the right amount of time between lines to insert a message, and second, because my answering machine has a limit of 15 seconds of memory for the message, which is exactly the amount of time between the start of the song and that last DOOT of the horns.
One time, we used our answering machine to give people directions to a party. In the invitation, we’d coded various phrases: turn left, turn right, over the bridge, at the light, green house, etc. The guests were to call our house at a specific time, write down the coded message, then decode it into directions and arrive at the party site 2 hours later. It worked great, except for the one idiot guest who didn’t have a clue and tried to leave a message. My husband had to pick up the phone and tell the guy where the party was being held.
We did change the message to a more normal one before we left, tho it might have been interesting to see what sorts of messages we’d have gotten to the coded one.
I thought one of my own creations was great (this was back some time ago).
I had an ambulance siren in the background, and I said, “They’re coming to take me away now, but if you want me to call you when I get released, leave a message.”
Many people cracked up over that one, let me tell you.
Until I got married mine was “At the sound of the beep the time will be beeeep.” I had many friends tell me they would look at a watch or the clock when they got my machine to see what time is really was.
I used to record pieces of Henry Rollins spoken word on my machine. They included pieces like:
“Break and enter me like a thief! Ride me, ride my rageing… storm, sweat, hurt”! beeeeep
“-You don’t want that sir. It’s rat poison.
-Very funny I’ll take that.
-You don’t understand sir. It’s really rat poison. It’ll kill you.
-Why would you have rat poison as a topping?
-It’s an option…”
beeeeep
and
“I went in to a room and there was this lady trying to fight off a spider monkey and the spider monkey was trying to bite the womans eyeballs out and I was thinking: What the hell am I doing in this job?”
beeeeep
Rejoice! For you have not reached an incorrect number! This number is always correct. It is probably YOU who are incorrect. However, if you think that you are correct, leave a message.
Just wanted to mention another classic answering machine scene in TV: On Seinfeld, there was a scene where George had background music for the theme song of “Great American Hero” on his answering machine and sang this:
“Believe it or not, George isn’t at home
Please leave a message at the beep
I’m not home or I’d pick up the phone.
Where could I be?
Believe it or not, I’m not hooome!”
(operator tone) “We’re sorry but the number of the beast has been changed. If you would like to reach the Prince of Darkness, he can be reached at his new number 6…6…7”
A friend of mine was a subscriber to a voice-mail servis, and there they had this sexy female voice saying “after the tone leave your message” and you recorded your greeting so it came before that. His message was: “Do as the lady says”
I’m thinking about copying Jabba’s message about the worlds greatest psychic, hilarous.
At one time I worked for a tour company in the complaint department. When we got our new phone system in it was up to our department ( two of us) to come up with something for the " Please Hold" message.
I was really proud of myself for coming up with a very elite british accent saying, " You’ve reached XXX. Your call is very important to us, please stay on the line and blah blah blah…" standard crap, but oh so smarmy.
The only problem was when we presented it to The Boss and The Man Who Really Ran Things, they liked it but we didn’t have anyone in the office who was from England or who sounded like that.
So I did it.
It was on the machine for years after I left.
And since I always had the access code to get in to change the message I always wanted to change it into a German accent ( the owner vas jherman) and leave it. " Ha-lo. We vill get to your call as soon as ve finish our zigerettes und jagermeister break. Until zhen, sit up straight, ach du liebe!"
Many years ago, our office “discovered” the following:
"I’ve wired the answering machine to the cat. If you hang up without leaving a message, the cat gets shocked with 100,000 volts of electricity. Don’t believe me, well…
Oh - looking for someone you were?
FOUND someone you did, yes.
Humph - Looking for someone else you were? Not here.
Leave a message, you shall.
Give it to someone,I will. Perhaps.
I’ve always thought that the best messages are personalized. I had some friends back in Rapid City that were known for being involved with everything. Couldn’t slow them down.
One day I got a message that went something like this:
“Thank you for calling. If it’s the church, he did it. If it’s Toastmasters, we’re going to do it. If it’s Kiwanas, I’ll do it. If it’s the Barbershop Quartet, he’ll be there. If it’s the Shiners, he’ll be there after Barbershop. If it’s the Blood Bank, we’ve already donated…………….”
And on for about 5 minutes. I was laughing so hard I had to call back to give my message.
I only read about this one, but I hope it’s true:
A woman asked her mother to record a message for her. The mother said:
“You’ve reached X’s home, but she’s busy. She’s always busy–too busy even to take a few minutes to call her mother. She never calls. Would it be so hard just to call now and then to say hello? Why don’t you call me instead: my number’s XXX-XXXX.” The mother says she got lots of phone calls.
Speaking of Acapella, The Brown Derbies acapella group did several answering machine messages set to commercial jingles.
My favorite: (set to the mentos jingle)
Sorry we can not take your call…
(We’re not at home now)
We’ll get back to you, you can bet that we do,
'cause your call’s an important one.
So Leave a message…
(Leave a message)
Leave a message, start recording at the tone!
Mentos: Der Messagetaker.
They also did Big Red (We’ll be home a little later…),
Coke (The stars will always shine, the phone will always ring. Though we’re not at home, we thank you for calling.), and a few others…