Simpsons: what does "KL5/Kondike 5" mean in the phone numbers?

[axelfox]

I always see phone numbers in the Simpsons that start with KL5 and/or pronounced "klondike 5"; what is the reference to this? is there is hidden joke?

 

[woodly6]

If you look at a Phone KL5 is 555 the common begining to any hollywood phone #.

 

[beer]

What would you doooooooooooooooooooo, for a Klondike bar

 

[Kanalua]

someone beat me to it....

 

[woodly6]

wow 2 answers and a nef in 2 minutes I think its a new record!

 

[yakko]

🙂

 

[Infos]

In the old days when people weren't used to memorizing
7 numbers
Phone numbers were prefaced by a word with the letter combination
used to precede the other 5 numbers 😉

 

[axelfox]

Ok...I always knew that 555 was a prefix for a "fake" phone number.

I still dunno what Klondike 5 stands for, unless its just a shortname...

 

[morkinva]

I think Klondike would be called an 'exchange' -- sorry i'm not a phone guy

 

[woodly6]

KLondike5 is a way of helping them remember the phone number.

It is often seen in older TV shows, ie: Leave it to Beaver, I Love Lucy, Andy Griffith, ect......

 

[Infos]

In other words Klondike stands for 55 😉

 

[Futureman2022]

Hi, just messaging from the future. None of us remember 7 digit phone numbers anymore, they're all ten digits and they're all saved on our phones. Also we wear masks all the time and billionaires fly to space.

 

[Scarpozzi]

Hi, just messaging from the future. None of us remember 7 digit phone numbers anymore, they're all ten digits and they're all saved on our phones. Also we wear masks all the time and billionaires fly to space.

In the post-2001 future, people message from their phones. Technically, you could be standing in the middle of a field with no wires while you're messaging!

Yes....in the future, you can message from the pasture!

 

[skyking]

My sister still has the family number from 1952, she ported it over to her mobile phone. MY7 was Myrtle7 🙂

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

OK, I'll play. Post 9 is the only one close. Post 7 sorta. Then post 11.

When homes only had one phone regardless of the number of people who lived there, it was a lot easier for phone numbers to mean something. All connections in given areas came from the same switching office. Those offices were named, usually for the street they were located on, but sometimes for other things or people.


In Detroit for example, you might have had Woodward, Kenwood, Delray and Vermont among many others.

For simplicity in many ads, you'd see something like WO6-7394, KE2-3114, DE2-8003 or VE9-6128.

It would be the same as:

WOodward6-7394

KEnwood2-3114

DElray2-8003

VErmont9-6128.

or:

966-7394

532-3114

332-8003

839-6128.

Letters corresponded to the numbers on the keypad

1
2 ABC
3 DEF
4 GHI
5 JKL
6 MNO
7 PRQS
8 TUV
9 WXYZ

1 was reserved for long distance calling.

Rural areas with less population that didn't have party lines had less digits, like

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

One more little tidbit.

For many, many years, no telephone number could have a 0 or 1 among the first three digits (NXX). Those were reserved nationwide as the middle digit for for area codes (NPA)... 313, 618, 907, 702, etc. Conversely, no area code could have any other numeral for that middle digit.

Once the cell phone virus started infecting the world and the demand for new numbers exploded, those numbering plans had to be changed.

 

[Jon-T]

Is there an award for best necro bump by a first time poster?

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

Sez Mr. 371 posts in 11 years.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Not so fun fact: When this thread was started they were still digging up the WTC ruins at ground zero.

 

[allisolm]

Not so fun fact: When this thread was started they were still digging up the WTC ruins at ground zero.

Gee thanks