March 18, 2002

8:42 AM

Best... Phone Message... Ever! An audio clip from This American Life. Check out Act Four... Buddy Picture, the last maybe 20 minutes. Long but hilarious.
posted by bob bisquick (11 comments total)

Which episode, bb?
posted by donpardo at 8:49 AM on March 18, 2002

It was a repeat of something that aired in January, I think. Real Audio link here.
posted by BT at 8:58 AM on March 18, 2002

Oh great gods of bandwith. Why do you defy me! Click the link, scroll down to Recordings for Someone, at the bottom. This takes you to the right episode. For some reason I can't link directly to that page. It's January 11th, 2002, episode 203. Act Four.
posted by bob bisquick at 9:08 AM on March 18, 2002

This is the "Little Mermaid" recording, isn't it? That was a pretty cool story - can't say that I found the message itself all that interesting, but the story about the propagation of the message was neat.
posted by starvingartist at 9:17 AM on March 18, 2002

Thanks, that did it.
posted by donpardo at 9:31 AM on March 18, 2002

yeah, i agree with starvingartist. didn't much care for the message, but i liked the stuff surrounding it; the way it spread. i appreciated the link to thisamericanlife.com, as i'd never heard of it before. thanks!

i once came home and found a message on my machine from my friend peter. on it, he disquised his voice so he sounded like a demon. it went something like this:

"If I find out that you guys went to see Being John Malkovich without me, I will cause the flesh to fall from your bones [sound of peter's father picking up the phone in the other room and saying "are you on the phone?" peter in regular voice replies "yeah." and his dad hangs up the phone. without missing a beat, peter's demon voice continues:] in dark, meaty strips!"

i saved it for about two years and it cracked me up every time i heard it. unfortunately i lost it this January when my hard drive crashed.
posted by dobbs at 3:07 PM on March 18, 2002

Yeah, I'd say the segment built up how funny this message was, so I was bound to be disappointed, but whatever.

Regardless, can I just say, This American Life is the best show on the radio today. Thoughtful, insightful, funny, unpretentious — an excellent use of the media.
posted by bicyclingfool at 5:53 PM on March 18, 2002

Yeah that's a great one. My personal fav show was "Plan B (halfway down the 2002 archive page). The story about the guy that kidnapped Frank Sinatra's son was pure hilarity. And the Fresh Air where Terry interviews Ira Glass (TAL's host) is also really good.

--skechada
posted by skechada at 8:04 PM on March 18, 2002

Did anyone hear the Car Talk (Click n Clack) Christmas Carol parody, about the need to support public radio? Priceless...especially the bits with Ira Glass as Tiny Ira, in a perfect bit of self-parody...and cameos from your other public radio faves....
posted by schmedeman at 10:34 PM on March 18, 2002

Wow, that's amazing. I was a first-year student at Columbia when that message made the rounds. A powerful meme if ever there was one.
posted by mkultra at 10:43 AM on March 20, 2002

Wow, that's amazing. I was a first-year student at Columbia when that message made the rounds. A powerful meme if ever there was one.
posted by mkultra at 10:43 AM on March 20, 2002