Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by elgenie 1312 days ago
For anyone not getting the cultural reference, it's due to a 40 year old pop song that used that phone number (as one belonging to a Jenny to be called "for a good time").

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WTdTwcmxyo

In the overwhelming majority of US television and movies, onscreen phone numbers are of the form 555-xxxx to prevent clashes with those telecoms actually hand out. However, numbers of the form 867-xxxx are perfectly valid; and when Brown University made the mistake of handing out 867-5309 to an unfortunate dorm room around 1999 or so, those people were deluged with phone calls asking for Jenny.

1 comments

Perhaps (281) 330-8004 is the more modern equivalent :)
Hate to break it you, but that particular Mike Jones (who?) masterwork is nearing voting age.

Mr Jones also included the area code, didn’t repeat the number in the chorus, and didn’t put it in the song title; and “Back Then” also wasn’t nearly as ubiquitous.