True story

1988? Wow...this is a throw back, when you have someone trying to remember a phone number with the exchange word. Those haven't been used since the 60s.

"Operator, give me Me Too I Ate One Sour Too."

Dammit, WOPR.

Hehehehe, oh dear.

$1.50 movies and 20 speeding tickets? Yeah, must be 1988.

$20 tickets. Bleh.

We don't need Cincy that badly anyhow... hehe...

LOL unexpected punchline!

My grandmother's phone still had the 5 digit phone number on it. Before they added the exchange word.

The real question is: how many youngsters get the strange device he's using in the last two panels?

On a radial dial phone as well!
The untapped genius!

Radial dials were still fairly common in the late 80's, though they were vanishing quickly by that point. A radial dial on a public pay phone was probably a bit rarer, though.

Even more rare, would be the ability to use a radial dial phone to access the digital "Pentagon defence computer" and order the dusting of Cincy.
Which, of course, was my original point.

How did the public receive Hyper Al, out of curiosity?

A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter...

Serious hackers can even trigger a system with a rotary phone...

The exchanges were usually named for the street they were on.
You had a good idea what part of town you were dialing from the exchange.
Butler... Prospect... Capitol, that was downtown.
I still remember the first seven digit I memorized. 232-2111. The Fire Department.
Now, with portable numbers, you can't be sure what state you're dialing.
Ahh, the good old days...

Fun joke! Thanks for sharing!

Cincinnati? Good riddance!

"Operator! Give me Me Too, I Ate One Too!"

Don't worry about it kid. It's no big loss. I mean it's not like you destroyed something important.

....Ask them to see if they can destroy Hollywood. Someone needs to stop the remakes and reboots before it's too late!

In Boston there was some sort of business (I forget what it was) whose phone number was ANdrew 8-8000.
The jingle went how many cookies did Andrew eat? Andrew 8, 8-thousand!

>>Cincinnati
Not just the home of the fictional WKRP but the subject of the deeeemented novelty song by Rose and the Arrangement about a horror movie: "The Cockroach that Ate Cincinnati"
("For lunch he'd just chew on a suburb or two, and for dinner he ate the whole town!")

While the NY Pennsylvania Hotel is not so glamorous anymore, their phone number lives on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEnnsylvania_6-5000
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXGQNm4EKoc

325-8142. 325-8142. 325-8142.

"Me too! I ate one sour too!"

"Operator, dial me too I ate one sour too!"

"I'm sorry sir, there's no such number."

Oh you silly wolf..dingo..jackal..guy.

Oh Al~

What was that number again? Bigelow 6-200? Beechwood 4-5789? Pennsylvania 6-5000?

How about a nice game of chess? :p