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There were red pages in the phone book that had a number you could call and enter a four-digit code to hear movie showtimes or the Joke of the Day.
I remember looking up Spiderman 1 showtimes this way...
I remember listening to showtimes this way because I was the oldest kid in my family and my mom would rarely take us to the movies, and even when she did it was always some rated G film to cater to the youngest sibling, and listening to the showtimes let me imagine a day when I'd have a job and could go to the movies any time I wanted.
Now I have that. I can go to the movies any time I want. And yet... gestures broadly at the garbage that passes for films today...
No to long ago you could send a text to 466453 (google). And request times for movies and the weather and very very very basic search but I can't remember the scope of what you could do nor can I find any hint of its exsistance. There was also a voice search you could call and it would talk back. With Very early voice recognition and search.
That sounds made up.
It definitely wasn't. There were different codes for all sorts of shit...different types of legal advice, gardening tips, mental health issues, you name it. There was no internet available, at least no internet any non-academic civilians had access to. Moviephone was still a couple years away when I remember discovering the red pages. We're talking mid-to-late 1980s here.
Now that I am trying to look up anyone else referencing the red pages, I am not really finding anything tbph. I know I didn't imagine them. Maybe it was just a DFW thing? idk