Was It Really Like That?

These days we conduct business by telephone across the country, if not around the world, with little regard to the sophistication of the system that supports those calls--not to mention the system that allows us to link-up with callers almost anywhere.

The clip you're listening to may startle those of you who aren't old enough to remember how challenging telephone calls once were.  The rest of us who are old enough to remember can again reflect upon the wonders of technology.  The dramatization of the telephone call comes from the popular radio program "Dragnet," and was broadcast in 1949.  The subject of the program is unimportant, but the telephone call as portrayed is wholly consistent with what long-distance calling was like then and many years thereafter (into the 1960s).

The interesting tidbit is that some producer at NBC 53 years ago felt the intricacies of the telephone were worthy of several minutes of national broadcast time.