Answer the phone: Hollywood’s calling
When was the last time you gave a gift that was so quirky and cool it left the recipient speechless? Wowing a birthday boy of 5 is a piece of cake – but how about someone who’s 35?
I was determined to give my husband, Steve, that kind of gift this year. No ties. No cologne. Just stupid fun. But where to find something so small and magical?
I found the answer at a Web site called Hollywood Is Calling ( www.hollywoodiscalling.com). The premise is way wacky: You pick a celebrity to call and deliver a message to anyone you choose, for about $20. Sound too good to be true? Not if you define “celebrity” in the loosest sense of the word.
Most of the celebrities the service offers are pretty long in the tooth. The list runs the gamut – from B actors to prizefighters to astronauts. And, yes, the calls are genuine, as the celebrities have attested everywhere from CNN to The Washington Post.
The Web site’s gawk factor is off the scale. At the top, a Times Square-style crawl screams out: “News flash: Ken Kercheval has just been added. ‘Dallas’ fans will remember him as the great Cliff Barnes.”
The service charges $19.95 for standard messages, everything from “tell your wife you love her” to “thanks for the job interview.” I decided to pay a little extra for a customized message, which is $29.95. Once I settled on a celebrity, I’d write a script of up to 325 characters.
Picking a caller is harder than you’d think. How do I know which TV shows my husband watched as a kid? Which would be a bigger thrill: a call from a boxer or a ballplayer?
My research was, shall we say, inelegant. I’d run a couple of names by Steve, wait a day, then try a couple more. These always came out as complete non sequiturs. “So, who’s cooler,” I asked him one night as we were setting the table, “Leon Spinks or Lou Ferrigno?” Without hesitating, he shot back, “No contest. Leon Spinks.” It went on like that, every couple of days. “So, who’s Tom Candiotti?” “Some ballplayer.”
I was about to declare Spinks the winner but drifted to Russell Johnson, the Professor from “Gilligan’s Island.” The clincher? The script. “Gilligan’s Island” presents so many more possibilities for fun.
So here’s the script, based on a plot from an actual episode of “Gilligan’s Island:”
“Hi, Steve – this is the Professor from Gilligan’s Island, calling to say Happy Birthday! A tropical storm last night washed up a transcontinental phone line, so I rigged up a phone to call for help. But Mary Ann and Ginger begged me to call you first. Anyway, happy 35th trip around the sun, my friend. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to call the Coast Guard.”
There was one glitch. The site advises you to immediately tell the recipient to expect an interesting call, which I did.
(His eyes got wide, and he smiled, “From a lawyer? Someone asking for money? Someone offering me money?”)
But then Hollywood Is Calling also e-mailed him that the Professor would be calling. (Note: If you want the call to be a surprise, leave the recipient’s e-mail address off the order form.)
In the end, despite the tipoff, it was worth it. Steve decided to let the call ring through to his voice mail so he could have the Professor’s message recorded for posterity – or at least a couple of weeks. The best part was seeing the sheer joy that this bit of silliness brought my husband. “That was great! The Professor!” he raved. “That was so cool – some real thought went into that.”
The only way it might have been more fun, he said, is if his caller had been Cissy from “Family Affair.” He might not have let that one ring through.