Remember when you could call your favorite celebrities on a 900 number? Well, back in the late 1980s, you could even call Freddy Krueger!
That’s right. Dial 1-900-909-FRED and Freddy would entertain you with his horrifying bedtime stories.
Of course, it wasn’t free. The first minute cost $2, and every additional minute was another 45 cents.
Imagine explaining THAT phone bill to your parents!
I did some digging and discovered there were actually several Freddy hotlines. Some offered scary stories, others had trivia challenges, and one promotion even offered a chance to appear in a future Nightmare on Elm Street movie.
And Freddy was everywhere back then. The original 1984 movie cost about $1.8 million and made more than $25 million at the American box office. By 1988, Freddy even had his own television series, Freddy’s Nightmares, which ran for 44 episodes.
The man behind the glove, Robert Englund, had an interesting career before Freddy. He played Willie, the friendly alien on V. Talk about going from one extreme to another!
And that creepy music from the original movie? It was written by Charles Bernstein, who helped make Freddy’s world almost as frightening to listen to as it was to watch.
Today we can watch all sorts of horror videos on our phones for practically nothing. Back then, you paid by the minute just to have Freddy tell you a bedtime story.
Did you ever call Freddy’s hotline — or any of those old celebrity 900 numbers?
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