Cub reporter Jeff Reid–the Jimmy Olsen to my Clark Kent–stumbled on this curious ad while reading some vintage Hawk & Dove comics in the sauna the other day. The premise is simple. Ask mom and dad's permission, then call a special 1-900 number for some stirring Superman family tales and some mystery prizes. But as Jeff points out, we're talking about a hefty fee per minute, especially for 1988.
"I recently rediscovered this ad and had no idea what to make of it. It's for something called the Superman Action Line. It was found in a bunch of DC comics in the late 1980s. The specific comic that I scanned it from was HAWK & DOVE Vol. 2 #4, which had a cover date of January 1989, but it definitely appeared in other comics too. The cost of this 900 number is absurdly high. This was back when comics cost only $1.00 or less. For this phone number to be $2.45 for just the first two minutes blows my mind.
"Anyway, I was wondering if you could somehow see if anyone in the iFanbase actually called this thing. What in the world was it? A Superman vs. Darkseid story? Why would you call it more than once? How long was the story? Was it serialized so you had to keep calling? Was it interactive at all or just someone reading from a script?"
So, did anyone participate in this promotion? Any idea what kids might've heard on the other end of the line? I imagine we're talking about pre-recorded radio drama style stories. Then again, maybe this was a direct line to Paul Levitz reading transcripts from the Bud Coliyer days on his coffee breaks.
Anybody got a lead on this one?
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“Here are some words that rhyme with ‘Superman’…”
“Let’s see what’s in the newspaper today…”
So Superman has a dirty 900 line?
I just called this number and had a pleasent conversation with a elderly woman, who told me all about her grandkids and how her house was just too big for her.
It is a crazy amount of money, but it is not out of line with what any 900 number would have cost at the time.
I’m sure I would have gotten the crap kicked out of me if I’d been stupid enough to call it.
@ devinclancy and you know what 900 numbers cost back then how pray tell? j/k dude…
I remember seeing ads for these all the time in the 80s, even on TV. They had a lot of them in the early afternoon between the hours when kids would get out of school and parents would get out of work, which I guess is a sound strategy. They used to have them for all kinds of things. I know there were some put up by actors that pre-teen girls would be attracted to. This was parodied in The Simpsons. There was also a line that was devoted to Freddy Kreuger. And there were a ton of videogame help lines, even one put up by Nintendo.
The one from Nintendo was the only one I ever called when I was bored at my mom’s office. As far as I know, no one ever knew I did it. And I never even got the code to play as Bison in Street Fighter II.
I know I shouldn’t ask, but… Has anyone from iFanboy tried calling the line today?
This would be a good question for Len Wein or DeMetteis or one of those other writers who were around DC back then and still work. I can’t imagine being in the office and seeing one of these and not asking about them.
They used to have interactive ones in the LA Weekly in the early 90s where you would call and there would be a space adventure or and indiana jones style thing and you would use the telephone keys like a Choose Your Own Adventure type deal. This was slightly before the internet. I might have had compuserve actually.
I remember something similar running in Marvel comics around the time of X-Men #1. It was an X-Men (900) number that if you called and helped the X-Men beat Magneto, you’d win “a plate signed print” of the cover of X-Men #1. The art in the ad was by Erik Larsen. I asked my dad if I could call it, because I really wanted the signed print, until he pointed out that plate signed is the same as a stamp, and my interest in calling dropped to zero.
$2.45? What does that translate to in today’s dollars, like 6 or 7 bucks? A standard Superman scolding would set the average drug dealer in Chicago back $248.23. Quite frankly that seems like a bit much.
Hmmmm. So it seems that no one called it in 1988, eh? Perhaps a call to the Superman Museum in Metropolis, IL is in order. I must know more about this so-called Action Line!
I would’ve called but to be fair I wasn’t even conceived yet.
This reminds me a lot like that old Simpsons joke where Bart calls the Krusty Hotline and it’s (I think) ‘$2 for the first minute and $1 for each additional minute.’
The fact that most of you commentors don’t remember 900 numbers makes me feel crazy old.
Maybe you got to decide if Jimmy Olson lived or died. Guess he was more popular then Jason Todd…