Mr. Watson, Come Here, I Want You!
Produced by Jay Allison
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What was the first telephone call ever like? We received word of a marvelously rare recording from our Quest for Sound™ phone line. Here's how Curator of the Quest for Sound™, Jay Allison, describes its acquisition: "Yesterday, the voice of Dr. Bill Winternitz's grandfather, originally recorded in a talking motion picture soundtrack, was transferred to us via ISDN phone line from radio station WUAL in Tuscaloosa Alabama, and has just been cloned to the hard drive of the computer workstation in front of me. From here I will make a digital tape copy to be incorporated into All Things Considered, uplinked to a satellite, and downlinked by the public radio station to which you will be tuned waiting to hear Thomas A. Watson tell about the events leading up to the 10th of March 1876, when he received from Alexander Graham Bell the first telephone call, ever."

"A rare photograph of Thomas Edison on the telephone. He is pictured here with his Telescribe, an early phone-recording device. August 31, 1914" Edison National Historic Site

The greeting hello is a fairly recent invention. Professor Allen Koenigsberg author of The Patent History of the Phonograph believes the word wasn't in use much before Thomas Edison introduced it as a way to let a caller know you had picked up a ringing phone. Edison preferred "Hello" over Alexander Graham Bell's "AHOY!" as a greeting. In either case, English may be the only language where the telephone greeting has become proper to use in a face-to-face greeting.

In anticipation of the Academy Awards, critic Bob Mondello, reflects on the indelible sounds we've received from the movies, from Tarzan's Yell to the breathing of Darth Vader in Star Wars.