Answering machines and obituaries are still funny. At least for now. I’ve been re-watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season 1, which originally aired in the year 2000. The episode premises are all about these things–answering machine messages; obituary typos in the physical newspaper; the cutoff time when calling someone’s home phone in the evening (and how it differs if they have kids?); which day of the week do you call to confirm Friday plans; hard-to-follow driving directions; etc.

More than half of Season 1 episodes seem to have at least one plot point hinging on home phones, “car phones,” answering machines, or pagers. The jokes still work for me, but I wonder if my kids will be able to relate to it at all. All the more reason to re-watch now!