Fictitious telephone number

Ranges for fictitious telephone numbers are common in most telephone numbering plans. One of the main reasons these ranges exist is to avoid accidentally using real phone numbers in movies and television programs because viewers frequently call the numbers used. In North America, the area served by the NANPA system of area codes, fictitious telephone numbers are usually of the form (XXX) 555-xxxx. The use of 555 numbers in fiction, however, led a desire to assign some of them in the real world, and some of them are no longer available for use in fiction. Other areas have different fictitious telephone numbers.

To be effective, it must not be possible to change a fictitious telephone number into a real one by adding or changing a few digits. Usually, the number must be unassigned in every area code within the numbering plan. Outside NANPA, special fictitious telephone numbers for mobile phones, premium rate numbers or toll free numbers are sometimes assigned as well.

Tommy Tutone's hit 1982 song "867-5309/Jenny" identifies a working number in many area codes which continue to receive large numbers of misdialled calls asking for "Jenny" decades later. In 1992, filmmaker Michael Moore unwittingly included footage of himself reciting his telephone number in the documentary Pets or Meat: The Return to Flint. He received 314 phone calls in just the first day following its broadcast on PBS.

The all-girl singing group The Marvelettes had an early Motown hit record in 1962 with "Beechwood 4-5789", written by Marvin Gaye, William "Mickey" Stevenson and George Gordy. The song became a hit again two decades later when it was covered by The Carpenters in 1982.

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