Was there really a 1-900 number for crying?

In the 1990s, you could pay to get a good cry over the phone.

When I first stumbled upon this commercial for a 1-900 number for crying, I thought, “This is amazing!” Mostly because I am not sure what to make of it. When you called this 1-900 number do you hear people crying? Was it sad stories that were supposed to make you cry? Would a caller be happy after paying 2 bucks for the first minute and 45 cents each additional minute or would they cry again once their telephone bill arrived?

When these pay-to-call numbers started proliferating in the nineties, I was always surprised at the number of services you could find advertised on TV during late night. Sure the world has an appetite for the more “adult” offerings that these services provided, but I didn’t know they had an appetite anywhere near of what was being supplied. When the offering was less mature, and not related to Santa Claus or a celebrity, I found it even extra confusing.

Before watching the commercial, you should familiarized yourself with the full cast of criers. Each one is brilliant and deserves your respect. You have:

The woman over the sink…

Weepy business guy..

The red bathrobe sobber…

Mullet guy with single fake tear…

Now here is the commercial in its brilliant entirety. Click on the image to watch it on YouTube. (Sadly embedding of the video has been disabled.)

Click to watch the Video on YouTube

The narration is very simple. A soft voice person says,

What makes people from all across America break down and cry like this?

I have now watched it over twenty times today. Yet, the commercial doesn’t exactly make it clear exactly what calling it would have provided. I would only find out after reading an informative comment.

I have only found one person online who has some memory of this hotline. YouTube Commenter Paul K said:

When I was younger I called this, it is just prerecorded calls where people describe sad stories, when I called a girl was talking about how her husband died in a motorcycle accident, me and my friends were like this is stupid lol

Paul K

Did anyone out there call it? Was it something to make you cry? Perhaps someone on the other end laughing at you because you were foolish enough to call a number that was supposed to make you cry? My lack of answers makes me want to call a 1-900 number for crying.