Plumbers Fight for Famous Phone Number

[snopes]

One-hit wonder Tommy Tutone made the phone number 867-5309 famous in the band's 1982 hit single, which uses the digits over and over in its catchy refrain.

Now, a Rhode Island company and a national firm are battling over the right to use the number, which doesn't reach the "Jenny" that Tutone sings about, but could find callers a decent plumber.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070519/D8P7IT3O0.html

[ToadMagnet]

There's a plumbing company here with that number, too. I wondered how/if they got the rights to use the song the first time I saw their TV ad.

What is it with plumbers and Jenny?

Toad"Great. Earworm."Magnet

[musicgeek]

My guess would be the lyrics make an easy parody for advertising purposes:

"I got it, I got it! I got my plumber when I call... 867-5309" etc. etc.

[Radical Dory]

The fact the number was written in a bathroom probably doesn't hurt the idea either.

[BamaRainbow]

Just to correct something from the initial post, Tommy Tutone was NOT a "one-hit wonder". While the group did have only one Top 10 hit (the song over which the plumbers are fighting), they did have a Top 40 hit two years earlier with the song "Angel Say No" (#38 in June 1980).
And, no, I don't care how many times VH-1 and other "entertainment" programs use the designation (I particularly loathed the VH-1 countdown of the Biggest One-Hit Wonders since almost every single one of their selections had minor hits, and a few actually had some moderate hits that just weren't as popular as the "one-hit"). In Tommy Tutone's case, "one-time Top 10 hitmaker" or "one-off Top 10 charter" would be a much better (if not as catchy) description.

[snopes]

Tommy Tutone was NOT a "one-hit wonder". While the group did have only one Top 10 hit (the song over which the plumbers are fighting), they did have a Top 40 hit two years earlier with the song "Angel Say No" (#38 in June 1980).

That depends upon your definition of "hit," for which there is no standard agreement. Is it an entry in the Billboard Top 100, a record that charts in the top 40, a top ten song, or a #1 single?

- snopes

[snopes]

If you are a radio listener of a certain age, the telephone number 867-5309 is burned forever in your brain.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pb...NESS/705240799

Sorry to keep the side topic going, but it seems that most people's definition of "One Hit Wonder" is a group that is vastly known for only one song. They may have had other minor hits (possibly even cracking the top 40) but if you asked someone to name a Tommy Tutone song, 99.9% of those who could name one would name "Jenny".

Another common example is Ah-Ha... They had several other hits (like "The Sun Always Shines on TV") but are considered a one-hit-wonder for the hugely popular (at the time) song "Take On Me".

-Tim

[Sebbenth]

Originally Posted by Rehcsif

Sorry to keep the side topic going, but it seems that most people's definition of "One Hit Wonder" is a group that is vastly known for only one song. They may have had other minor hits (possibly even cracking the top 40) but if you asked someone to name a Tommy Tutone song, 99.9% of those who could name one would name "Jenny".

Another common example is Ah-Ha... They had several other hits (like "The Sun Always Shines on TV") but are considered a one-hit-wonder for the hugely popular (at the time) song "Take On Me".

-Tim

In case of A-Ha that would only be in case you're an American (A-Ha is Norvegian). Their comeback around 2000 was actually quite popular.

[TrishDaDish]

Originally Posted by snopes

One-hit wonder Tommy Tutone made the phone number 867-5309 famous in the band's 1982 hit single, which uses the digits over and over in its catchy refrain.

Now, a Rhode Island company and a national firm are battling over the right to use the number, which doesn't reach the "Jenny" that Tutone sings about, but could find callers a decent plumber.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070519/D8P7IT3O0.html

Odd. Out of all the things discussed in the article (which wasn't much), I thought the "battle" would be against Gem Plumbing and TuTone himself, as Gem Plumbing uses the tune to his song in their commericlas. Would've thought the whole copyright thing would have been about the use of the song without permission or paid royalties, not two different people fighting over the phone number itself.

[BamaRainbow]

Originally Posted by snopes

That depends upon your definition of "hit," for which there is no standard agreement. Is it an entry in the Billboard Top 100, a record that charts in the top 40, a top ten song, or a #1 single?

- snopes

And that lack of a "standard agreement" is all the more reason to NOT use "one-hit wonder" in a description without some sort of modifier to the term. However, from the early 1970s to the late 1990s, there was a (US) nationally-syndicated radio program called "American Top 40" (hosted by the one and only Casey Kasem until the early 90s), which based its countdown on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart (not Top 100 incidentally; that was another Billboard chart in the late 1950s). This program pretty much defined the "hits".
Now, in the 15 or so years that I listened to the program, there were only a sheer handful of TRUE "one-hit wonders". Among them, Anita Ward ("Ring My Bell"), Patrick Swayze ("She's Like the Wind"), the Korgis (Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime"), Boney M ("Rivers of Babylon"), Benny Mardones ("Into the Night"--the song actually hit the chart twice, but it was his only song to make AT40), Jan Hammer ("Miami Vice Theme"), T'Pau ("Heart and Soul").