The majority of the time, when we watch something and a phone number is visible, it typically contains the numbers 555 after the area code. This is due to movies and TV shows wanting to have a number that no one else has because people will no doubt attempt to call this number and do not want a random person unexpectedly receiving hundreds of calls.
Sometimes, a real number is used and when someone calls that number, it’s usually a number that a network or production company owns and is connected with the show or movie in which that number is seen in. Disney tried to do this as Brie Larson tweeted to tell people to go vote (and promote Captain Marvel a little bit) and it didn’t quite go to plan.
CAPTAIN MARVOTE IS A BAD PUN BUT NOW THAT I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE VOTE TOMORROW pic.twitter.com/ZhXk5Qzkt5
— Brie Larson (@brielarson) November 5, 2018
It’s tough to spot at first but right above the cradle (the thing that the phone rests on) is the phone number 800-654-2192. That means that even though it’s toll free, it is a real phone number. According to Uproxx, someone on Reddit pointed out that it used to be a phone number owned by Disney and used on the show The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. Emphasis on “used to” because within that past 10 years, it became a number for a phone sex line.
This seems problematic in multiple ways. Not only will people call this number due to it being in the Captain Marvel ad but imagine if a kid is watching Zack & Cody, finds the phone number and calls to hear a woman on the other line telling them it’s “America’s hottest talk line.” Anyway, it seems like one of those things where Disney probably needed to permanently own this phone number but for some reason didn’t.
Every so often, you read a story about someone who searches for popular domain names in the hopes those rights expired so that the original owner would buy the name back. It’s called “Cybersquatting” and we don’t know if something similar happened here or this phone sex line randomly got this number that nobody was using anymore and Disney was extremely unlucky that it came back to bite them but they may want to buy this phone number back and keep it.
[Uproxx]
