Topic: Rotary Phone

The hosts open the program discussing a failure in waste management communication where an email was sent instead of an automated call regarding holiday trash collection. A live technical glitch involving a disconnected landline phone leads to a discussion on the obsolescence of rotary and touch-tone phones. The show is introduced as a media deconstruction program broadcasting from Austin, Texas and Northern Silicon Valley.

The history of broadcasting is traced from the massive, clunky color cameras of the 1950s at WGN Chicago to the failed analog HDTV experiments of the 1980s. This technological nostalgia extends to Bakelite rotary phones and the lost culture of prank calling. The rapid pace of change has rendered many once-ubiquitous devices, like the car phone, completely obsolete.