I'm back for another Unearthing the 80s, where I revisit strange trends of the past involving horror and the 1980s. This time around, I'll be looking at the seemingly bizarre Freddy Krueger hotline, which saw its peak in the late 80s and early 90s. Some of you might remember that, around this time, the themed hotline was becoming pretty popular. You could call various numbers for romantic purposes, to get scary stories or to "interact" with famous band members or movie characters. Hell, even Bill and Ted had a hotline!

With the Krueger hotline, callers could dial in (for the low, low value of just $2 for the first minute) and be confronted with Freddy Krueger himself. The caller would then be granted several trivia questions (which ranged from moderately to extremely difficult) in order to rack up points and take the top spot of high scorer. Of course, this meant that by the time you were given enough trivia questions to score high enough, you probably would have invested several hundred dollars. Though I never called the number myself, I'm pretty confident in saying that there were no shortage of angry parents due to a few innocent late night phone calls made by curious kids. At any rate, I've compiled the various TV spots from the Krueger hotline below! Watch and enjoy!

TV Spots:

This is a TV spot for the 1-900 number promoted around the release of A Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child in the Fall of 1989.

This is a TV spot for the 1-900 number promoted after the release of Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare in the summer of 1992.

I found this in a batch of old tapes in my basement. For all of the Nightmare On Elm Street fans, ENJOY!!!! (jaythomasproductions@yahoo.com)

This is a TV spot for the 1-900 number promoted around the release of A Nightmare On Elm Street 5: The Dream Child in the fall of 1989.

This is a TV spot for the 1-900 number promoted around the release of A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master in the fall of 1988.

Fred kruger hotline Halloween commercial

Bonus: Creep Hotline

Who called things like this? I was 15 when this aired and I would never have wasted my money on this stuff..... also, are all of the images from Troll and Ghoulie movies? I wonder what that phone number goes to today......

Call Now! only $2 per call

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