These commercials were ubiquitous in the early 1980’s in the New York metropolitan area.  Here’s the weird thing — I grew up in New York, and I didn’t know a single person who actually dialed this number.

But there was evidently a market for this.  There have been a few pay-call services like this since the 1970’s.  Weird world — one of the first was operated as a hobby by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.