Blue Boxes

Short Trips #10.11

Released: 4 November 2020

Listened: 5/29/21

Placed here more or less arbitrarily. This is one of those Short Trips that doesn’t exactly tell a story, but plays with an idea. In this case, writer Erin Horáková clearly knows something about the history of hacking, or in this case, phone phreaking, because the devices that were used to fool tone-based phone systems were called “blue boxes,” which suggests an obvious link. I only know a little about phreaking (before my time), but the exposition given in the story sounds accurate, including famous hacker Captain Crunch. However, once the exposition is done, there’s really not a lot of story left. Narrator Mark Reynolds does a decent job of imitating Jon Pertwee, and has enough flexibility to voice the other characters effectively as well.