If you’re of a certain age, you know that private investigator Jim Rockford (played by the great James Garner) had a less than glamorous life on the TV series The Rockford Files, but he did have a (generally) dependable answering machine. At the start of each episode, the phone would ring, the machine would pick up, and a different caller would leave a message. Like the messages Bart Simpson would write on the chalkboard in the opening credits of The Simpsons, or like the celebrity callers on Frasier, this became part of the charm and the lore of The Rockford Files. 

By the way, it looks as if they need the messages from six of the eight Rockford TV movies.