Original artwork, not a still
Mr. Watson, come here, I want you.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
It is the birth certificate of the telephone: an ordinary summons, a man calling for his assistant, that happens to be the first time a voice crossed a wire. The wording is almost deliberately dull, which is the charm. The line is the standard answer to "what were the first words on the phone", and the "I want you" version tells its own small story about how a historic moment gets rounded off by memory.
Context reviewed
In context
May contain spoilersShow the scene
On 10 March 1876 Alexander Graham Bell is testing his new telephone with his assistant Thomas Watson, who is in the next room. Bell's laboratory notebook records the first sentence to come down the wire as "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." Watson, listening at the other end, hears his name spoken through the instrument. The ending "I want you", the form most people quote, is how Watson himself remembered it in a 1931 Bell Labs film, so the exact wording has never been settled. Watson also told a story of Bell spilling battery acid and calling for help, though that may have been a separate incident.
Sources (2)
- Wikiquote: Alexander Graham BellQuotes, first entry (10 March 1876)Reference checked
- Wikipedia: Thomas A. WatsonEarly career paragraphReference checked
Context reviewed
