Joybubbles (May 25, 1949 – August 8, 2007), born Josef Carl Engressia, Jr. in Richmond, Virginia, USA, was an early phone phreak. Born blind, he became interested in telephones at age four. Gifted with absolute pitch, he was able to whistle 2600 hertz into a telephone (see Blue box). Joybubbles said that he had an IQ of “172 or something.” [1] Joybubbles died at his Minneapolis home on August 8, 2007 (aged 58). According to his death certificate,[2] he died of "natural causes" with "congestive heart failure" as a contributing condition. The character of Whistler, played by David Strathairn in the film Sneakers, is based directly on Engressia.[3]
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As a five-year old, Engressia discovered he could dial phone numbers by clicking the hang-up switch (“tapping”), and at the age of 7 he accidentally discovered that whistling at certain frequencies could activate phone switches.[4]
A student at the University of South Florida in the late 1960s, he was given the nickname “Whistler,” due to his ability to place free long distance phone calls by whistling, with his mouth, the proper tones. After a Canadian operator reported him for selling such calls for $1 at the university, he was suspended and fined $25, but soon reinstated;[4] he later graduated in philosophy and moved to Tennessee.
According to FBI records, the phone company SBT&T first noticed his phreaking activities in summer 1968, and an employee of the Florida Bell Telephone Company illegally monitored Engressia’s telephone conversations and divulged them to the FBI.[4]
After law enforcement raided his house, he was charged with malicious mischief, given a suspended sentence, and quickly abandoned phreaking.
In 1982, he moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota. He lived off his Social Security disability pension and a job as a test subject for scent-intensity research. He was an ordained minister of his own Church of Eternal Childhood, and ran a one-man nonprofit support organization for people rediscovering and re-experiencing childhood, called “We Won’t Grow Up.” He tried to remain an active member of the children’s community around his home, giving readings at the local library and setting up phone calls to terminally ill children around the world. He often contributed to the Bulletin Board section of the St. Paul Pioneer Press newspaper.
Sexually abused as a child by one of his teachers, a nun, Joybubbles “reverted to his childhood,” in May 1988, and remained there until his death, claiming that he was five years old. He legally changed his name to Joybubbles in 1991, stating that he wanted to put his past, specifically the abuse, behind him.
An avid fan of Mister Rogers, Joybubbles was mentioned in a November 1998 Esquire magazine article about children’s television host Fred Rogers. In the summer of 1998, Joybubbles traveled to the University of Pittsburgh’s Mister Rogers' Neighborhood Archives and listened to several hundred episodes over a span of six weeks.[5]
In 1971, just after his arrest, Engressia was featured in an Esquire article by Ron Rosenbaum (Secrets of the Little Blue Box) which exposed the phone phreak scene to a general public and led to further media coverage of Engressia, who became a cultural icon.[4]
The movie Sneakers had a character named “Whistler,” who seemed to combine traits of both Joybubbles and John Draper. In his book iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak mentions Joybubbles as an early inspiration during his college years.
Joybubbles ran a weekly telephone story line called “Stories and Stuff.” The numbers were +1 206-FEELING (+1 206 333-5464), +1 612-813-1212, and +1 773-572-3109. Stories and Stuff was usually updated on the weekend.
In the early 1980s, he ran a phone line called the “Zzzzyzzerrific Funline,” which had the distinction of being the very last entry in the phone book. During the Zzzzyzzerrific Funline days, calling himself Highrise Joe, he would go on various rants about how much he loved Valleyfair amusement park and would also regularly play and discuss “Up With People.”