Forgive us if you knew this already, but we’re just finding out. Three of the most famous words ever spoken — “You’ve got mail.” — were voiced by 1) an actual human being, and 2) an actual human being who lives and works in Cleveland. His name is Elwood Edwards and he now works at WKYC.
The AV Club has the quick backstory:
In 1989 Edwards was asked by Quantum Computer Services to record a tape of himself saying four phrases: “welcome,”, “file’s done,” “you’ve got mail,” and “goodbye.” Then Quantum changed its name to America Online, every man, woman, and child in America got a mailbox full of AOL install discs, and soon “you’ve got mail” entered into pop culture immortality.
There was no skyrocketing fame on the backend of Edwards’ work, but he bounced around local TV stations and ended up at Channel 3 as an editor and graphics designer. Whew. Jim Breuer shot this little video while he was in studio so we can all see and hear for ourselves.
This article appears in Mar 26 – Apr 1, 2014.
AOL should have reached into the Bash Bucket for voice-overs by the BLF Bash.
Wow, who knew that the guy was from Cleveland. That’s pretty cool. Too bad he didn’t collect a fee every time that recording was used, lol.