Phonebooth stuffing

Competition to beat prior records of numbers of people has been an aspect of the fad's popularity; however, that has decreased over the decades, in part because of the reduced prevalence of fully-enclosed booths.

By early 1959, the fad had spread to South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, Britain, Canada, and the United States.

On March 20, 1959, students at the Durban, South Africa YMCA set a world record when 25 of them were able to squeeze at least the greater portions of their bodies into a standard upright phonebooth.

Very little unoccupied volume remained; when the phone rang, nobody inside had enough space free to pick up the handset and answer it.

[1][2] Although it had been referred to as "one of the all-time great fads" by the Bridgeport Post, it had come to be regarded as passé by the end of 1959.