Emerging from a wave of dial-a-joke numbers in Los Angeles in the turn of the 1970s,[1] Zzzzzz enjoyed a high level of popularity in its day.

[2] Zzzzzz was launched by Bob Bilkiss (d. 1989[3]) of West Los Angeles, who originally operated the service from his residential phone line, in February 1970.

[4] Bilkiss, then a student of Santa Monica College, said that Zzzzzz grew out of a whimsical desire to have the first and last entries in the Los Angeles telephone directory.

To obtain the last listing in the book, however, Pacific Bell required Bilkiss to prepare a notarized statement that "Zzzzzz" was his official nickname.

By 1971 the service had grown to a staff of five, including writer Jeff Robbins, announcer and tape editor John Shannon and cartoonist Jerry Leibowitz.

[4][a] Starting in June 1970, Zzzzzz began advertising hour-long "live" shows, wherein callers could talk to Bilkiss and company, twice a week.

[4] He and Friedman initially spent two to three days a week recording jokes, which at the onset were spoofs of contemporary radio and television advertisements and programs.

Friends and acquaintances volunteered their voice talents, while Bilkiss and Friedman acquired a stack of royalty-free production music and produced their own sound effects for use in skits.

To prevent the recordings from wearing out due to the heavy traffic the line received, the answering machine was built to be rugged and outfitted with high-quality, high-fidelity tape stock.