Real reason TV characters never say 'goodbye' on phone calls - and it's not what you think
When watching a TV series, you might have noticed characters never seem to say 'goodbye' when ending a phone call. Instead, they abruptly hang up on the person on the other line, not giving it a second thought that this might be considered rude.
However, it turns out there's a cinematic reason why characters never sign off their phone calls - and it's all down to necessity. Confused, one Reddit user asked: "Why do most characters just hang up the phone without saying goodbye? Over the past few years, I have seen people just hanging up. Sometimes mid-conversation, but mostly not.
"It's like saying bye on the phone isn't the norm anymore. Is this just to save time during the show or is it a cultural thing in the US?"
In response, screenwriter and producer Michael Jamin decided to set the record straight in a TikTok video, which has now generated more than 206,000 likes.
On his channel @michaeljaminwriter, Michael, who has worked on shows like King of the Hill, Wilfred and Maron, explained how the TV industry refers to lines like 'goodbye' as 'shoe leather'. He said: "Shoe leather might make a scene feel more realistic - but it doesn't necessarily make the scene more entertaining.
"In TV, we also have running times. We have to turn in a cut to the network for like 22 minutes. They won't accept 22 minutes and 30 seconds. Knowing this, we always shoot long maybe 25 minutes knowing that not every scene is going to be great.
"We want to have liberty to trim and pace up a bit - but we don't know where."
Michael reveals it's a breeze to chop the first two minutes off the show - but deciding what goes after that is a real head-scratcher. He confessed: "You're like, if I cut the guy saying goodbye then maybe I get to keep my favourite joke.
"Eventually, you get to the point where you're not even writing the bye into the script knowing you'll just cut it later."
A user chimed in on the topic, saying: "Oh I thought it was for dramatic effect like they are too cool to say goodbye."
Another added: "From now on, I will quit saying goodbye and use that time to maybe go on vacation when I'm old."
A third user reminisced: "I'm from Europe and when I was younger I thought that's the way people in the US end their phone calls..."
Someone else said: "So glad you weighed in on this. I'm a firm believer that it's more distracting to say goodbye in a film or tv show. Big fan Michael!"
