The dating board game, a sleepover favorite of the ‘90s, still strikes a chord with women today, as proven by Hannah Young’s stroll down memory lane
Credit: Hannah Young/TikTok (2)
NEED TO KNOW
- The 1991 board game Dream Phone tasked players with calling guys to try to find out who their secret admirer was
- Hannah Young, on Instagram @uhhuhhannah, went viral after she started talking about the nostalgic board game and sharing her burning question, decades later
- Young has garnered interest from fans of the game who want to find out whatever happened to their Dream Phone crushes
Calling all Dream Phone players!
The 1991 board game had players calling guys on a plastic play phone in hopes of identifying their fictional secret admirer. Now, one fan is crowdsourcing information for a much-anticipated update.
The movement was started by Hannah Young, on Instagram @uhhuhhannah, who shared some memories of the Milton Bradley board game.
In her first video in April, Hannah recalled, “Some of these guys, looking back, are not giving middle school. Some of them were maybe pushing 30,” noting how one prospective date looked “like he has a mortgage and a family to feed.”
“Did they put out a casting call for this? Was someone like, ‘You’re going to be on a board game for children and your name is going to be Matt. Matt likes to hang out at the mall.’ ”
View this post on Instagram
Other Dream Phone players responded in the comments, reminiscing about the game. In late May, Hannah shared another video, her official callout for other fans to help her find out what happened to some of the men who participated.
“I need a ‘Where are they now, Dream Phone boys edition.’ Where is Andy Cohen and how do we put this together? I need to know their real names, current photos. I need to know who’s divorced. I need to know who ended up driving a minivan. Matt, I know you did, I know it in my soul. Where is Steve? Someone find Steve. We need to know if he still has hair. I want to know if they got paid, what the audition process was like, who took these photos. I need answers and I am confident only Andy Cohen can get them for me. Someone knows something. Speak up!”
Hannah recently spoke with PEOPLE about Dream Phone, sharing the inspiration behind her first video.
“I just remember them being such a core part of my childhood. The idea of calling these guys and I was just thinking about how bizarre the whole concept of the game was, but how much we really loved it. Like all of us, we were just fully committed to getting the right guy,” she shares.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
View this post on Instagram
As more fans reached out, the “I wonder…” conversations increased, leading to her call to locate some of the men who lent their image for the game.
“I made that video and then the internet just helped me put clues together and I’ve been tracking them down, one by one,” she shares. “It was just an idea, putting it out in the world. Seeing the amount of messages, someone being like, ‘My husband went to high school with George,’ or ‘I used to be married to this person,’ and they’d send me a picture. It’s been a full-on investigation.”
To date, Hannah has tracked down four of the 24 Dream Phone guys, as well as “three that I’m pretty close to — I’ve got direct lines of contact, I just haven’t gotten them.”
“I’ve talked to them. I got to call the real Dream Phone boyfriends and that’s been so great. The rest of them, I’ve been talking to their wife or their best friend, or their sister. Some of them aren’t online, so I’m thankful for all the people that are and are sharing the video to get it where it needs to go.”
View this post on Instagram
Hannah’s search has led to some surprises for the spouses and friends of guys who were part of the game, as well as a claim that the guys were each paid just $150 for the gig.
“One of the guys that I did the story on, George [who is] Aaron, his wife is from Spain and when they met, she was like, ‘You look so familiar.’ And she had played Dream Phone and had no clue, because he didn’t think that would have been something she would have seen. These guys have no idea, the global impact this game had on people around the world. Everyone had different names in different countries, and people were commenting on them.”
As for the most requested “Where is he now?,” Hannah reports, “We want to find Steve. Everyone wants to find Steve. I’d love to talk to him, if he wants to talk.”
View this post on Instagram
Hannah may even be inspiring the next generation of Dream Phone girls, noting her 5-year-old’s interest has been piqued since hearing about it.
“I do think it’s fun to see that none of us ever really got over our first Dream Phone crush, that we’re all still holding a torch for them. I’ve loved the nostalgia, the unlocked core memories, people quoting the game. It’s fun to see how invested people are now in us finding each guy,” she shares.
“It was not something that I expected to now be fully investing my time and energy into, but it’s really fun to play detective and put all the pieces together. I feel like I’m creating my own little game, tracking them all down.”
Read the full article here
