Trivia: Bill Moseley got the role of Chop-Top because he made a parody short film of the original "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". Moseley's film was called "The Texas Chainsaw Manicure". Series co-creator Tobe Hooper saw the short and loved it so much that he cast Moseley in a major part when "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2" went into production.
Trivia: Tobe Hooper played up the black comedy in this sequel as he felt that all the dark humor in the original had been ignored by audiences due to the film's shocking content. He wanted to make sure that audiences knew the film was meant to be scary AND funny.
Chosen answer: That's how telephones worked back then. It has to do with the lack of a disconnect signal being sent by the called party, which phone companies have now. Back then when someone called another person, they were paying for the call and thus it was felt that they're entitled not to be hung up on and the line would not be "free" for the person being called, even after they hung up. This also meant if someone was called and they picked up in one room, they could say "hold on I'm going to switch phones", hang up, go to another room and pick up the phone and the caller would still be there. It was also a great way to scam or annoy people by calling them and not hanging up. Some countries still maintain this method of operation, largely because some people have become used to it, although nowadays it's by choice, not by technical limitation, and the length of time the line is held open is significantly reduced.
Bishop73
Yeah that's actually true. in the 80s we used to call up talk radio shows from isolated, seldom-used phone booths and then leave the phone off the hook. No more calls for hours until they straightened it out with the phone company. we called it 'jock blocking'.
That's not true my brother would prank call KDKA in Pittsburgh constantly they had no trouble hanging up. If people called our house there was no trouble hanging up.
That's exactly how it worked if the line didn't have a disconnect signal.
Bishop73