In the US, you have to dial a "1" before making a long distance phone call from a landline. Growing up, my grandmother had the same area code as me, but it was a long distance call, so I had to dial 1 + area code + phone number, whereas a local call with the same area code only required dialing the phone number itself. You'd get a message from the phone company saying "You must first dial a 1 or 0 before calling this number" if you messed up! I think it is just how landline telephone providers distinguish between local vs long-distance calls for billing purposes, although the country code for the US is also +1.
I've never watched the show to know why this would be funny in context, though!