Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - S9E25 - You Must Remember This: The Mandela Effect

Episode Date: June 18, 2020

This week we’re talking about the Mandela Effect. It is defined as “collective false memory.” That means many of us remember things incorrectly and we all remember them incorrectly the same way. From famous movie lines to song lyrics to details of traumatic events and even to famous commercials, we all think our memories are time-stamped videos of our lives. But they are not. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly. As you may know, we've been producing a lot of bonus episodes while under the influences on hiatus. They're called the Beatleology Interviews, where I talk to people who knew the Beatles, work with them, love them, and the authors who write about them. Well, the Beatleology Interviews have become a hit, so we are spinning it out to be a standalone podcast series. You've already heard conversations with people like actors Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and Beatles confidant Astrid Kershaw. But coming up, I talk to May Pang, who dated John Lennon in the mid-70s. I talk to double fantasy guitarist Earl Slick, Apple Records creative director John Kosh. I'll be talking to Jan Hayworth,

who designed the Sgt. Pepper album cover. Very cool. And I'll talk to singer Dion, who is one of only five people still alive who were on the Sgt. Pepper cover. And two of those people were Beatles. The stories they tell are amazing. So thank you for making this series such a success. And please, do me a favor, follow the Beatleology interviews on your podcast app. You don't even have to be a huge Beatles fan, you just have to love storytelling.

Subscribe now, and don't miss a single beat. This is an apostrophe podcast production. Your teeth look whiter than no nose You're not you when you're hungry You're a good hand with all teeth You're under the influence of Terry O'Reilly. At a 1998 Friars Club roast of Drew Carey, actor Abe Vigoda was in attendance. A comedian got up to roast Carey and said,

My only regret is that Abe Vigoda isn't alive to see this. It got a big laugh. That's because most people thought Abe was dead. It all started in 1982. People magazine mistakenly printed

that Abe Vigoda had died. A reporter was at the wrap party for the sitcom Barney Miller, which Vigoda was starring in at the time, and noted that the late Abe Vigoda was sadly not in attendance. That was news to Abe. He was actually performing in a play at Stage West in Calgary at the time. Vigoda took it in stride and had fun with the false reports. He even had a photo taken of him holding up a copy of the People magazine article while sitting in a coffin. Abe Vigoda had a long career in Hollywood. He began acting in 1947 and performed in a number of plays on Broadway.

In 1972, he landed the role of Tessio in one of the greatest films of all time, The Godfather. Don't mind, it was only business. I always liked him. In 1975, Vigoda landed the role of Phil Fish on Barney Miller. Ironically, the tall, slightly hunched hangdog Vigoda was athletic. He jogged for years and was a handball player. As a matter of fact, he had just jogged five miles when he got the call from his agent to run over to audition for Barney Miller. When he got there, in his running shorts,

one producer said he looked tired. Vigoda said that was because he was tired. Another producer said he looked like he had hemorrhoids. That look got him the role. Then, in 1987, Abe Vigoda was pronounced dead in the media for a second time. His wife kept receiving

condolence cards from fans. She also received them from producers. Vigoda wondered how many of those producers thought about him for a role, but then said, too bad he's dead. When Vigoda appeared on the David Letterman show, Letterman asked Vigoda appeared on The David Letterman Show,

Letterman asked Vigoda to breathe on a mirror. The internet took it to another level with the website abevigoda.com, which kept track of the actor's living status. It just showed a photo of the actor with the single line, Abe Vigoda is alive. Then, on January 26, 2016, Abe Vigoda is alive. Then, on January 26, 2016, Abe Vigoda passed away. A headline at the time said,

Abe Vigoda really dies at age 94. AbeVigoda.com was updated for the first and only time. It simply said, Abe Vigoda is dead. That news on January 26 still surprised a lot of people, because a lot of people still falsely assumed Abe Vigoda had died 34 years ago. The phenomenon of collective false memory is really quite astounding. Important dates, famous lines from movies, song lyrics, and even traumatic events can be misremembered by millions of people,

who all collectively misremember it the very same way. It's a phenomenon that exists in the advertising world, too. Think you remember famous commercials? Okay, let's make a couple of withdrawals from your memory bank. You're under the influence. Memory is a very fallible thing. In our amazing minds,

we are capable of remembering thousands upon thousands of memories. But often, those memories are like old photographs. They start to fade with time. And when there are blurry parts of those memories, our minds sometimes fill in those blanks with either incorrect information or we confuse them with other events. Or you remember an incident,

even a traumatic one, and misremember the details. That condition has been called the Mandela Effect. The Mandela Effect has been defined as a collective false memory. The term was coined by writer Fiona Broome when she discovered she shared a particular false memory with many other people. Namely, that South African human rights activist Nelson Mandela had died in prison in the 1980s. So, why do so many people remember Mandela dying

30 years before he actually did? Well, it may be a simple case of combining two separate pieces of information, that Mandela spent a long time in prison, and that he died, then piecing them together into a false memory. The interesting thing about the Mandela effect, or the Abe Vigoda effect, if you will,

is that so many people can misremember something in exactly the same way. Those things can be sayings, or movie lines, or even famous advertising campaigns. One of the most enduring public service campaigns was developed back in 1944. The U.S. Forest Service established a forest fire prevention program. That same year, Walt Disney released Bambi,

the animated motion picture. Disney agreed to lend Bambi to the Forest Service to be used in that first fire prevention campaign. But Bambi was only lent out for one year. As that year began to wind down, the Forest Service asked the War Advertising Council, later renamed just the Advertising Council, to come up with a new mascot.

In 1944, that new mascot was unveiled. And for the next 75 years, he became famous for saying this one line. Remember, only you can prevent forest fires. So, do you remember the mascot's name? If you said Smokey the Bear, you would be wrong. His actual name, and the name he has had for over 75 years, is Smokey Bear, not Smokey the Bear. It is a collective false memory. That incorrect recollection may have been aided by this song, written in 1950,

by the same songwriters who penned Frosty the Snowman. With a ranger's hat and shovel and a pair of dungarees You will find him in the forest always sniffing at the breeze People stop and pay attention when he tells them to beware because everybody knows that he's the fire-preventing bear. Smokey the bear, Smokey the bear growling and a-growling and a-sniffing in the air. The composers added the word the purely to help the rhythm of the song.

But chances are you've never heard that novelty song before, and you've probably seen dozens of Smokey Bear commercials over the years, and yet we all experience the collective false memory. His name is Smokey Bear, not Smokey the Bear. As time goes by, famous movie lines are often the victims of the Mandela Effect. For example, you may remember Humphrey Bogart's most quoted line from the movie Casablanca.

Play it again, Sam. But that is incorrect. The actual line is, Play it for her, play it for me. Well, I don't think I can remember. If you can stand it, I can. Play it. Not at all like, play it again, Sam.

Or how about Dirty Harry's famous line, Do you feel lucky, punk? Is that how you remember it, Do you feel lucky, punk? Is that how you remember it? Do you feel lucky? Because here is the actual line. I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five?

Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kind of lost track myself. But even this is a.44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off. You've got to ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do you, Bunk? How about a film as revered as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? It's been around since 1937. Do you remember what the evil stepmother says when she asks her mirror that famous question? Hmm?

She says, Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all? Not mirror, mirror on the wall, but rather magic mirror on the wall. I think it's safe to say almost no one remembers that line correctly. Speaking of cartoons, do you remember that modern Stone Age family,

Fred and his wife Wilma? What is their last name? Of course, it's the Flintstones. Wait, did you say Flintstones? Actually, there are two T's in their last name. It's not the Flintstones, it's the Flintstones? Actually, there are two T's in their last name. It's not the Flintstones, it's the Flintstones.

Flintstones, make the Flintstones, they're the Martin Stoenig's family. Many remember that incorrectly, even though they have sung that theme for years. How about Looney Tunes? Remember, you saw the Looney Tunes logo at the start of every cartoon. Question. How is the word tunes spelled? If you just said T-O-O-N-S, like cartoons, that is a false memory.

It is spelled T-U-N-E-S, and there is a reason for that. Back in 1930, Warner Brothers wanted to compete against Walt Disney. Specifically, they wanted to devise a way to feature its extensive music library. So, they created Looney Tunes, T-U-N-E-S, to create cartoons based around all the music Warner Brothers owned. And that's why it's called Looney Tunes. Which was the same reason Warner also created Merry Melodies. Back in 1978, a very famous commercial hit the air for Life Cereal. The ad showed three real-life brothers sitting around the breakfast table.

They aren't sure they want to try this new Life Cereal, so they ask their youngest brother Mikey to try it first. The line everyone quotes from this commercial is, Mikey likes it. But that's not the line. What's this stuff? Some cereal. It's supposed to be good for you. Do you try it? I'm not going to try it. You try it. I'm not going to try it. Let's get Mikey. Yeah.

He won't eat it. He hates everything. He likes it. Hey, Mikey. When you bring life home, don't tell the kids it's one of those nutritional cereals you've been trying to get them to eat. You're the only one who has to know. The two key lines are, he hates everything, and he likes it. Hey, Mikey.

But he never says, Mikey likes it. Yet when I searched this commercial on YouTube, it was labeled, Mikey Likes It. One of the most quoted commercial lines of all time, Collective False Memory. Even music can be failed by the Mandela Effect. Songs you've heard hundreds of times, and you sing them wrong because we all remember them incorrectly.

All of us, misremembering the same words. Take Queen's anthemic, We Are the Champions. You've sung that one at full voice in your car at some point or another. So here's the question. At the end of the song, Freddie Mercury hits the climactic last line. He sings, We are the champions,

no time for losers, cause we are the champions. And what are the last three words of the song? If you said, of the world, you would be mistaken. The last three words are, we are the champions, period. Memory is such an imperfect thing.

Even when we've heard the song countless times, we still remember it incorrectly. That happens with products too. Take Tang, an orange-powdered drink. Do you remember how and why Tang was first developed? If you're of a certain vintage, you remember Tang was developed for the NASA space program, that it was part of the astronauts' dehydrated food supply. The Gemini spaceflights.

The trips are long. The training is hard, like this spacewalk practice. But the astronauts do some things you do. In space, they drank Tang. They mixed it like this in a zero-g pouch. The commercials were so effective, they led people to believe, to this day, that Tang was developed for the space program. But that is a false memory.

In fact, Tang was first marketed in 1959, and it had poor sales, until the Gemini astronauts took it along for a ride. It was certainly linked to space exploration, but it was not developed for space exploration. And we'll be right back. If you're enjoying this episode, why not dip into our archives, available wherever you download your pods.

Go to terryoreilly.ca for a master episode list. Master Episode List. The Mandela Effect can be seen in familiar phrases too, like the biblical saying, money is the root of all evil. The actual line is, for the love of money is the root of all evil. Big difference in meaning there. One line I hear thrown around all the time is attributed to John Lennon. He was once apparently asked if Ringo was a good drummer, and he replied, Ringo wasn't even the best drummer in the Beatles. An amusing line. Except Lennon never said that.

The line comes from a 1981 BBC Radio 4 sketch comedy show titled Radioactive. Just one thing you need for the LP, Ringo Starr. Ringo Starr? All right, all right, maybe Ringo Starr wasn't the best drummer in the world. All right, maybe he wasn't the best drummer in the Beatles, but he's a name. That line has been collectively remembered by millions

as a John Lennon quote. Yet, it was first said by someone else one full year after Lennon died. And for the record, Lennon thought Ringo was one of the best drummers

in rock history. While researching this show, I frequently come across an often-repeated advertising story. The story says that Japanese photography company Fuji once used a slogan that outraged people in America so much it had to be quickly pulled.

The slogan was, Fuji, from those wonderful folks who gave you Pearl Harbor. I have read that story dozens and dozens of times. Now, can you imagine, for a second, that a Japanese company would ever consider using a slogan like that? Of course not. And Fuji never did. No Japanese company ever did.

That line comes from the title of a book written in 1970 by an irreverent advertising writer named Jerry Della Famina. The title comes from a brainstorming session Della Famina found himself in for client Panasonic. The

ad agency boardroom was quiet. No one was coming up with any ideas for client Panasonic. The ad agency boardroom was quiet. No one was coming up with any ideas for the Panasonic ad. So, to loosen everybody up, Della Famina jumped up, slapped the table and said, I've got it. Everybody sat up straight and asked, Okay, what is it? That's when Della Famina smirked and said,

From those wonderful folks who gave you Pearl Harbor. He meant it as a joke, a very politically incorrect joke. But that line, taken from that story and from the title of his book, has been collectively remembered as a slogan for Fuji that had to be yanked due to public outrage. Which, of course, never ever happened.

Do you remember seeing years of publishers clearing house commercials on television? Where Ed McMahon would knock on a door and present a giant check for a million dollars to an unsuspecting person? Many do. And many hoped old Ed would knock on a door and present a giant check for a million dollars to an unsuspecting person. Many do, and many hoped old Ed would knock on their door sometime. Yet, Ed McMahon never worked for Publishers Clearinghouse.

He was the spokesperson for a different company called American Family Publishers. McMahon never left the studio, never ambushed anyone, and never once held a giant check. Likewise, Publishers Clearinghouse never hired a celebrity to present their giant checks. They used a prize patrol. Hi, come on in. We're from Publishers Clearinghouse. And guess what? You've just won our forever prize.

It happens all the time. Real people really win the Publishers Clearinghouse Leapstakes. It's an example of the power of the Mandela Effect. People misremember two very different marketing campaigns. Two multi-million dollar, multi-year marketing campaigns. The Mandela Effect also occurs with traumatic events. You would think that a stressful event would be seared into your memory. Yet, so many details can change over time.

Malcolm Gladwell did a fascinating podcast on false memory. He tells a story about 9-11. Within a week of the Twin Tower attacks, a research team surveyed over 3,200 people across the country and asked them where and when they heard the news. The research team asked the respondents to write down their recollection. Then, the team followed up with the same group one year later, then two years later, then finally ten years later.

While the respondents were all highly confident in recounting their memories at each stage, small details differed over time, and some people changed the recollections completely. As a matter of fact, those respondents were shown the original document as proof, and while acknowledging

it was their handwriting, they were also adamant that I didn't write that. But they had. The researchers found that roughly 60% of the answers had changed over time. I remember being in my office at an advertising agency when the space shuttle blew up in 1986. I have a vivid memory of working on a campaign that day with an art director named Steve Chase.

When someone in the office yelled, the space shuttle had exploded. I remember how upsetting that news was to both of us. When I recently asked Steve how he remembered that moment, he said he was in Florida on a golf vacation and actually watched the launch and explosion live. I was shocked and surprised that not only was he not in the office with me, he wasn't even in the same country. Two completely different memories of one historic event. And now Steve has altered my memory of that event. Gladwell says everyone assumes memory is a time-stamped video of your life. But it's not time-stamped,

it's not video, and it's not reliable. In case nobody's told you, weight loss goes beyond the old just eat less and move more narrative, and that's where Felix comes in. Felix is redefining weight loss for Canadians with a smarter, more personalized approach to help you crush your health goals is here. Losing weight is about more than diet and exercise. It can also be about our We'll be right back. lifestyle with the right support to reach your goals. Start your visit today at felix.ca. That's F-E-L-I-X dot C-A. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not, Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with

Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Back in 1983, Ray-Bans had fallen out of fashion. Oversized, chunky accessories had become trendy, and Ray-Ban was thinking of discontinuing their line of Wayfarer sunglasses. It just wasn't selling. But then the movie Risky Business came out. In that movie, star Tom Cruise wore Ray-Ban Wayfarers. Can you picture his classic Ray-Ban moment? Are you remembering the scene when Cruise comes sliding into the living room in his underwear, lip-syncing to Bob Seger's old-time rock and roll.

It's probably the most famous scene from Risky Business. After that movie, sales of Ray-Bans shot up 50%. Except Tom Cruise didn't wear Ray-Bans in that famous scene. He wore a shirt, socks, and tighty-whities, but no Ray-Bans. Yes, he wore Wayfarers in the movie, just not in that classic scene, the scene everyone remembers as being the classic Ray-Ban scene. Chances are people have seen that movie more than once over the years. Yet, like so many things,

that recollection has cruised right into our collective false memory. Memory is a very tricky thing. Court cases hinge on memory. Movies and books have been made on the foundation of memories. And most of us are adamant our recollections are accurate. Yet, as Malcolm Gladwell says, only a fool accepts the evidence of his own memory as gospel, and we're all fools.

It's fascinating that we can watch movies so many times and misremember famous lines, or listen to favorite songs hundreds of times, and still we sing the wrong lyric all together in some kind of mysterious, mistaken harmony. Even more startling is our wavering memories when it comes to traumatic events. It's almost like we build our memories like birds build nests, with pieces of straw and sticks and string. The truth is, we collectively remember and we collectively forget. It's one of the reasons advertisers rely so heavily on repetition. Just when you think you

can't possibly watch a particular commercial one more time, an advertiser somewhere is wondering, have we hammered that message home enough yet? That's the problem with misty, water-colored memories. When you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Terrastream Mobile Recording Studio. Producer, Debbie O'Reilly. Sound Engineer, Keith Ullman. Theme music by Ari Posner and Ian Lefebvre.

If you liked this episode, you might also enjoy The Pompatous of Skippy, Brand Names in Songs, Season 8, Episode 6. You'll find it in our archives wherever you download your podcasts. Follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Terry O. Influence. See you next week for our last episode of the season. I know what you're thinking. Does he have six seconds left or only five?

To tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I kind of lost track. Bet MGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long. From tip-off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with the sportsbook born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with BetMGM. And no matter your team, your favorite player, or your style, there's something every NBA fan will love about BetMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your basketball home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with BetMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your basketball home for the season. Raise your game to the next level this year with BetMGM, a sportsbook worth a slam dunk,

and authorized gaming partner of the NBA. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BitMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario.