# Anyone else remember the alternate ending to "Big"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [April 16, 2002, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864 "2002-04-16T02:03:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 30
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/581 "2017-09-03T00:29:04Z")
I had the opposite of this once: I thought a movie did **not** have an ending that it actually did. I read the novel **The Lost Weekend** multiple times. Then I saw the movie. For years afterwards, I was convinced that the film ended with Don saying “I wonder how many others there are like me?” and the camera pulling back, out the window, and craning up to an aerial view of NYC. “Whaddaya mean, he sits down at the typewriter and pounds out a whole novel?” Finally, it was on cable, and son-of-a-gun, it does end with him pounding out a novel, “For Helen.” But I think in that case, I didn’t remember that ending because I didn’t **want** to remember that bullshit ending. Phooey on the Hays Office. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/582 "2017-09-03T02:07:47Z")
This may have been pointed out already (I’m not going to search the entire thread) but I feel there’s a pretty obvious explanation for the Mandela Effect; people are confusing Nelson Mandela and Stephen Biko. Both men were South African anti-apartheid activists who were imprisoned. But Biko was killed in prison while Mandela survived his imprisonment. And people that falsely remember Mandela’s death often think he died in the eighties. While Biko died in 1977, there was a movie about him, _Cry Freedom_, released in 1987. ---
**Author:** ![Dahu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dahu/32/3416_2.png) [@Dahu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dahu)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/583 "2017-09-03T10:09:32Z")
Out of interest, how many on here actually (falsely) remember Nelson Mandela dying in prison? Before this thread I’d never heard of it, and no-one I know has experienced it. Might be my reading but the wiki entry seems to stop short of calling it a thing - > [@](#): > > In 2010 this phenomenon of collective false memory was dubbed the “Mandela Effect” by self-described “paranormal consultant” Fiona Broome, in reference to a false memory she reports, of the death of South African leader Nelson Mandela in the 1980s (rather than in 2013 when he actually died), which she claims is shared by “perhaps thousands” of other people. ---
**Author:** ![poto63](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7c8e57/32.png) [@poto63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/poto63)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2018, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/584 "2018-05-01T21:27:56Z")
It is interesting reading the posts here. I am also one of those who, yes, **actually saw the additional clip at the end of this movie** with Josh and his friend in the classroom. I was an adult at the time. I, as well as my husband, saw it in the theater and was wholly disappointed when renting it only to have the scene missing. I had never heard of the movie “14 going on 30” prior to reading about it on this board so that cannot be a factor in what I remember. As far a mass hallucinations go, count me in on this one. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2018, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/585 "2018-05-01T21:34:00Z")
> [@poto63](#): > > It is interesting reading the posts here. > > I am also one of those who, yes, **actually saw the additional clip at the end of this movie** with Josh and his friend in the classroom. I was an adult at the time. I, as well as my husband, saw it in the theater and was wholly disappointed when renting it only to have the scene missing. I had never heard of the movie “14 going on 30” prior to reading about it on this board so that cannot be a factor in what I remember. As far a mass hallucinations go, count me in on this one. What theatre, and when? Edited to add: The other movie can certainly be a factor even if you’ve never heard of it-all it would take is to see the tail end of it while flipping through channels and assuming it was part of the movie “Big”. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2018, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/586 "2018-05-01T21:36:13Z")
It has been [del]246[/del] 0 days since someone last remembered seeing the alternate ending to Big. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2018, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/587 "2018-05-01T21:42:06Z")
> [@poto63](#): > > I am also one of those who, yes, **actually saw the additional clip at the end of this movie** with Josh and his friend in the classroom. I was an adult at the time. I, as well as my husband, saw it in the theater and was wholly disappointed when renting it only to have the scene missing. I had never heard of the movie “14 going on 30” prior to reading about it on this board so that cannot be a factor in what I remember. As far a mass hallucinations go, count me in on this one. Yeah, the scene never existed. I know. It seems like it did, but it didn’t. I hadn’t heard of 14 going on 30 either, but the ending to that is what we’re remember. [Here it is if you want to see it.](https://youtu.be/6783tkwbZw0?t=119) ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2018, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/588 "2018-05-01T22:23:59Z")
> [@poto63](#): > > I had never heard of the movie “14 going on 30” prior to reading about it on this board so that cannot be a factor in what I remember. As far a mass hallucinations go, count me in on this one. OMG! Not only do you misremember seeing that false ending, you now don’t remember that you saw 14 going on 30. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2018, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/589 "2018-05-01T22:35:29Z")
Interesting how people claim to have seen the ending of _14 Going on 30_ in the theater, whereas that movie was only shown on television. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/590 "2018-05-02T00:43:40Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > Interesting how people claim to have seen the ending of _14 Going on 30_ in the theater, whereas that movie was only shown on television. Not really interesting at all. Just jumbled up memories. Happens to me all the time. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/591 "2018-05-02T00:48:40Z")
_14 Going on 30_ showed on the ABC network in the U.S. on March 6, 1988. _Big_ opened in movie theaters in the U.S. on June 3, 1988. I suspect that some people were watching TV on March 6th, fell asleep in front of the TV, and woke up to see just the last scene of the film, which ended at 11:00 PM. I suspect that their memory is not of watching the whole film but of seeing just the last scene from it. They then saw _Big_ when it opened later that year. Years later, they conflated the two movies in their minds. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/592 "2018-05-02T00:49:48Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > Interesting how people claim to have seen the ending of _14 Going on 30_ in the theater, whereas that movie was only shown on television. Is it? I mean, these are people who are already either conflating memories of two different events or (as I suggested upthread last year) are “remembering” an ending that they just imagined. I think it’s interesting that people can feel certain they accurately remember things that that never really happened, but there’s nothing special about an inaccurate memory set in a movie theater. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/593 "2018-05-02T00:54:12Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Is it? I mean, these are people who are already either conflating memories of two different events or (as I suggested upthread last year) are “remembering” an ending that they just imagined. I think it’s interesting that people can feel certain they accurately remember things that that never really happened, but there’s nothing special about an inaccurate memory set in a movie theater. I mean, the Mandela Effect is a pretty widely documented phenomenon, and I see no reason not to think this is not just an example of this. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/594 "2018-05-02T13:19:06Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I mean, the Mandela Effect is a pretty widely documented phenomenon, and I see no reason not to think this is not just an example of this. It’s better than that. Not only is there no reason not to think this is not just an example of it, there is a plethora of evidence that NO SCENE EVER EXISTED or was filmed at the end of Big. This is turning into atheism, agnosticism, and theism. A theist believes in God(thinks there is an alternative ending to Big). An agnostic isn’t sure(thinks there isn’t, but there could be), and an atheist believes there is no God(the ending doesn’t exist). I believe in God when it comes to theology. For the Big ending, though, I’m a “Alternative Ending Atheist”. Not even agnostic. There is NO ending where the lady became young again. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/595 "2018-05-02T13:54:53Z")
At this point I’m totally rooting for footage of the alleged alternative ending to crop up, like the “In the butt Bob” snippet. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/596 "2018-05-02T14:43:12Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > It’s better than that. Not only is there no reason not to think this is not just an example of it, there is a plethora of evidence that NO SCENE EVER EXISTED or was filmed at the end of Big. > > This is turning into atheism, agnosticism, and theism. A theist believes in God(thinks there is an alternative ending to Big). An agnostic isn’t sure(thinks there isn’t, but there could be), and an atheist believes there is no God(the ending doesn’t exist). > > I believe in God when it comes to theology. For the Big ending, though, I’m a “Alternative Ending Atheist”. Not even agnostic. There is NO ending where the lady became young again. “I remember seeing the alternate ending to BIG in the theater.” “You’re confused, Mom; that was some different actors, on television.” “But I _remember_ seeing it. And I will tell people that I remember it.” “I remember seeing Jesus walk on water, out at sea.” “You’re confused, Mom; that was Uncle Dave, when the lake froze over.” “But I _remember_ seeing it. And I will tell people that I remember it.” ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/597 "2018-05-02T18:31:33Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > At this point I’m totally rooting for footage of the alleged alternative ending to crop up, like the “In the butt Bob” snippet. Couple things about that. The way people “remembered” the episode and told the story, at least as I’ve heard it, was different in a few notable places. As I heard it, it was a black couple and it was “up the butt, Bob!” And it’s rather remarkable that a number of people from whom I’ve heard the story have told it that way. Instead, what happened was it was a white couple and the answer was a simple “in the ass?” Also, evidence of that surfaced way back in 2000, pre-You Tube days. You’d think in the 18 years since, with everything and anything on the internet these days, _somebody_ would have found evidence of it. Some of the claims are that it was shown routinely in the UK or that it was on the New Zealand VHS release. If either of those were true, surely it would have surfaced by now. Like people swearing it was spelled “Berenstein Bears” in their childhood, or there was a Sinbad movie called Shazaam, or that “Sex And the City” is called or was called “Sex In the City” at one time, or that Curious George is illustrated with a tail (there’s no drawings of him in any of the Curious George books, so far as I know, with a tail), etc. False memories are weird. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/598 "2018-05-02T18:44:12Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > False memories are weird. What’s really weird is that because of this thread, I can now totally picture this “alternate” ending in my head, even though I know it doesn’t exist. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/599 "2018-05-02T19:08:59Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Couple things about that. The way people “remembered” the episode and told the story, at least as I’ve heard it, was different in a few notable places. As I heard it, it was a black couple and it was “up the butt, Bob!” And it’s rather remarkable that a number of people from whom I’ve heard the story have told it that way. Instead, what happened was it was a white couple and the answer was a simple “in the ass?”. The problem is that _nobody_ heard it when it aired because those shows weren’t broadcast live, and the phrase, whatever it really was and whoever really said it, would never have passed the censors. If that segment aired at all during the original run, then the most anyone could ever have heard was _possibly_ “_BLEEP_ the _BLEEP_”. If you are going to claim to have heard something, try to make it something that actually could have been said. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/600 "2018-05-02T19:41:59Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > At this point I’m totally rooting for footage of the alleged alternative ending to crop up, like the “In the butt Bob” snippet. they should just fucking film it already. Hell, a 3-minute short on Youtube would get enough views to monetize it up the wazoo, if this thread is any indication. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864.md?page=29) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864.md?page=31)