# Anyone else remember the alternate ending to "Big"?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864
**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:** 7
### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2013, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/121 "2013-06-23T18:12:19Z")
> [@80\_s\_Child](#):
>
> I have never posted a comment in my life but some of you people are making me Mad! Just because you haven’t personally seen the other ending doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist or the poster must be thinking of a different movie.
> I saw Big when it came out in the theatre and it had the ending where the girl becomes 13 and is introduced to his class at school.
> When I first rented the movie on VHS, I almost went ballistic when it ended differently where the two boys were walking their bikes down the street.
> YOU ARE NOT CRAZY! THIS VERSION DOES EXIST!
> Thank you.
You are incapable of misremembering events over a long period of time?
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2013, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/122 "2013-06-23T19:48:38Z")
Y’know, we have among (above?) us someone who could reach knowledgeable people up to and including Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Perkins, David Moscow and Penny Marshall, and get an absolutely definitive answer. This would seem to be a significant and persistent enough film legend or not to be worthy of the attention and column inches. Just sayin’.
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2013, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/123 "2013-06-23T22:42:54Z")
> [@80\_s\_Child](#):
>
> YOU ARE NOT CRAZY! THIS VERSION DOES EXIST!
Did you even read the thread?
You didn’t read the thread.
There is another movie that had that ending. A link to a youtube video of that movie ending is right here: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6783tkwbZw0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6783tkwbZw0)
That is the ending that people claim to remember. It is the ending for a similar movie that you misremembered as “Big”.
If there is an alternate ending to “Big” please copy the video to Youtube and post a link as proof. If you can’t, then there’s no particular reason to believe your decades-old memory. I mean, I can’t prove that your memory is wrong, but given the evidence it is extremely unlikely that your memory is correct.
The only way anyone can change my mind is to provide evidence other than their memories. For the love of fuck: future people stop posting that you have a memory of this happening. I understand you have this memory. Your memory is wrong. If you want to convince me otherwise please provide something other than a report about your memory.
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### Author:  [@80\_s\_Child](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/80_s_Child)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2013, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/124 "2013-06-24T05:49:22Z")
Lemer866 - Yes I did read the thread and the movie you are talking about is 14 going on 30. I have never seen this movie so how can I be remembering it.
Czarcasm - How dare you presume to know about my memory!
Here we go- I saw the movie “Big” in June 1988 in Okemos Michigan at the meridian Mall Theater #4
(the same theater I saw “Stripes” in).It was unseasonably warm that night so we decided not to se it at the drive-in. I had just got married a month before.
Or am I thinking of “Married to the Mob.”(also 1988) It’s so hard to remember that far back.
Look, all I did was respond to a post asking about a movie ending and I told them I too have seen this ending. To all you people who haven’t seen this ending and are spouting hate, really your comments are not relevant to the original question of “Does anyone else remember the alternate ending to Big?”(Kind of a yes or no don’t you think?)
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### Author:  [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2013, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/125 "2013-06-24T06:00:32Z")
> [@80\_s\_Child](#):
>
> [snip]
> Or am I thinking of “Married to the Mob.”(also 1988) It’s so hard to remember that far back.
> [snip]
Exactly. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2013, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/126 "2013-06-24T06:22:18Z")
We are not spouting hate. Mixing together two things in your memory is something that everyone does occasionally. That’s how our memories work. You watched the TV movie _14 Going on 30_ on ABC on March 6, 1988. Three months later you watched _Big_ in the theater. You mixed them together in your mind. That’s not a criticism of you. It’s just typical of how human memories are not as good as we usually think they are.
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### Author:  [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2013, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/127 "2013-06-24T06:59:43Z")
I’ll admit, I’m beginning to suspect slightly that they might not be wrong. Is there any other case of an alternative ending that people insist they have seen? Also, the posts where the posters talk about being upset when they saw the movie a different time are getting to me.
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2013, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/128 "2013-06-24T13:54:08Z")
> [@mr.jp](#):
>
> I’ll admit, I’m beginning to suspect slightly that they might not be wrong. Is there any other case of an alternative ending that people insist they have seen? Also, the posts where the posters talk about being upset when they saw the movie a different time are getting to me.
I don’t know about movies, but there have been interesting studies on the accuracy of memories with experiments like [the Challenger Study](http://whywereason.com/tag/the-challenger-study/). In this one, the professor asked his class the day after the explosion and then two and a half years later the details of what they were doing, where they were, etc., when they found out. Even with such an important moment that should be seared into one’s memory and with only a 2 1/2 year difference in time from the actual event to recall, 25% of the students had significantly different memories. Only 10% had all the details right, and the rest fell somewhere in the middle in terms of errors.
[This page contains one example](http://atheism.about.com/od/parapsychology/a/memory.htm) of the answers from a particular student, and this note:
> [@](#):
>
> Self-reports of reliability were no indication of accuracy — those who had inaccurate reports were just as likely to be confident as students whose memories were unchanged. Even more interesting was the students’ reactions to the discrepancies. None denied the accuracy of the original statements — but, according to one, “I still remember everything happening the way I told you. I can’t help it.”
Memory really is a weird, weird thing.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2013, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/129 "2013-06-24T14:19:56Z")
> [@80\_s\_Child](#):
>
> Czarcasm - How dare you presume to know about my memory!
There aren’t enough :rolleyes:s on the internet for that response.
> [@80\_s\_Child](#):
>
> To all you people who haven’t seen this ending and are spouting hate…
Now what do I do? The internet is out of :rolleyes:s due to the previous silliness of yours.
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2013, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/130 "2013-06-24T14:27:28Z")
> [@mr.jp](#):
>
> I’ll admit, I’m beginning to suspect slightly that they might not be wrong. Is there any other case of an alternative ending that people insist they have seen? Also, the posts where the posters talk about being upset when they saw the movie a different time are getting to me.
So if enough people have a conflated memory of the alternative ending then there’s something to it? Ah, another instance of the “Big” Lie.
🙂
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2013, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/131 "2013-06-24T18:27:08Z")
Again, it is not 1988 any more. The media landscape is completely different. There’s no such thing as bootleg versions that you can only get in France, and you have to know a guy who used to work for Steven Spielberg’s cousin.
You remember a different ending for Big. And I believe that you remember a different ending for Big. But you are misremembering. Your memory is not accurate. Memory is notoriously inaccurate. People have been sent to prison for decades based on eyewitness testimony, which has later been proven to have been physically impossible to have occurred. Memory does not work the way most people imagine it works. You don’t have a little VCR in your head recording everything, and when you remember something you play back the VCR. Memory is much more like imagining something, or dreaming.
This is why I won’t believe that there was an alternate ending to “Big” without evidence OTHER THAN YOUR MEMORY. We know there was a similar movie at a similar time that exactly matches people’s memory of the alternate ending.
Which is more plausible–that you watched the other movie, forgot about it, and when you rewatched “Big” thought that scenes from the other movie were from “Big”. Or, that there is a secret alternate version that only airs in the UK and Indonesia every third decade, you can’t get it here in America.
We have plenty of members here from the UK. They have the internet in the UK nowadays. They have cameras and video recording devices. It would be trivial for someone from the UK to post a video clip from the alternate version to Youtube.
It is more plausible that you misremembered than that the alternate version exists but all records of it have been erased from the globe. If you want to change my mind you have to do more than insist that you really do remember the alternate version. Because I believe you remember the alternate version, I just believe your memory is wrong.
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2013, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/132 "2013-06-24T18:32:21Z")
> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> We have plenty of members here from the UK. They have the internet in the UK nowadays. They have cameras and video recording devices. It would be trivial for someone from the UK to post a video clip from the alternate version to Youtube.
Not to mention that the people who made the movie have no recollection of writing or filming this alternate ending.
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### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2013, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/133 "2013-06-24T18:52:39Z")
Not quite as striking, but along the same lines (memory being much more a construct than a recording) is the following fact. I spent two weeks in Ireland, and did a lot of driving while there. I drove a car with the steering wheel on the right side, and I drove on the left side. I know this to be true because–it was Ireland. I couldn’t possibly have driven in any other way.
Yet as I recall my trip, I _cannot_ remember driving on the left side with myself on the right side of the car. My memories–and they are very clear!–are of driving on the right side with the steering wheel on the left of the car. These are completely vivid memories. If I’d forgotten about the laws for driving in Ireland for some reason, I’d swear to you, with money on the line, without reservation, that I drove in Ireland in exactly the same way I drive here in the US. The memories are just that stark.
We make our memories, we don’t record them. My brain has so little experience with left-side driving that, when it’s thinking about my Ireland trip, it just supplies what it _does_ know: right-side driving.
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### Author:  [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2013, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/134 "2013-06-24T19:46:48Z")
This thread reminds of a conversation I had with a student assistant at work several years ago. He claimed to have seen an episode of _Oprah_ where Liz Claiborne claimed that she gave a percentage of her company’s profits to the Church of Satan. I’ve been interested in urban legends since the early 90s and immediately recognized that his claim was an urban legend. I tried to explain that it wasn’t possible for him to have seen this since it didn’t actually happen, etc. He wouldn’t change his claim. He was absolutely adamant that he he had seen the program and wouldn’t be swayed. This is how memory sometimes works.
> **[Liz Claiborne Doesn't Design for Black Women](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/liz-biz/)**
>
> Does designer Liz Claiborne refuse to make clothes for black women because their hips are too big?
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2013, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/135 "2013-06-27T17:34:04Z")
> [@Accidental\_Martyr](#):
>
> This is how memory sometimes works.
> [Liz Claiborne Doesn't Design for Black Women | Snopes.com](http://www.snopes.com/racial/business/claiborne.asp)
As a subeditor, I am gobsmacked that _Esquire_ would publish what Spike Lee said without any fact-checking. Presumably Liz Claiborne sued the pants off them for libel?
The fact that you are repeating in print what somebody says during an interview does not exempt you from libel laws. If that interview landed on my desk for editing I’d be on the phone to the company lawyers, and Oprah and Claiborne’s people, in minutes.
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2013, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/136 "2013-06-27T17:47:05Z")
> [@Colophon](#):
>
> As a subeditor, I am gobsmacked that _Esquire_ would publish what Spike Lee said without any fact-checking. Presumably Liz Claiborne sued the pants off them for libel?
>
> The fact that you are repeating in print what somebody says during an interview does not exempt you from libel laws. If that interview landed on my desk for editing I’d be on the phone to the company lawyers, and Oprah and Claiborne’s people, in minutes.
US libel law is quite different than UK libel law–here it’s very much tilted in favor of the news source. There’s nuances to it, but generally you have to prove “actual malice” in the US for public figures.
[Wikipedia on it:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_figure)
> [@](#):
>
> In United States law, public figure is a term applied in the context of defamation actions (libel and slander) as well as invasion of privacy. A public figure (such as a politician, celebrity, or business leader) cannot base a sample on incorrect harmful statements unless there is proof that the writer or publisher acted with actual malice (knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth).[1] The burden of proof in defamation actions is higher in the case of a public figure.
Maybe you can find something in the “reckless disregard for the truth,” I suppose.
ETA: I am not an attorney, so take that into consideration.
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2013, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/137 "2013-06-27T17:49:11Z")
> [@Telemark](#):
>
> Not to mention that the people who made the movie have no recollection of writing or filming this alternate ending.
Has that ever been established? As I said above, it would be a worthy task for Unca Cecil. Also a fairly easy one, whereas us lesser beings would have to work through chains of contacts to get to, say, Tom Hanks or Penny Marshall.
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2013, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/138 "2013-06-27T17:52:56Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#):
>
> Has that ever been established? As I said above, it would be a worthy task for Unca Cecil. Also a fairly easy one, whereas us lesser beings would have to work through chains of contacts to get to, say, Tom Hanks or Penny Marshall.
Post #103 has Elizabeth Perkins, at least, saying no alternate ending was shot. (But, as noted, she wouldn’t have had to have been present for it.)
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### Author:  [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2013, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/139 "2013-06-27T18:01:27Z")
> [@pulykamell](#):
>
> Post #103 has Elizabeth Perkins, at least, saying no alternate ending was shot. (But, as noted, she wouldn’t have had to have been present for it.)
In the supposed alternate ending of “Big” who played the younger version of Elizabeth Perkins’ character, Susan? Why wasn’t she credited for the part?
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2013, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-remember-the-alternate-ending-to-big/103864/140 "2013-06-27T18:38:53Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#):
>
> In the supposed alternate ending of “Big” who played the younger version of Elizabeth Perkins’ character, Susan? Why wasn’t she credited for the part?
There are no credits for deleted or alternate characters. If there were an alternate cut, the actress would be credited there, but not in the (only) (released) cut with the walk-away ending.
An absolute answer is so close - between Cecil and any Doper who has good H’wood ties, a definitive answer is a few phone calls away.
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