Libertarian: Newlywed Game Remark

Great Debates
1

A while ago, there was a long thread in which Libertarian insisted he’d seen an episode of The Newlywed Game in which a contestant was asked where the strangest place she’d made whoopee was, and she said, “That’d be the butt, Bob.”

This was known to many as an urban legend and a long argument ensued in which Libertarian said he saw it (as did his then-fiance/now wife, and some other folks) and others asked him to prove it.

This went back and forth for a while, and even migrated a bit onto the snopes site (before their current message board, when they had a more old-fashioned one).

Anyway, why am I bringing this up again?

Because snopes has updated the legend with an audio and video clip of something close to this – close enough that I think the rest of the “details” could have been filled in through the same process of false memories that I mentioned in the original thread.

I was unable, for whatever reason (including quite possibly my own technical inabilities in this area) to run the video, but did run the audio. It deals with this question and has a woman answering. The answer is “whistled” out, as they generally did for that show (one reason we gave for it being virtually impossible that it could have been heard the way it was claimed), but you can tell it was probably a body part.

In any event, I suspect Libertarian, his wife, whoever, probably saw this episode, and it’s the one they were thinking about.

http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/newlywed.htm

– David

2

I was able to view the video, and the first thing I noticed was his really bushy beard.

In the original thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=22386

On page 3 Libertarian says:

Although not black, the guy has a really bushy beard and 'burns.

I hope Libertarian sees this thread, this could very well be what he saw.

3

Thanks for finding the thread. I thought I’d archived it, so I didn’t even bother to try.

4

Hmmmm. Now, that episode may have been taped, but would it have gone out on the air, if at all? This WAS a taped show, and I doubt that 1. It would have gone out, or 2. If it did go out the local program directors would air it.

5

FHM magazine last year had a tape date for the episode where this supposedly happened. I don’t know what their source was.

When someone said something improper, there was a “cuckoo” sound, I think, but they didn’t cover up the mouth.

(I have not seen this clip, yet.)

6

Wow. Jeez, I never participated in the original thread, but if I had, I no doubt would have thrown all the arguments at Libertarian that most of the original posters did.

Thing are funny in retrospect… while those of us here are generally hardcore skeptics, and while all evidence did indeed point to his being wrong on this one, the law of averages caught up with us.

Occasionally, we’re wrong. completely wrong. He was dead-on right on all counts… who would tape the newlywed game?
maybe bob eubanks had a faulty memory after all! I guess once in a while, it’s easy to say that after 20 years of an unusual tale which cannot be documented, maybe once in a great while we can be wrong.

While a few hardcore internet geeks would be aware of the bob eubanks 10k reward, most people would not be. as a hardcore net geek myself, this was the first i ever heard of it.

I’d like to apologize on behalf of everyone who doubted you, Libertarian. The “up the butt” vs. “in the ass” differences are inconsequencial. It really did happen.

I guess on behalf of all the skeptics who ripped you a new asshole, understand that this was an anamoly… usually the simplest answer is the correct answer… after 20+ years no definitive proof had surfaced to substantiate this claim. But once in a while, someone comes along to remind us that we can be dead-wrong in our assumptions, and we all learn from these mistakes.

Anyway, I hope you’re still around and are still reading this. It wasn’t a false memory, and you were most certainly not wrong… Thanks for sticking to your guns and making a lot of us think about holding firm to our positions with what now has proven to be tenuous evidence :slight_smile:

Although if you come back and claim to have awoken in an ice-bath with a missing kidney, I’ll start pulling my lovely hair out.

7

Zuma said:

Um, I wouldn’t at all go that far. His version, along with the urban legend version, is rather different than what actually happened. It wasn’t a black couple. You couldn’t hear her answer (because it was censored). We’re not even entirely sure what the answer was because it was censored (we can guess, obviously). As the snopes page now says about the truth of the legend, “Sort of.”

Please don’t do us any favors. As you said, you weren’t involved in that discussion. There are still some problems with the story, and I still think his memory was contaminated by the legend, whether he knows it or not.

But it was. Unless the couple was black. Maybe not completely false, but false nonetheless.

8

[Moderator Hat: ON]
Douglips started a new thread on this same subject. There’s no reason to have two on the exact same thing, so I’m reposting his message here and locking the other.
[Moderator Hat: OFF]

Douglips’ Message:

Eons ago, Libertarian launched a thread called Up the Butt, Bob in which he and his now lovely bride maintained that they saw the famous episode of The Newlywed Game in which a contestant responds to the question “Where is the strangest place you’ve made love” with “Up the Butt, Bob” or some variation thereto. This episode was generally thought not to exist, and therefore all reports of sightings have been regarded skeptically.

The thread ended up with Libertarian frustrated at all the skeptics taunting him that it didn’t happen, but realizing that it was near impossible to prove either way, so he gave up but swore to return when he had concrete evidence.

The thread also spawned a Trapper John M.D. to its MASH, a gen-yuu-wine Straight Dope column Did some Japanese soldiers hold out for years after WWII?. Of course, the column has nothing to do with butts or The Newlywed Game.

Back on topic, the folks at Snopes have recently updated their page on this legend, Up the butt, Bob, with the new status Sort of. Here is a quote and an episode and date from this page:
quote:

Recently a Newlywed Game clip has come to light that may or may not be the origin of this legend. In a 1977 “Maternity Day” episode, Hank Perez guessed that his wife Olga would say the strangest place she’d ever had the urge to make whoopee was in their car on the freeway. When the wives were brought in to provide their answers to the same question, here is what transpired:
quote:

[prelude snipped - douglips]

Olga: I’m trying to think. Umm . . . [Turns to husband.] Gee Henry, what did you say?

Bob: Hey, don’t ask him. He can’t help you out at all.

Olga: Is it in the ass? [Last three words bleeped]

Bob: No no no . . . no . . . what I’m talking about is the weirdest location, the weirdest place . . .

You can also download a video clip of the episode, as well - I haven’t seen it as my computer is currently ill, but the link is on the snopes page.

So, it’s not quite the exact fit that would entitle Lib to walk around town for a month with David B. on a leash wearing nothing but a diaper and a large sign saying “I was wrong”, but at least it’s within the realm of possibility that Lib saw said episode and retroactively changed the dialog in his mind to “Up the Butt, Bob” when he read of the urban legend.

Now, what is there to debate you ask? Whether or not I should have reopened that monster of a thread instead of posting a new one. The damn thing had well over 200 posts and I didn’t think a new post tagged on the end would be helpful. The only reason this is in GD is because the original thread was also here - I hope that the wrath of David or Gaudere will not rain down too harshly upon me for this. Perhaps for the diaper comment, though…

I’d give my left buns-cheek for a Wally sig.

9

That’s me, uber-dork. Thanks for cleaning up my mess, David.

Oh, and by the way, one of the first reasons given on the old thread why Libertarian could not have heard “up the butt” was because it would have been bleeped out, and in fact “in the ass” was.

10

It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but I seem to remember this clip is shown in the Michael Moore movie ‘Roger and Me’.

11

I don’t really have anything to add, except that I remember the thread in question, and it was one of my all-time favorites since I’ve been here.

Lib was so convinced that he was right, and you guys were pretty merciless. It was one of the best kick-back-with-a-lawn-chair-and-a-cold-one spectator threads I can ever remember.

12

The real point of the OP on the original thread is that true skeptics simply disbelieve everything that they encounter. Quoth Lib:

At least with snopes, this is clearly not the case. The fact that they changed the status in light of the new finding illustrates this. As with Dopers, snopesters want to get at the truth, not become hyperskeptics.

13

I just watched the clip. The couple is quite dark-skinned, and one or both might well be of African extraction. Black.

The woman, Olga, was asked the strangest place she and her hubby had ever “made whoopie.”

She replied “in the ass.”

I don’t thinkk there’s much wiggle room here David. Your point about false memories is absolutely true–memory is a tricky business and often unreliable.

But Libertarian was right.

14

Well, I was one of Lib’s defenders on the original thread.

It just didn’t make sense that he would unwaveringly claim to have such specific memories (as did his fiance) if they were all completely false and imaginary.

While his memory was a little faulty, it’s obvious he saw what he did, and that in essence, he was right. Maybe not 100% correct in every detail, but c’mon. He got the gist of it. To those of you who were insisting that his whole memory was false, I think this is a Big Time vindication of Libertarian.

Of course I give David a lot of credit for bringing up this thread, with the new Snopes information.

15

[a hijacking, but I’ll return you to the same point]

This reminds me of a UL that was being addressed on one of the UseNet groups several years ago. The brief version is: girl and boyfriend hack her husband into pieces, take pictures of themselves with the various body parts, then take the film to be developed. Film processor notifies, police; couple arrested when they go to claim their glossies.

The overwhelming prevailing opinion was that it didn’t happen, because no one could be that stupid. There was the usual absence of specifics such as location, names, and so forth. It was dismissed with prejudice as a false UL, despite one or two pleas from posters that it really happened.

By an odd stroke of luck I found the evidence. I was teaching at police training organization at the time, and one of the homicide instructors knew the original investigating officer. He had copies of the case report and photos of the scene, as well as the amateur photos.

The truth was: the girl and boyfriend did hack up her husband, and they did take pictures of the severed body parts, solo and with themselves. But they did not take the film to be developed; the camera was discovered at the crime scene, and the film was developed by the police.

So, the irony portion of the story was false, but the core of the story was very true, which I suppose garners it a “sort of” designation. The parallel to this thread is that after the evidence and full story became known to the UseNet group, some were saying that the cynics had become too cynical by denying that anything even close to the legend could have happened.

Personally, I think cynicism is a good thing if you have enough faith.

16

Quick partial hijack-
Raza, the events you were talking about were posted on a website entitled “Natural Born Losers”. On it, the author claimed that they were done in by the person who did the film developing. The site’s mirror is here (WARNING: VERY EXPLICIT IMAGES) http://www.grotesque.com/html/losers.htm .

17

I don’t believe so, I just watched this movie on Sunday night and don’t recall seeing the clip. Bob Eubanks does feature in the movie, but the raciest stuff is Bob telling casual ugly (i.e. anti-semitic and homophobic) jokes in a one-on-one with the camera.

18

Andros said:

Hmmm. Well, like I said, I couldn’t see the clip (just got a frozen first frame), but what I saw looked white, if fuzzy. I can’t say either way and was going by what somebody else had said.

He was apparently right that he had seen something similar to what he’d described. However, he was not simply “right.” For one, he insisted that he heard her say it (even going so far as to argue that it would not have been censored). Since it was “cuckood” out, we know that is not true. Other parts of what he said aren’t true either.

For example, he had said:

The clip doesn’t bear this out. There was, in fact, quite a bit of hesitation. And she didn’t say what he claims she said.

He also said:

Now, as I noted, I didn’t see the clip, so you’ll have to tell me if any part of this is correct. But the audio clip I heard doesn’t seem to bear this out. Eubanks didn’t stop in “stunned amazement,” but rather kept on going and told her that she had to name a place. I don’t think there was enough time on the audio clip to go through all the camera changes Lib mentioned, but, again, I’ll have to rely on somebody else to help with that.

I think what we have here, in general, is something related to another message posted in this thread. There seems to be a feeling that just because evidence is found of something, that means it’s not an urban legend any more. Not true. Jan Harold Brunvand, the dean of urban legends, makes the point in many of his books that something can have a true beginning and still turn into an urban legend (or, in reverse, something can be an urban legend and eventually something will happen that goes along with it).

Did Lib see something similar to what this clip shows? Probably. Was that “contaminated” with the urban legend version, which is different from what actually appears to have been said? Again, I would say probably. This is why snopes categorized its veracity as “sort of.”

19

David B said:

**

Having lurked through the original thread, and now having watched the clip, I gotta say, I’m a little disappointed in Snopes for continuing to attempt to weasel out of admitting they were wrong.

Quote from Snopes:

**

Oh, so we insist that the actual event that inspired a story that has been circulating for years corresponds in every detail with the current version of the story? Come on guys, haven’t we all played telephone when we were kids? Don’t you remember that a simple message passed through even a small number of people can become hopelessly garbled? Plus, I’m sure hundreds of amatuer comedians have altered the story to suit their tastes or audience.

So the couple ain’t black, big deal, they sure ain’t WASPs from New York either.

So she said “In the ass” instead of “That’d be the butt, Bob.” “That’d be the butt, Bob” is far funnier IMHO, and thus, as reasonable edit from the original for someone telling to story to get a laugh.

So it was bleeped out, rather than said openenly. Again, much funnier if it goes over the air for all to hear.

If we are going to try to make a chicken and egg argument, the most reasonable conclusion to draw IMHO is that this clip is in fact the beginning of the “urban legend”. If it is, then the story is not an urban legend, it is an account of an actual event that has been altered through repeated retellings.

If you want to say that the story came first, then I’m gonna want to see some proof, such as air dates for the episode versus earliest documented sighting of the proposed UL.

Until then, I’m gonna have to say that Lib was right, this is not an urban legend, it actually happened.

gEEk

20

My question is, who got Bob Eubank’s $10,000 dollar reward for finding the clip? Snopes seems to imply no one has either claimed it, or it hasn’t been paid out yet.

I’d still be surprised if the thing actually aired, or if it just showed up on a bloopers show or tape somewhere. Even being “cuckooed” out, that still seems a mite racy for the time period it would have been showed.

By the by, when I went to check the video clip this morning, the link didn’t exist, so I’m not sure if it’s still there or not. The audio link worked, though. Seems fairly convincing to me, niggly little details aside.

Esprix