The cultural Glitch in the Matrix moment you're most convinced did exist.

Example, a book, movie, song TV episode you saw that never really happened.

Or maybe celebrity that died, that didn’t.

Myself, once during my Twilight Zone binge…I was watching “Midnight Sun” and I thought, “Oh…I saw this when it was a Night Gallery episode. It will turn out the Earth is actually freezing not burning up”

I actually remembered the painting featured in the Gallery episode melting before the episode commenced.

Nope…never happened.

I can think of one movie that’s definitely going to be mentioned in this thread, BIG-LEAGUE.

Probably the most famous example is Nelson Mandela. A lot of people remember hearing that he died in prison.

A killer bees movie, 1980s?, in which the bees took over the United Nations, and demanded that humans stopped messing up the planet.

I’m still sure that I heard the song “You Get What You Give” by New Radicals when I was in high school, despite it being released in 1998, 7 years after I graduated.

It was alluded to upthread, but the alternate ending to “Big.”

I’m certain I remember reports that Jim Henson died from the spread of a severely infected tooth. Nope. It was initially reported as pneumonia, but turned out to be toxic shock syndrome from an abscess in his lung.

I thought you were joking but holy shit this is an actual movie (scene you mentioned is at about 1:30 but all the obvious stock footage before that with crazy bee effects pasted over is also great)

I only heard about this phenomenon recently, and it’s complete anathema to me. All the “Free Nelson Mandela” stuff, his release from prison, becoming President of South Africa…but people were surprised when he died because they apparently thought he’d died in prison? It really feels as silly as suggesting that Bob Dylan or Paul McCartney died in the 60s.

I can only conclude it’s down to different levels of news coverage in different areas of the world.

There was a movie I remember seeing part of when I was a kid. An advertising executive creates an ad campaign for a product that doesn’t exist, along with commercials and slogans that hype the product without any hint of what it actually is. There was one slogan I particularly remembered.

Saw it a couple weeks ago on one of the classic movie channels. It was unquestionably the same movie, but the slogan I remembered was nowhere in it.

Was it “that’s the beauty of it. It doesn’t do anything?”

I could have sworn I saw the episode where the Sharks turned down the Uber guys. But apparently, that show does not be exist.

No. I do remember the thread where we tried to get to the origin of that phrase.

Perhaps a bit obscure, but I was a bit disappointed when D&D 5th edition removed Reverse Gravity from the list of spells that could be made permanent, because after all, that’d been a permanent-able spell from right back to the beginning. I was even more disappointed when I got out my old books and realized that some joker had broken into my home and retroactively edited the books from 3rd and 2nd edition, too.

The first time I heard Dave Matthews: Satellite I was 100% sure that it was stolen from a Leo Kottke song I had heard. But after scrolling through every track on his Essentials album, I still couldn’t find it.

At a party, I once insisted that the last strip of Calvin and Hobbes had Calvin leaves Hobbes (in toy form) behind to go play with the a boy who had just moved in next door. The host had the complete collection and proved me wrong.

I’m aware of the famous fake ending, but that one was about Calvin getting put on medication which ‘cures’ him. The one I remember was just a bittersweet strip about growing up and leaving old things behind. And it apparently never happened.

It did in some knockoff strips.

I remember reading in 1998 that Diana Rigg had died. Not only is that not true, she’s still here and working even now.

So either I did read it and they were mistaken; or I misinterpreted it by getting a name mixed up; or it never happened, and it was a dream or something.

*All of the main Avengers cast are still alive, aside from Patrick Macnee and that was only a couple of years ago

There are people who are convinced that they saw a version of Star Wars, back in '77, with the Biggs-and-Luke scenes early in the movie. What they are actually remembering is photos in The Star Wars Storybook.

People also think it said “Episode IV” during its initial release. It didn’t.

I remember an alternate ending to Big where his girlfriend becomes young and shows up in his class.*

*Kidding!

Was the film Searching for Sugarman?

An unknown 60’s singer, famous in South Africa is reported to have killed himself on stage. Eventually it is found out that he is alive and well and unaware of how famous he is in South Africa.

This to me says as much about how government misinformation is used to control people. The rumour was likely seeded to control his western freedom loving message.