# The moment you realize you aren't watching what you thought you were **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 28, 2009, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116 "2009-03-28T20:21:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jules\_Andre](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jules_andre/32/9334_2.png) [@Jules\_Andre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jules_Andre)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/21 "2009-03-29T20:24:25Z")
> [@jackelope](#): > > Even after taking the spaces out of your link I still get a “Page Not Found” error? Did you get the space before the www? ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/22 "2009-03-29T20:32:29Z")
> [@jackelope](#): > > Even after taking the spaces out of your link I still get a “Page Not Found” error? I got a link to the IMDB page for [Bilitis](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075753/). I don’t know why the link needed to be broken. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/23 "2009-03-29T21:03:14Z")
I saw The Lion in Winter and told my brother how much I enjoyed it, and then he saw a movie (Becket) on cable that had Peter O’Toole playing Henry II, except everything else about it wasn’t The Lion in Winter. He didn’t see the whole thing but he wanted to tell me about the part he did see. First I was confused, then he was confused that I was confused, then I assumed I had missed part of it the first time and started pretending I wasn’t confused, then everybody was confused. ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/24 "2009-03-29T21:03:15Z")
> [@Jules\_Andre](#): > > Did you get the space before the www? I did, and it still was taking me to a Page Not Found. Oddly, the error page wasn’t on the IMDB domain, either. Works fine now, though. ---
**Author:** ![zenith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zenith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zenith)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/25 "2009-03-29T22:14:49Z")
I hate it when the networks promo next day’s/week’s episode in the middle of the current episode. I always stop commercial-zapping prematurely. This happens during the day more than during prime time,but is annoying nonetheless. Recently, Kurtwood Smith was on both _24_ and _Medium_, which shows 1 hr later than _24_. The VCR I had _24_ on defaulted to NBC, I came in to run back _24_,saw Smith on the over-the air tube and momentarily thought ,“Oh shit! _24_’s running late and I’m missing it.” ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/26 "2009-03-29T22:24:53Z")
> [@Manduck](#): > > I got a link to the IMDB page for [Bilitis](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075753/). I don’t know why the link needed to be broken. Some of those covers might not be SFW. ---
**Author:** ![Jayn\_Newell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jayn\_Newell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayn_Newell)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/27 "2009-03-29T22:38:44Z")
A couple years ago I was looking at DVDs and noticed one titled _Knights of Ramunes_. It sounded interesting enough–two female priests fighting evil with their mystical powers (I’m a sucker for magical girl shows)–and it was made by the same people who created _Slayers_, so I figured it was a fairly safe bet and bought it. The very first scene has a naked girl wrapped in transparent cloth fondling herself and moaning orgasmicly. It was still a fun watch, but far from what I was expecting. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2009, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/28 "2009-03-29T23:53:45Z")
About a year ago I picked up a movie from one of those DVD kiosks in the supermarket. They’re a pretty good deal but only stock recent movies, and often only in small quantities. My friends said to pick up ‘Zodiac’, which was out at the time. I didn’t know much about it, other than what I knew of the subject matter. It started up and several people said, “Hey, I thought Jake Gyllenhaal was in this.” About an hour later, we’d almost all been put to sleep by a resoundingly boring movie. Of course, it turns out we were watching [The Zodiac](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371739/), a rather bland film from two years earlier. In my defense, whoever was running the kiosk had ordered the wrong title, as it was made two years earlier and they didn’t have the newer one in. I rented the two-disc edition of ‘Punch-drunk Love’ without realizing it and watched nearly ten minutes of the light and sound show on disc 2, all the while thinking, “this is _really_ weird movie”. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Superhero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Superhero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Superhero)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/29 "2009-03-30T00:41:37Z")
My favorite story of this sort: My wife’s cousin (who apparently has a bit of a perverse sense of humor) told his elderly Catholic mother and aunt that he thought they would love “There’s Something About Mary.” They didn’t question him further about it, but went to see it, assuming that the “Mary” of the title was, you know, [Mary](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_(mother_of_Jesus)). Needless to say, they didn’t make it very far into the movie before realizing that it had nothing to do with the Mother of God and walked out. ---
**Author:** ![Grasshopper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f19dbf/32.png) [@Grasshopper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grasshopper)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/30 "2009-03-30T00:46:35Z")
My memory’s a bit fuzzy, but I think it went something like this: I was watching ET with my sister. My dad came into the room right when it showed the family dog. My dad said, “Oh, are you watching Mad About You?”, so we answered, “Um… yeah!” A minute later, when ET waddled by, my dad figured things out. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/31 "2009-03-30T01:16:30Z")
> [@The\_Superhero](#): > > My favorite story of this sort: > > My wife’s cousin (who apparently has a bit of a perverse sense of humor) told his elderly Catholic mother and aunt that he thought they would love “There’s Something About Mary.” They didn’t question him further about it, but went to see it, assuming that the “Mary” of the title was, you know, [Mary](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_(mother_of_Jesus)). > > Needless to say, they didn’t make it very far into the movie before realizing that it had nothing to do with the Mother of God and walked out. Oh God, I’ve got a similar one. When _Pulp Fiction_ came out, many of the reviews focused on John Travolta’s performance, giving it rave reviews without talking much about the subject matter. And hell, the big scene in the commercials was him doing the twist. So my mom & her church group decide to go see it. What could possibly go wrong? 😃 To their credit, they stayed through the entire film and did enjoy it (even if a few folks were a bit shocked). But then again, we’re Methodists, so… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/32 "2009-03-30T01:24:21Z")
> [@jackelope](#): > > Even after taking the spaces out of your link I still get a “Page Not Found” error? Check for the movie Bilitis, 1977. If you see some nekkid pix in teh little images at the top showing screen caps or the box, it isnt the right one;) ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/33 "2009-03-30T01:25:24Z")
> [@Manduck](#): > > I got a link to the IMDB page for [Bilitis](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075753/). I don’t know why the link needed to be broken. maybe the shots of naked skin on skin action … and it is heavily lesbian -) ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/34 "2009-03-30T02:06:23Z")
Back in the eighties, me and a buddy did a little acid and went to a repertoire theatre screening of Charlie Chaplin’s _City Lights_. Curtair rises, and beat-up, high contrast black & white footage begins of a crudely made-up demonic figure emerging from a box and cavorting around. It took a little while to suss out that we were a week late, and were watching… uh… what _were_ we watching? I don’t remember – Bergman or Polanksi. I do remember that we enjoyed it, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Cyberhwk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7993a0/32.png) [@Cyberhwk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyberhwk)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/35 "2009-03-30T04:15:51Z")
I had heard **The Pianist** was good and “Hey, I like classical music.” ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/36 "2009-03-30T09:10:19Z")
I was with a group getting ready to watch a video. I don’t remember what I thought we were about to watch. There were several trailers. And then what I thought was another trailer - it wasn’t the movie I was expecting, and it had that same narrator guy talking that narrates trailers. But the trailer just kept going… and going… and going. I finally realized we were not watching the trailer for, but the actual movie of Boris & Natasha. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/37 "2009-03-30T13:48:10Z")
So this isn’t about _Barton Fink_, where you thought you were watching one kind of movie, but it turned out to be a different kind? ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/38 "2009-03-30T13:53:58Z")
I’m not sure if this is in the same vein, but surely a similar one. This was a phenomenon that occurred to me once, and I’ve been hoping for it to happen again, it was so cool. I was watching TV on some lazy summer afternoon, and I can’t remember precisely what I was watching, but it was something with a great deal of CGI in it. While watching it, I fell asleep and when I woke up, whatever show I had been watching was over, and the new (at the time) series \*Enterprise \*with Scott Bakula was on. The phenomenon was that I thought I was still watching CGI. That is, I thought that all the actors and actions I was watching on this live action show was CGI and I was sitting there marvelling aloud at how absolutely amazing it was. It was a good 5 or 10 minutes where I didn’t even question it … it was just a given that I was watching the most incredible computer animation I’d ever seen. Then I realized I was just still half-asleep and that there was no CGI afterall. What a bummer. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/39 "2009-03-30T14:43:14Z")
When I was 11 and enjoying my summer vacation Dad came home from work and announced that the family was going out to see a movie. Odd, Dad never goes to the movies. “What movie?” “A guy at work said it was really good. It’s about archeologists look for the Lost Ark.” “What? Some scholarly types looking for Noah’s ark?:rolleyes:” (me picturing an overly long documentary by National Geographic) “No, the ark of the covenant. It’s got the pieces of the 10 commandments in it.” “Aww man, that sounds even more boring if that’s possible. I don’t want to go.” “Too bad. We’re going as a family.” So sourpuss 11 year-old me gets dragged to a movie I did NOT want to see. Movie starts and Indiana Jones barely makes it out of booby trapped temple. Me: :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: AWESOME!! I couldn’t stop talking about it all summer. ---
**Author:** ![Drygon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/edb3f5/32.png) [@Drygon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drygon)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116/40 "2009-03-30T16:22:46Z")
About 10 years ago my mom worked at the local library and they started collecting movies to rend. My mom would usually grab anything that looked interesting before it hit the shelves. One day she brought home a copy of _Phantom of the Opera_ which she insisted my sisters and I watch. So we started up the movie and there was a pretty graphic sex scene early on. Well, we skipped that and kept watching. About 5 minutes later there was a big orgy. Somehow the library got a pornographic version. My dad kept reminding my mom that she showed pornography to her 16, 14 and 11 year olds for the next year at least. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-moment-you-realize-you-arent-watching-what-you-thought-you-were/491116.md?page=3)