# Three Men and a Baby and a Ghost
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
**Created:** [April 27, 2000, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808 "2000-04-27T13:20:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Myndephuquer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myndephuquer)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2000, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/1 "2000-04-27T13:20:00Z")
[http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mthreemen.html](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mthreemen.html)
Has anyone else actually sat there with their thumb on the “Pause” and “Frame Advance” buttons of the VCR remote? In the scene in question, there is what appears to be a little boy behind the curtain as the camera is panning from left to right, and as the camera pans back from right to left, the little boy image is replaced with what looks like a crappy cut-out of a rifle or shotgun.
The cut-out of Ted Danson is plainly visible later – you can see that it is a picture of Ted Danson in a black tuxedo and black top hat – definitely not mistakeable for a small boy.
Something is going on in the background – the images in the background DO change as the cameras pans to the right, pauses briefly, then immediately pans back to the left. We are not talking about a huge amount of time or even a scene change. It is very fluid, and something by the window DOES change.
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### Author:  [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2000, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/2 "2000-04-27T13:29:00Z")
There’s already a thread on this in the forum COMMENTS ON MAILBAG ANSWERS. Since this was answered by Straight Dope Staff David and not by Cecil, that’s the appropriate forum. Here’s the link: [http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000330.html](http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000330.html)
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2000, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/3 "2000-04-27T13:36:00Z")
Yeah, I know what you mean.
I remember hearing all this when the movie first came out, and the best explanation that **I** heard, besides the Ted Danson cut-out thing, which doesn’t explain the odd shadow that you’re seeing, is that there was someone out of place during filming, one of the crew, or an extra, which made a strange shadow, but which wasn’t important or distracting enough to warrant reshooting the entire scene.
This kind of thing happens in movies all the time, only usually it doesn’t end up splashed all over the Internet. It’s called a “continuity” error, and isn’t that big a deal. Like when an actress is eating a sandwich during a scene, and at the beginning of the scene she’s holding about a fourth of the sandwich, and at the end of the scene she’s holding most of a sandwich. That’s because they filmed the scene 20 times in 3 days, and the Props person gave her a different sandwich each time, and when they were editing the film, the best takes happened to include sandwiches that don’t match up. Sometimes the editors and the director don’t notice, sometimes they notice but they just shrug and hope nobody else will notice. And if people do notice, it just gives them something to put in those “Film Blooper” books.
But now of course we have the Internet, and it’s a whole new ball game. The people who enjoy telling you about hypodermic syringes in the McDonald’s ball pit also enjoy telling you about “ghosts” in movies. I bet each and every one of them also played the Abbey Road album backwards and heard the words “Paul is dead” quite clearly.
(Was it Abbey Road?)
* * *
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2000, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/4 "2000-04-27T13:37:00Z")
## I need a beeper that goes off on my computer telling me when there’s a simulpost in progress.
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
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### Author:  [@Kyberneticist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyberneticist)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2000, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/5 "2000-04-27T13:52:00Z")
Ah what the heck, this thread will probably get closed and locked once the moderators wake up any way.
Do you really want a beeper?
Let’s see, we could make a search engine bot that would crawl the 4 major question asking forums. It would be a perl script that would build up an array of words (or perhaps nouns, or words-connectives) in the title and first few sentences. We could then do similarity matching.
_alert! There is an 87% chance of a simulpost going on in forum Great Debates!_
Ok. I really need to get more sleep…
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### Author:  [@Myndephuquer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myndephuquer)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2000, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/6 "2000-04-28T12:26:00Z")
I have been an extra on a couple of movies and TV shows, and I have witnessed the filming process many times. I am familiar with continuity – I am a big MST fan, old cheesy movie fan, and classic horror film fan, so I have seen my share, and looking for things like this makes my viewing more enjoyable. What occurred in “Three Men and a Baby” was not an accidental continuity error. I tried to point out that the camera panning was fluid – there was not a disruption that would have easily enabled the background to be changed. If there was even a bit of a pause, hell yeah, I would buy the continuity argument, but based on my experience and viewing of the scene countless times, I believe that this argument is easily dismissed. Something is going on in the background, possibly the work of a prankster or some evil demon shotgun boy, but something odd is going on.
CKDextHavn, I apologize for posting here – momentary lapse of reason. Thanks for showing mercy on me and my post.
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### Author:  [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2000, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/7 "2000-04-28T12:54:00Z")
Myndephuquer, I don’t know what you think is going on, but here are the two pictures side-by-side:
[http://snopes.simplenet.com/movies/graphics/ghost.jpg](http://snopes.simplenet.com/movies/graphics/ghost.jpg)
[http://snopes.simplenet.com/movies/graphics/danson.jpg](http://snopes.simplenet.com/movies/graphics/danson.jpg)
You’d have to be blind or nuts not to see that these are the same figure.
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### Author:  [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2000, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/8 "2000-04-28T12:55:00Z")
OK, here are the actual pictures, not the URLs:
[http://snopes.simplenet.com/movies/graphics/ghost.jpg](http://snopes.simplenet.com/movies/graphics/ghost.jpg)
[http://snopes.simplenet.com/movies/graphics/danson.jpg](http://snopes.simplenet.com/movies/graphics/danson.jpg)
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### Author:  [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2000, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/9 "2000-04-28T12:56:00Z")
Good lord . . . Dex, can you delete that other post for me?
[http://snopes.simplenet.com/movies/graphics/ghost.jpg](http://snopes.simplenet.com/movies/graphics/ghost.jpg)
[http://snopes.simplenet.com/movies/graphics/danson.jpg](http://snopes.simplenet.com/movies/graphics/danson.jpg)
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### Author:  [@Myndephuquer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myndephuquer)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2000, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/10 "2000-04-28T14:08:00Z")
LOOK!!! It’s a DEVIL BOY in the first picture!!! The DEVIL BOY made you do a bad post. Do not taunt him! Look what happened to Ted Danson’s hair! DEVIL BOY!!!
I’ve seen the picts on Snopes (btw, it’s one of the three sites in my ‘favorite places’, so I do have a lot of faith in the site)
pl, you have seen the movie, haven’t you? Sit close to the screen and wear out your pause button. I do not believe that those pictures on Snopes give the full scene justice. If someone can come up with a full series of frames, that would be great evidence. Just using two pictures is inadequate for either side of the argument. In those two pictures, it is quite obvious that it is the cutout in the background, but that is not by any means the whole story. Those two pictures do not address question in its entirety, therefore, it’s not useful as presented.
(I apologize if I have offended any devil people in my post.)
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### Author:  [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2000, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/11 "2000-04-28T14:16:00Z")
In the interests of science, and with the help of a great deal of alcohol, I will do just that, Myndephuquer. I have WinTV on my PC at home, so I will rent it this weekend and get a bunch of frame grabs as clearly as I can, then post them for debate. Seems like the reasonable thing to do, eh?
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### Author:  [@Myndephuquer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myndephuquer)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2000, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/12 "2000-04-28T14:34:00Z")
I guess that I should offer to fund your research, since watching that movie is going above and beyond the call of duty.
Actually, my conscience is really getting to me. If you promise not to rent the movie, I will agree that it is just a cutout in the background. (I feel like I’m standing on the ledge of a building: “Hey, man! Don’t watch that movie!!! You’ve got so much to live for! Don’t do that to yourself!!”)
If you watch that movie, I will never forgive myself.
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### Author:  [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2000, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/13 "2000-04-28T14:54:00Z")
In other words, Myndephuquer, you don’t want pldennison to establish the fraud of your whole series of posts?
Again, the truth is triumphant, the erroneous is vanquished. 😉
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### Author:  [@Myndephuquer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myndephuquer)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2000, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/14 "2000-04-28T16:42:00Z")
No, I’m not laying down my sword so quickly, but just as I don’t let friends drive drunk, I can’t conscionably allow a fellow Doper to waste innocent brain cells on images and sounds from such a crappy movie.
Actually, I think that pl’s idea sounds pretty cool and would/will end the argument once and for all, hopefully.
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### Author:  [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2000, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/15 "2000-04-29T05:24:00Z")
What the hell, I didn’t have other plans this weekend. Frankly, all I need to do is FF through to that scene, then try and get a grab about every 3-4 seconds. Will post results as soon as I have them.
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### Author:  [@JillGat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JillGat)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2000, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/16 "2000-04-29T04:39:29Z")
This really does belong in the “Mailbag” forum, so I’m moving it there.
Jill
Don’t need no DEVIL PEOPLE in my forum.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2000, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/17 "2000-04-29T15:01:40Z")
Okay, **M-ph,** I’m sitting here looking at the stills that **pl** so kindly provided. Obviously there’s a little boy standing there in the first picture. I don’t have a copy of the video; are you saying that in the movie, this little boy only appears for ONE frame? Is that what this is all about? Frankly, I didn’t pay that much attention to it.
If it is only in one frame, I’d have to suspect a practical joke on the part of the film editor(s). Like “Easter eggs” in software. If it’s in more than one frame, I’d suspect that it’s just somebody’s kid out of place. Like he was told to “wait over HERE” and he didn’t.
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### Author:  [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2000, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/18 "2000-04-29T17:25:44Z")
\<\< Obviously there’s a little boy standing there in the first picture \>\>
What’s so obvious about that? I think it looks like the mirror-image of the cut out. The top hat, the white (no tie)shirt, the black coat… the outstretched left hand on the cutout which would be mirror-imaged and behind the curtain.
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### Author:  [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2000, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/three-men-and-a-baby-and-a-ghost/1808/19 "2000-04-30T23:34:55Z")
I’m with **Notthemama.** It’s a ghost.
I’ll be sleepin’ with the lights on tonight, thank you very much.
– Ukulele “Paul is Dead” Ike