Three Men and a Baby - and a kid in the window

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

I take issue with The Mailbag answer to the now-infamous “ghost kid” visible in a scene of the movie Three Men and a Baby.
www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mthreemen.html

I’ve heard this explanation before: that the kid visible in the scene is actually a cardboard cutout of Ted Danson’s character.

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen the movie, but I clearly remember seeing the referenced cardboard cutout in one scene, the kid in the window in another. And they weren’t the same thing.

I don’t buy that the kid is a ghost, obviously. Just somebody who wasn’t where he was supposed to be when the director yelled, “Action!”

Give me immortality, or give me death!

2

Check out the reference to snopes. It has pictures. If you look at the pictures, you can see it is the Danson cut out. He’s wearing a tux. Sticking out of the lace curtain is one lapel and leg going down, resembling a shotgun in appearance, with a darkening in the shape of a head behind the curtain. Look again and you can see the fluffy white shirt of the cut out. Compare to the second picture on that page.

3

Irishman’s right, damn it. (I SO wanted it to be a real ghost.)

The camera pans so quickly that the top hat looks like pouffy hair and the white formal shirt looks like a polo shirt.

But if you squint at the Snopes stills, you can see it’s really the damn Danson cut-out.

Uke

4

What did David mean by his comment that snopes is named after the people who run it? www.snopes.com is actually run by people named Barbara and David Mikkelson.

5

Yes, WW, I know their real names. However, if you check the site, you will see that he always posts as “snopes,” (he also does so on mailing lists and newsgroups). Thus, he is much more well-known by that name than by his real name.

Mil: I was going to suggest you head over to snopes to see that they are, indeed, the same. But others beat me to it.

6

Hmmm … OK … maybe that’s true.

But I know for a FACT that I saw Marlin Perkins get bit by a rattlesnake on an episode of Wild Kingdom, and I saw the “In the butt, Bob” episode of The Newlywed Game.

:wink:

Give me immortality, or give me death!

7

Milossarian:

I posted this originally in Myndephuquer’s thread in Comments before **Dext/b] told me there was already a thread over here; he was posting while I was composing. Oops. So I thought I’d bring it over here to talk to you.

Yeah, I remember hearing all this when the movie first came out, and yeah, I think M.Phuquer is right, that you can see something that isn’t explained by the Ted Danson cutout. The best explanation that I heard 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.

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen

8

The most sensible explanation I heard was that somebody brought his kid to work that day, and the kid was out of place during the filming of that scene, and it wasn’t until the film was in the editing room months later that the director realized what had happened, but by then it was too late to reshoot. And it doesn’t affect the movie one bit. It’s not like somebody dropped a set of dishes offstage during a love scene.

And the reason no one has bothered to track down exactly whose kid it was is that basically nobody really cares. It’s only a BFD to the kind of people who enjoy stories about hypodermic syringes in the McDonald’s ball pit.

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen

9

I hope you’re all happy. I’m going to have to go rent the movie now. It should be on the ‘cheapie’ rack, at least.

Give me immortality, or give me death!

10

Notthemama said:

Um, no, actually, you didn’t. :slight_smile: The legend didn’t start to spread until it went to video – people didn’t notice it while it was in the theaters.

Well, I’m sorry you think that, but as you can see in the snopes frames, it’s the Danson cutout.

No, actually the best explanation is the one in the Mailbag item. :slight_smile:

11

The only thing that was resurrected, briefly mind you, in that movie was the dead careers of 3 B-level actors.

12

Wading through all these gonzo non-quote quotes… :rolleyes:

I guess what I meant when I said, “I remember it from when the movie first came out”, was that I remember when it first came out on video.

But I do remember having this whole discussion and comparing stills, etc., the same way I just compared the Snopes stills that pl just posted in the other thread, and I still think that the first one is of an actual boy standing there, that somebody brought his kid to work that day, and the kid got in the shot.

Are you saying that in the movie, this kid or ghost or whatever only appears in the window in the ONE frame? Because then I’d have to suspect a practical joke on the part of the film editor.

I agree that the second picture is that of the cutout.

However–

Judging from the perspective in the first picture, whatever it is standing in the window isn’t tall enough to be the cutout. Whatever it is that’s standing there behind the curtain only comes up halfway on the window frame. The windowsill is chest-high on him.

The cutout in the second picture is right next to Ted Danson and it looks like it’s about his height, say maybe 6 feet tall. In that picture, the windowsill only comes up to Ted Danson’s hips, and to the cutout’s hips, too.

If that’s a 6 foot tall cutout in the first picture, then that windowsill must be at least 52" inches from the floor. Most windowsills are 36" to 42" up from the floor. It looks to me like that windowsill is just about right to come up chest-high on a little boy, and hip-high on a grown man. Or is somebody going to say that the windowsills in this “apartment” were all radically different?

Also, in the first picture, it’s got an obvious (to me, at least) little round baby face, with a round, plump jawline and full cheeks and a small chin. The cutout has a big angular jawline and slab-like cheeks, like Ted Danson himself.

Also, the one in the window has a bowl haircut; the Ted Danson cutout, as far as I can tell, has his hair parted on the right side (his left) and brushed over. There’s a reflection off the “skin” on the right-hand part of his forehead (his left), where the hair doesn’t cover it. The kid in the window has his entire forehead all the way down to his eyebrows covered by hair, especially on the left side of his face (our right), where the cutout has a reflection.

Also, you can see all of the left ear in the cutout with Ted Danson. In the first picture, the kid has his left ear covered by hair.

Also, look at the postures. The cutout is standing up straight with his head flung back and to the side, the side of his throat is exposed, and his left arm is flung out, to our right. The kid in the window is standing slouched, with his head just tipped slightly to the side, looking straight ahead, with all his weight on his left foot. The side of his throat is not particularly exposed. It looks to me like his left arm is just hanging down at his side behind the curtain, not flung out to the side.

Also, the cutout has a dark jacket-thing over a white shirt that falls down perfectly straight and evenly on each side of where the shirt buttons would be. The “kid” in the window is wearing what looks like a dark flannel shirt that hangs down the front of his shirt unevenly. It hangs off his right shoulder unevenly–it’s pulled over to his right, but his left shoulder has the dark shirt hanging down evenly over the white shirt.

On the kid, the dark shirt is also pulled over to the left so as to cover his collar on the left a little bit. It’s up over his collar in the back and on the side a little bit. If his mom were here, she’d grab him and fix his shirt. The cutout has the dark shirt covering the white shirt collar evenly on both sides, and it’s not up over the collar in the back unevenly.

So, sorry, I’m still convinced it’s a real kid. And like I said, that was the best, most sensible explanation that I heard at the time. They didn’t see any point in tracking down the kid, because why punish people years after the fact?

At least you should be glad I don’t think it’s a ghost! :smiley:

13

Oops, sorry, forgot one more thing.

The other reason the studio wasn’t interested in tracking down who the kid was, and otherwise generally scotching the “ghost” rumor, is that if they DID find out his name, then that would open a particularly nasty can of legal worms concerning screen credit. People out in Hollywood are not quite sane on the subject of “screen credit”, and since the movie in question turned out to be a moneymaker, it’s a sure bet there were lots of people anxious to jump on the gravy train.

Not to mention the possibility of uncomfortable questions being asked by the Screen Actor’s Guild, and whoever it is that oversees the use of children in movies, you know, the folks who make sure the kid is only under the lights and in front of the cameras X number of hours per day. You might have to get some kind of special legal permission to use minors in movies.

So, all in all, it seems to me that the studio would be especially interested in any other explanation EXCEPT the “it’s a real kid” one. You don’t have to pay residuals to a “ghost” or a “cutout”, or settle out of court with their lawyers.

14

Maybe the cutout isn’t complete? Maybe the cutout ends at Danson’s knees. In the scene where you are SUPPOSED to see the cutout, it’s propped up on a stool or a table or a chair that’s below the frame. In the scene where it’s ACCIDENTALLY on view, it’s standing on the floor. Perhaps they were hoping to hide it behind the curtains and the curtains blew open accidentally, partially revealing it.

Question: In the scene where Danson is contemplating his cutout, do they show the entire cutout or are its shins below the frame?

15

Notthemama said:

The only reason the studio wasn’t interested in tracking down the kid is because there is no kid.

But I guess you’re convinced that you are right and everybody else is wrong, so I don’t see much point in responding further.

16

::: shrug :::

17

Ah, yes, our lovely David manages another perfectly rational post to a series of perfectly reasonable (regardless of the correctness) suggestions as to why the pictured figure is a boy and not a cardboard cutout. In other words, I say it’s one thing, you won’t accept that, I’m not playing. Again, we do a great job of debunking the ‘ignorance’ of the masses.

To actually address the issues raised by notthemomma, let’s look carefully at what we see. Then let’s apply a certain razor to the situation.

My, perspective is a wonderfully funny thing. First of all, note that the curtains are pushed out by the figure in the window. That means that the cutout could be leaning forward, diminishing it’s visible hight. And how do you know what the window was built to the hight of? IT WAS FILMED ON A SOUND STAGE. It isn’t a building. Got it? :wink: They could be high windows with a tall sash and the lighted portion behind the figure isn’t cut off by the sill, but rather by what is lit up in the scenery behind the window.

[quote]
Also, in the first picture, it’s got an obvious (to me, at least) little round baby face, with a round, plump jawline and full cheeks and a small chin. The cutout has a big angular jawline and slab-like cheeks, like Ted Danson himself.

Also, the one in the window has a bowl haircut; the Ted Danson cutout, as far as I can tell, has his hair parted on the right side (his left) and brushed over. There’s a reflection off the “skin” on the right-hand part of his forehead (his left), where the hair doesn’t cover it. The kid in the window has his entire forehead all the way down to his eyebrows covered by hair, especially on the left side of his face (our right), where the cutout has a reflection.

Also, you can see all of the left ear in the cutout with Ted Danson. In the first picture, the kid has his left ear covered by hair.

[quote]
There is absolutely no way to definitely see ANYTHING in the frame pictured showing the figure in the window; it is out of focus and too far away. But let’s note the following: the figure in the window has a left arm behind the curtain (you can see the darker outline of it) that follows the same pose as the cardboard cutout; the curved line of the buttons in the cutout’s shirt is visible in the figure; the neckline of the shirt is the same in the cutout and the figure, and it isn’t a neckline you find on many shirts (a slight ‘v’ shape caused by the collar of a formal tuxedo shirt); the outline of the jacket framing the shirt on either side is the same in both the cutout and the figure; need we continue?

Now, let’s discuss the application of the principle that, when trying to resolve an issue like this, you take the path of least resistance.

Postulation one: a cardboard cutout, which we know exists, was left inadvertantly in the window.

Postulation two: a kid somehow sneaked onto the sound stage of a filming movie and was visible in a window during a movie take.

To accept the first postulate, we simply have to accept that they made a prop error. Hollywood is replete with these, despite every effort not to be. Besides, it isn’t like it is out of continuity with the story, since it was intended to be included in the movie.

To accept the second postulate, we have to accept that some kid was on a controlled set. Now, this already begins to defy credibility; those sound stages are quite difficult to get onto without permission. THEN, you have to assume the kid managed to make it to a position in the filming area of the sound stage (there ain’t anything behind him but the set wall), which is even harder. THEN you have to assume that he wasn’t noticed prior to or during the filming, despite being quite obvious in the film. All of which is a lot harder to swallow than the idea of a misplaced prop.

On the basis of this evidence, can we conclusively conclude the figure in the window isn’t a boy? No. Can we REASONABLY conclude that the figure is likely to be the cardboard cutout? Yes.

Of course, I will note the following: The Snopes site has NO reference to any official information supporting the assertion that the the figure is the cutout; a reference to an official explanation from the movie production studio would have been nice. Further, debunking the ghost theory is fine, but that doesn’t debunk the boy idea, a fact David seems to have forgotten in both his mailbag article and his response in this thread.

But, let us at least be reasonable about things, instead of conjuring up explanations to rationalize beliefs. The boy story started with a hint of the paranormal; that alone makes it unlikely to be the truth. :slight_smile:

18

Yeah, I know all that, but I still think it’s a real kid, for whatever reason. Weird stuff does happen on movie sets, no matter how tightly controlled they may be. I think it’s possible, say, that someone dressed a kid up like the cutout and sneaked him onto the set for a practical joke, and either he got in the shot by accident, or somebody put him in the shot for a joke.

I’m sorry, but to my vision, it just looks obviously like a kid standing there, rationalizations about perspective and shirt buttons notwithstanding. ::: shrug :::

And yeah, I realize it was shot on a sound stage, but I don’t know why the windows on the set would be different heights. ::: another shrug :::

Not gonna waste much more time arguin’ about it, though. :rolleyes:

19

DSYoung said:

Sorry, but I don’t see what else I could have said that I didn’t already say in the Mailbag item. If Notthemama wants to ignore all of that (which apparently is the case), there is little I can do about it.

Simply put, the explanation has already been given. It is the correct explanation, as can be plainly seen. I’m sorry that Notthemama wants to continue to believe something else, but that’s simply not my problem. Sometimes, you just have to throw up your hands and say it’s not worth the effort. This was one of those times. < shrug >

20

Gee, I see three pictures on the snopes site. Comparing them, it’s pretty darned obvious it’s the same cutout.