Up The Butt, Bob

David:

I don’t mind your disagreeing or having your own opinion despite my testimony, but please don’t do things like this:

From the OP:

I promise you that I could not possibly have mixed this up with any urban legend, because until yesterday, I didn’t know it was one. And it isn’t. I saw it. Dammit.

The thing is, why was it in there at all, other than to imply cause and effect? Absent that, it’s a total non sequitur. What spin do you expect anyone to put on it?

You have this habit of dropping ‘innocent comments’ with obvious spins into posts on threads where the ‘comment’ is completely out of context. 'Nuff said.

I think my argument is at least a reasonable one, but you don’t seem to give it much credence. I didn’t say it aired originally as an outtake; I said it would have been, in the context of the era in which it aired, a remarkably funny thing, and would be on outtake tapes everywhere.

As pervasive as this story is, you don’t think the owners of the rights to the Newlywed Game would cash in by offering everyone a chance to own the “In the Butt” tape, rather than letting it air without fanfare in a mundane fashion on the lucky-if-they-pull-a-2-share Game Show Network?

I’m trying to discuss this logically, rather than simply say, “You didn’t see it because it never happened.” I’m saying that the evidence should be fairly easily available, yet nobody is able to produce it.


“It’s my considered opinion you’re all a bunch of sissies!”–Paul’s Grandfather

Guess you guys missed the one I saw,where they mentioned felching…

Firefly:

The only reason I mentioned the democratic congress is because democrats are traditionally understood to be more liberal than republicans, so it seemed germane to the notion that the whole atmosphere of the country was more liberal than when conservatives control government.

OSHA has informed me that if you don’t get off my ass, I will have to install hand rails and safety straps, so kindly put it to rest.

Phil:

I understand your points, but they do not change my experience or the experience of my roommate and fiancee.

Let me ask you this. Is there any way that the general public could access the tapes to review them? I’m not sure the whole thing is as big a deal as you might think, since I only found out it was a controversy less than 24 hours ago.

But, given your experience in broadcasting, could I walk in to the studio or whatever and say something like, “I’d like to have copies of all the New Newlywed Game episodes.”? If so, I would be very interested in doing that. And if I’m wrong here, I will admit it.

Lib, when I said first it was the Newlywed Game, I meant the general story. This is the way an urban legend develops. I’m willing to bet the story was around before the New Newlywed Game even aired. I’ll see what I can find relating to it, but it may have to wait 'til I have time to go through my urban legend books.

Even then, you’ll probably claim that you’re absolutely sure you saw it, and so any evidence I produce to the contrary is wrong wrong wrong wrong. I really do wish you would step back a bit and look at this objectively. But it seems you are unwilling to do so… :frowning:

Now I think [b[I’m** having an episode! :slight_smile:

Libby:

I know you would stand beside David and so would I. Up to that point you hadn’t said anything bad but I wanted to make sure you didn’t.

“doesn’t really listen to me, but rather reads my posts through filters of certain
preconceptions.”

Kinda like that.

You are refering to Jody Foster playing Elennor “Ellie” Arroway when she said,

“I had an experience, I can’t prove it, I can’t (garbled) explain it. But everything that I know as a human being, everything that I am tells me that it was real.”

Josh Palmer played by Matthew McConaughey replies when asked if he believes her,

“As a person of faith I’m bound by a diffent covenant than Dr. Arroway, but our goal is one and the same. The pursuit of Truth. I for one believe her.”

I, for one, believe you.
Ken


Phaedrus, Defender of Truth, Justice, and the Native American Way

darn ubb code!

I’m!

For folks who haven’t gone to the site (if you want to, go to www.snopes.com, TV & Radio legends, TV lengends, The Newlywed Game), here are some quotes:

“Synopsis: Just like the incidents allegedly involving Uncle Don and Johnny Carson, this tale is one of the great ‘manufactured memories’ in America’s collective consciousness. No, you didn’t see it. Your friend didn’t see it, either. It didn’t happen – it’s just a great story that has been told and re-told so many times, people have begun to believe they actually saw the show rather than merely hearing about it.”

Sounds vaguely familiar…

It goes on: “You want proof it didn’t happen, you say? Well, we all know you can’t prove a negative, so the best we can do is to show that this tale – just like all the other infamous broadcast legends – is suspiciously unsupported by any documentary evidence”

Lib listed their opposition. But he forgot a few things.

For example, when Lib simply tosses aside the objection that nobody can provide a date, he ignores that he can’t even agree on a decade with all the other folks who are certain they saw it! He says the New Newlywed Game. Most people say they are sure they saw it on the original. Who are we to believe? Lib, because he’s certain? Others are certain as well. Somebody is wrong either way – or, as the evidence shows, they are all wrong about it.

About Bob Eubanks $10,000 offer to anybody who can provide a copy of the tape in which this happened: “What would be the point of his denying that the whole thing ever happened and offering a monetary reward to anyone who could prove it did, when he knew full well that not only did tapes exist, but that they were broadcast with the blessing of the show’s producers? And why has no one taken him up on his offer and claimed an easy ten grand?” Hmmm. Very odd. Especially if we believe that Lib’s fiance just saw the episode on the Game Show Network last year, which was, I believe, after his offer had been made. So many people managed to miss out on that $10,000…

The full discussion also talks about other hallmarks of urban legends that characterize this story, including a change in what was supposedly said, a change in venue for the Australian version of the story, etc.

It’s an urban legend. I’m sorry, Lib, it doesn’t say anything bad about you personally. In fact, while I was writing this, I received an e-mail from somebody I had called earlier. In the call, I asked why she hadn’t done something. She said she didn’t know. She e-mailed me to say that I had told her not to do it! Now that I think about it, she may be right – I haven’t had time to go back and check my own notes. The point is that I’m not insulting you or anything. It happens. But when it does, you need to step back and be objective about it, not just sit there and yell that you’re damned sure about it 'cus you remember it, and to hell with what all the evidence says.

Doubtful, Lib–syndicators and program owners usually won’t make that stuff available like that to the general public, although if one was conducting research, they would probably allow one to view them on the premises and take notes. Otherwise it really isn’t in their financial interest to turn over or dupe tapes of copyrighted material. I am going to send an e-mail to the Game Show Network and see if they can give me contact information for Chuck Barris Productions, Columbia-TriStar, and WorldVision Enterprises, the distributors/producers of the original program. I’m as interested as you in getting to the bottom of this.

It occurs to me that another possibility is that someone on the show, having heard the legend, actually used it as an answer when he appeared as a contestant. That doesn’t solve the problem of getting a tape of it, though.

Now, however, I really want to go home and find my Indians outtake tape. Some funny stuff on there; for a couple of professional broadcasters, those two apparently never internalized the rule, “Unless you know otherwise, assume every mic in the room is live.”


“It’s my considered opinion you’re all a bunch of sissies!”–Paul’s Grandfather

That Lib’s SO believes she saw a re-airing of the ‘up the butt’ episode last month makes Phil’s case rather overwhelming, IMO.

If it was re-aired, there’s a tape of it. Actually, there would be plenty of tapes of it.

Just because Lib didn’t realize it was an urban legend has nothing to do with it. He heard the story, it got crossed with the memory of another TV program he watched, and people’s brains do that to them all the time. No biggie.

David:

I will accept proof that I am wrong. If, for example, someone showed me a tape of a Saturday Night Live skit, I can see where I could have mixed those up (though I would still have to account for such things as I don’t stay up that late or why Edlyn saw it on the Game Show network.) By the way, I called her and asked her if she would come here and give her own best recollection of events.

But I won’t accept arguments that are no more reasonable than those I offered in the OP. I need something to offset an actual experience here. You might think it is my imagination because it is convenient for you to think that. But I can no more deny what happened to me than you could if I didn’t believe you when you said you read some article in a newspaper ten years ago.

RTF: Precisely.

If it re-aired, then Bob Eubanks would be out ten grand. And he’s not.

I suspect Phil will be wasting his time. There’s simply nothing to get to the bottom of (oooh, bad pun in this case). I’m sure these guys have been through it a hundred times.

Let’s get back to the OP, for as Libby said, “There is little use in debating whether the episode in question actually aired.”

“Now, the reason this is a great debate, rather than pointless mundane stuff is that it brings into question the whole purpose, method, and motivation of the hyperskeptics who don’t believe anything exists that they do not witness themselves.”

“Is it possible to be too skeptical? Whereas people who are blindly faithful miss lies, do those who are blindly skeptical miss truth? Is skepticism itself a sort of “anti-faith”? Simply a mirror concept of faith? Faith that things aren’t possible?”

“But does hyperskepticism in general lead to a jaded and dull intellect the same as hyperfaith?”

“Your thoughts?”

I like these, :cool:

How do I look?

It’s not “convenient” for me, Lib, it’s looking at it objectively – which you are not doing. We have provided information that you have not addressed. You just sit there and keep typing about how you remember it. Well, I’m sorry you remember it. I’m even sorrier that you won’t listen to reason. All evidence says it didn’t happen. At this point, at least until you address the objections we have posted here, I don’t think there’s much more to say…

Firstly, I would put forth that Hyperskepticism is a misnomer. I would call it, inconsistent skepticism. Just as I would call Hyperfaith, lunacy.

I don’t wish to call anyone’s logic into question, but you CAN prove a negative. When I make the statement, “I don’t know nuttin’”, it is easy to prove. :smiley:

David, your arrogance is showing again. How you can flatly state that someone is flat out wrong in relating what he says is a personal experience, without having any reason to believe that this person is being deliberately false, is mindboggling. Gee, it doesn’t comport with what you “know” is true, so it has to be that the person relating it is wrong. Please, if you ever get called for jury duty, be sure to divulge this so that the lawyers can kick you off the panel.

Eyewitness testimony is generally considered good evidence. Studies have been done – I did one myself for my honors class in college – to show that eyewitness testimony is not completely reliable. Four people witnessing an event will tell four different versions of that event – each from their own perspective – and the trier of fact will have to wade through to determine the most plausible scenario. But, generally speaking, unless one of those four witnesses is not relating what s/he saw in good faith, the four stories will be quite similar: the “large” details will be correct, even if the “small” details may vary.

Certainly “false memories” happen. But we usually accept the word of an honest witness as to what s/he perceived until we have strong evidence to the contrary. The fact that Eubanks says he doesn’t remember this is of no consequence, IMHO. What’s more compelling, certainly, is Phil’s discussion of outtakes, etc. One truly wonders, however, whether all of the show’s tape is extant (they are usually archived, no doubt, but that doesn’t mean that every show from its origination is neatly preserved), and also whether anybody has taken the time or cared enough to sit down and go through ALL of those tapes, even if the producer would allow it. I personally don’t think $10,000 is enough money to have to sit through hundreds of hours of that show, hoping that I haven’t fallen asleep when that bit pops up. It would, of course, be the way to put the question to rest one way or another, but I imagine that the producers and others associated with the game just don’t think it’s quite the compelling issue, worth all that time and effort, that it seems to have been blown up to be.

-Melin

Phil:

I started to say I would send you a hundred dollars if you could help me prove this, but I guess that’s silly because you will actually get 10 grand, assuming Snopes is right about the offer. For all I now, the offer is an urban legend. I’m gonna start looking around the net.

David:

What objections have I not addressed?

I even listed them in the OP for heaven’s sake, and also gave a link to the site, so people could read the whole thing. The stuff you added is hardly any kind of “evidence” and is nothing essentially new from what I already had listed. The fact that people recall something so noncontextual without agreeing on when is absolutely irrelevant. You keep waving that $10,000 like it ought to settle the whole thing. Hell, I didn’t even know about the 10 grand till yesterday. Other than that, you haven’t given any good reason why I should change my mind. Just general stuff like “hallmarks of urban legends”. And then something about a miscommunication between you and a co-worker. And I’m supposed to take that as convincing evidence that an experience I had is a figment of my imagination?

I submit that you might have thought you gave good reasons, but that your memory has tricked you.

Melin, Phil’s point was a good one. However, I have been in contact with Firing Line since it went off the air and I have been trying to get copies of all the shows with Mortimer J. Adler on them. The cost is about $700.00. They have explained to me that many of their tapes degrade over time, this could certainly be the case for the Newlywed show.

But we really should get back to the OP, IMHO.

Ken

Melin said:

Nothing mindboggling about it. I don’t believe he is being deliberately false. I also have evidence that he did not actually see it. Has it occurred to you that maybe I’ve heard this claim before a couple hundred times? That maybe it’s been checked into a couple hundred times? That maybe there’s a good reason it’s listed on an urban legends page with all the info I discussed?

Was I a bit blunt with Lib? Yeah. But considering the way he has tossed aside every bit of evidence, perhaps it was called for. And, frankly, that’s between he and I.

Nope. It doesn’t comport with the evidence – as an attorney you should be familiar with the term – and it does comport with a well-known urban legend and is similar to other urban legends and the story has acted the way other urban legends act.

Hmmm. So lawyers kick off people who view the evidence and then make a decision based on that? What an odd way to run a system.