Up The Butt, Bob

Great Debates
161

Among other things, Lib said:

So let it be known to all: Anybody who doubts anything Libertarian says, no matter the fact that he has absolutely no evidence to back it up and many pieces of evidence have been presented to counter his claims, is a hyperskeptic. So it is written.

Jeez, man, get over yourself. You apparently continue to believe that, unlike every other human being in the world (except maybe your fiance), your memory is perfect. You keep claiming I’m biased but then steadfastly refuse to explain just what that bias is. And anybody who dares to doubt you is a hyperskeptic.

Funny, but it seems to me you’ve turned into a hyperbeliever. But what would I know – I’m just using the evidence to make that conclusion…

Ignorance is Bliss.
Reality is Better.

162

David, your memory must be playing tricks on you. Libertarian has two pieces of evidence: his observation and Edlyn’s (did I misspell that?).

Now, you and I may feel that those pieces of evidence are overwhelmed by evidence and arguments (Lib makes a valid point about the distinction) in the opposite direction, but those pieces of evidence DO exist. You don’t help your cause by acting as if they don’t count for anything.

163

Two obsrevations:

  1. David, you are incorrect that there is no evidence. Like it or not, eyewitness testimony is considered to be good evidence in a court of law, and here we have the testimony of two eyewitnesses. That’d be enough to send you to the gas chamber for murder, my friend.

  2. Guess I’d better mosey over to the False Memories thread and see if this is there – if it is I apologize – but in the small number of lawsuits I’ve dealt with where False Memories have been an issue, those memories were of something that had supposedly happened a long time ago. Here we have Edlyn saying that she has a memory of this occurring within the last 1-4 months. Certainly we all know that the farther we get away from events, the more our memory fades – that’s one of the reasons for the rule requiring speedy trials in criminal cases. Doesn’t it seem likely that the older a “memory” is, the more likely it is to be a false one, whereas, conversely, the more recent it is, the more likely it is to be correct?

::wandering off to read the other thread::

-Meln

164

Not if that testimony was refuted by the hard facts of the case.

165

Exactly. Thanks, Monty.

I guess those last two objections could have been avoided if I’d said, “No objective evidence,” which is what I meant. Yes, we have the “evidence” of Lib and Edlyn’s memory, but it is overwhelmed and contradicted by all the other evidence.

I posted, a couple days ago, what this case would be like if Lib were claiming, based on similar “evidence,” that I had committed a murder. Since we’re bringing the whole trial thing up, here it is again:

Lib accuses me of committing a murder. The police want to find evidence and charge me. “Well, Mr. Officer, I don’t know when it happened. Nope, I can’t even give you the decade. And there’s no evidence it happened other than that I’m sure I remember it happening. Yes, it was videotaped and showed on TV many times, and my fiance saw it there, but even though there is a monetary reward for that tape, it hasn’t surfaced. And yes, the host of the TV show it was on says it never was on, but he’s probably just misremembering. But, officer, you should still arrest David B, or else you’re just a nasty hyperskeptic!”

166

After reading Glitch’s excellent analysis, I would like to restate for the record that I am willing to concede that I might have taken on a false memory of the “up the butt” episode. I do not categorically deny that that is possible.

But I would appreciate the resolution of certain contradictions before I move from the possible to the likely.

(1) What about Edlyn’s boss’s sister? Why did she suddenly one day out of the blue call him in Shreveport and blurt out, “You’ll never believe what I just saw!” Just saw. She then related to him the episode. If she just saw it, how do you account for her being deluded by an urban legend. All you can possibly say, if you come from the bias that she must be wrong, is that Edlyn’s boss suffers from a false memory of his sister’s call. When he then confirms with her that she did in fact call him, then you can only say that she, too, suffers from a false memory. Incredibly, this would be now an entirely different false memory — it is not about the episode anymore, but about the phone call, and it is falsely remembered not just by one of them, but by both of them.

(2) How do you account for Edlyn’s recent sighting of the episode? When I asked her about it, she was not vague in the least. Immediately, she answered, “Oh, yeah. I saw that just recently on the Game Show network.” Pressing, I asked her how she had reacted to it. She answered, "I just thought, ‘Why would he say that on national TV?’. That was an appropriate reaction for her because she is the most stoic woman I have ever known. When I came home from a golf tournament, having shot an eagle from 130 yards (which I have documented, by the way), she made no mention of it, even though I left her a recorded message informing her of it. I am lucky to get any reaction at all when I do something extraordinary for her. A quiet “thank you” is the most I ever get for any effort or deed. She is almost a Vulcan. Her reaction to the episode was entirely in keeping with how she would have reacted to a spontaneous event as opposed to an hillarious story that she had practiced laughing about.

(3) Why doesn’t my roommate remember telling me the story if he did? Rather, he remembers seeing the episode with me. If the theory is correct that he told me the alleged legend while we were watching some other episode of the NG, then why would he now say he saw it if he knew all along that it never happened?

The answer to every question I have is the same: false memory. And that answer is given, not because you have asked me questions and conducted a reasonable inquiry; it is given because you are convinced a priori that the episode is an urban legend because of what you’ve read. And now, anything I say is a false memory, including when I swear that I had never read any of the urban legend stories.

And that is the bias that I’m talking about. David’s very first post in response to my claim wasn’t “Lib, here are some questions I have…”. It was “Lib, I’m sorry, but this is an example of a false memory. You never saw it 'cus it never happened.” If that isn’t a bias, then I am a monkey’s uncle.

167

Lib, you have stated several times that you have never heard the urban legend before. I am sure that you never heard it in the context of being an urban legend; but my theory is that you heard it stated as a true story, and it became the basis of your false memory.

Am I biased? When I first read this issue in one of Brunvandt’s books, I was convinced by the evidence presented that the event never occurred, and that many people have a false memory of seeing this episode. Your claim is not going to make me change my mind because it is no different from the claims of many others, that I already knew about.

I don’t think it is a bias if someone doesn’t change their mind, when they are not presented with any new evidence.

I do wonder, though, that maybe someone said something similar to the phrase in question. Pehaps this was misheard by some percentage of the audience, but Eubanks heard it correctly, so he denies it was ever said.

And I suppose it’s possible that the contestant actually said the phrase in question, but Eubanks heard “That would be in a boat, Bob” or something. But I think that probably would have turned up once the $10k award was posted.

168

Revtim:

Thanks for expressing your points without any underlying indignation or anger. I, for one, could take a lesson from you.

If you please, how likely do you think it is for someone to have heard the alleged urban legend without hearing about the $10K reward? And if the reward was at one time ubiquitously posted so that you couldn’t miss it (it certainly isn’t now), how would a rational man disassociate that element completely while incorporating the rest of the story?

And isn’t the evidence of my fiancee’s boss’s sister calling him immediately after the episode new evidence that you had not heard? Isn’t that it aired sometime between September and December last year on the Game Show network new evidence also?

169

Actually, I find it absolutely astounding that you casually mentioned this episode to her, a legendary episode that “hyperskeptics” have been trying to get their hands on for years, and she just happened to have seen it in the recent past. The show ran for, what, 13 years or so altogether? What are the odds of that?

Anyway, it occurred to me this morning that the Newlywed Game, much like the Dating Game, always covered anatomical references, especially of an excretory, secretory, or sexual nature, with a “cuckoo” or “slide whistle” sound for comedic affect and to appease the S&P guys; so depending on the original air date of this episode, it’s another argument making it less likely that this answer would even have been audible.

Let me know when one of you gets a tape of the show.

170

I know you’re not going to like this, but believe it or not, the “friend of a friend” is not widely considered good evidence. In fact, it underlies the basis for most urban legends and is abbreviated “FOAF.” Who knows what she saw? We have to go through a number of people to get there. Her. Your fiance’s boss. Your fiance. There are ample chances for memory problems there. Maybe the boss’s sister saw the ad for the video that was mentioned earlier. Who knows? The fact is that it is just another FOAF story, so common with urban legends.

Just because she thinks it was recent doesn’t mean a whole lot. Felice discussed how quickly memories can go awry in terms of the experiment she did with her students. Again, maybe she saw the ad for that video during an episode of the Newlywed Game and confused the two. Maybe she thought she saw it recently and didn’t. I don’t know. But you still haven’t answered how it is that, if she saw it so recently, the “urban legend” hasn’t been debunked and proven to be real. You keep coming up with all sorts of excuses (nobody would tape that show, etc.) but no solid answers. Why? Because you are damned sure it’s true. Good for you, but don’t expect anybody else to believe you at this point.

Well, we could say you’re insane, but that doesn’t sound very nice. :wink:

I am convinced by the evidence. Do you understand that? You are just one of many who relate this urban legend like this (although, as noted, in true urban legend fashion, you have your own details that are different). If I investigated in and decided, based on the evidence, that it was an urban legend before, why on Earth would I change my mind just because you say the same thing without offering any actual objective evidence? I wouldn’t.

Well, gosh, thanks for getting around to that question. But you still didn’t really answer. What bias is there? Am I “biased” towards the evidence? Hell, yes! If you want to complain about people being biased towards evidence, though, it just makes you look silly.

As Phil said, let me know when you get a tape of the show. In addition to the
$10,000 you get from Bob Eubanks, I’ll take you (and Edlyn) out to dinner.

171

Phil:

Often, I think, we sometimes assign an overblown significance to whatever it is that preoccupies us at any given time. The winner of some new extreme sporting event will hail his sport as something that is “taking the nation by storm” or “really up and coming” when, in all likelihood, only a specialized group of people have ever heard of it.

I’m sure the skeptics who huddle at their web-sites and snicker at the rest of the world truly believe that their musings are “legendary” and that the whole world knows about their stories and rewards.

David:

Edlyn’s boss is a very close friend of mine, so he does not qualify as a FOAF. I refer to him as Edlyn’s boss because I doubt he would want me to use his name here.

(You have a track record for noting at this point that I am only now “revealing” that Edlyn’s boss is my friend, when in fact there was no reason to tell you that until you raised the FOAF argument, just as there still isn’t any reason to tell you that he wears a toupe, unless you begin to argue that only peopole who wear toupes have reliable memories.)

It is a little silly for a man of your great intellect to refer to his own arguments as evidence and his counterpart’s as excuses. But I don’t mind that kind of language because people who aren’t biased along with you will note it.

To recognize the existence of false memory is one thing, but to apply it wholesale to everybody you encounter who makes some claim that differs from the claims you have heard in your small circle of skeptics is quite another. False memory exists, yes, but surely you don’t believe your whole life is a misremembered mess.

Thanks for the dinner offer, and thanks in general for your enormous patience and long-suffering.

172

I posted a message at the Snopes site asking whether any among them had seen (or rather, thought they’d seen) the episode, but had changed their minds based on arguments by Snopes. Obviously, this was so I could come to understand how I might have misunderstood what I thought I saw.

There was a response from a reasonable person, but if you want to see hyperskepticism in action, go look at another of the responses. You’ll know the one. It sounds like it comes from a paranoid on speed. Turns out, I am a troll and that I started this thread over here just to watch a controversy flame up.

Alas, I am now an urban legend in my own right.

173

Lib said:

Not silly at all, as I have explained several times over. But if you can’t understand what “evidence” is, I highly doubt another round of explanations will do anything to change that. < sigh >

Good thing I haven’t done that. Oh, wait, you’re introducing Mr. Straw Man into the argument (did he come along with Mr. Thin Skin?). Repeat after me: Evidence. Evidence. Evidence…

174

I wrote:

To which Monty replied:

And David added:

I think, with due respect, that both of you gentlemen are incorrect here. Like it or not, and whether or not it should be, the affirmative, direct testimony of two unbiased eyewitnesses is going to be considered very strong in a court of law, and it is probably going to be accepted unless there is direct proof of equal magnitude that what they are saying is incorrect. (This would likely make a great thread of its own, but that’s another story.)

You say there are “hard facts” to contradict what they say. Maybe this is so, but based on what I’ve seen here so far it’s a jury question, not a summary judgment (meaning that there is enough evidence on both sides to leave it to the trier of fact to decide, rather than being something that a judge could say, as a matter of law, is so).

Bob Eubanks says it never happened? Well, I haven’t seen him here to say that, it’s true, and the article quoted above seems to suggest that he has backed away from that some.

Nobody can find it in the archives? Doesn’t mean a thing until you tell me that someone has sat down and gone through all the existing tape with a specific eye toward finding it and a backup in place to make sure s/he didn’t miss it, AND that all the tapes from the relevant time period are extant.

Nobody’s collected on the reward? Well, yes, that has the potential to be good evidence, but we need more information about it. Lib never heard of it until you folks mentioned it; I hadn’t either, and I live in a “company town” where this sort of thing gets bruited about. Does the clerk who files the tapes of these shows know about it? That’d be the person most likely to have the time and the access to look for it, and probably the motivation too, since that would be a larger sum of money for someone working minimum wage than it would be for someone with a much higher income.

Oh, and you don’t need a body to convict somebody of murder, y’know?

I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with either side. But I’m annoyed with how smug David is in his responses to this thread, and the lack of respect he initially showed Lib when Lib made his OP. You may think you know what the “truth” is of this matter, and you may indeed be correct. But I still tell you that, based on everything that has been written here, at any rate, it’s still a jury question.

-Melin

175

Given the different transmission paths of the legend itself, and the reward (altho I’m starting to think the reward is an urban legend!), it seems entirely likely that one would have (a) absorbed the original story without being aware that it was an urban legend, and/or (b) become aware that it was an urban legend without being aware of the reward.

The version of the story I originally heard (somewhere between mid-80s and early 90s) had a black contestant guessing at how his wife would answer the question, with the phrase: “I say she say in de butt.” So we’re talking about a story that has metastasized into a couple of different versions, at least.

176

I agree with Melin. Lib, Edlyn (hope I got that right), and others testimony is evidence, but personally, I think it is overweighed by the other evidence. In particular, the two pieces that are most powerful:

  1. The censors never would have allowed it on the show unedited. I know for certain that I have seen episodes with words “coo-cooed” out. “In the butt, Bob” would almost certainly have been “In the COO-COO, Bob”. So, I think any claims to have seen it in an original show is false for this reason. It is possible that in a modern re-run the coo-coo could have been re-edited out, and I don’t recall whether the modern re-runs have the coo-coo or not. If they do it suggests that no re-editing has been done, and although I don’t recall, I do think I have heard coo-coo’s recently so. I’ll pay more attention when I watch the show.

  2. Bob Eubanks stands a moderate chance of remembering the show. There aren’t that many occurances of a word having to be bleeped, so I think he would remember the occurances where is did happen. He certainly has no reason to lie about the occurance. So, the fact, that his testimony says it didn’t happen seems pretty powerful to me.

As to the bias thing: David, we are all biased. It is unavoidable. You accept the evidence presented by Snopes with more weight than the evidence presented by Lib et al. There is nothing wrong with that, in fact, as above I think you’re right. But because you are David Bloomberg with your set of experiences, thoughts, feelings, etc you accept the evidence of Snopes over the testimony. Somebody else, with their own set of experiences, thoughts, feelings, etc may accept Lib et al. testimony over Snopes.

177

FWIW, I heard this story for the first time only three years ago on a radio station in Northern FL.

Some radio guys were talking, one of whom had recently interviewed Bob Eubanks.

In this version, the contestants were both Black.

(Eubanks’ response is already well-documented, so there’s no need for me to repeat it.)

178

Let’s face it - what other blooper on the Newlywed Game has taken on the life that this one has? Eubanks has been asked repeatedly about this, and has repeatedly denied it happened. Don’t you think, as its something he’s going to be asked about in almost every interview (and keep in mind he isn’t known for much else, so I doubt he has anything else to discuss other than the game itself), that somewhere along the line he either would have found out for certain himself if he wasn’t absolutely sure, or someone would have presented him evidence by now just to show him up? (And it seems pretty clear to me that the “tease” in the TV Guide article was an obvious plug to go out and buy his new book.)

Alan

Next time I want your opinion I’ll beat it out of you.

179

Libertarian writes:

You are correct, Edlyn’s boss (EB) is an F, not a FOAF. Unfortunately, it was not EB but EB’s sister who saw the show. That makes it a FOAF. It isn’t as important in this case, because the alleged incident is not something like “the spider eggs hatched and her head exploded”, but merely that she saw the show. Nonetheless, if you talk to EB’s sister, you may hear a different story - “I heard that from Billy, so I just had to tell EB.” Or, you may not. The point is, with a FOAF, until you track down the person alleged to have witnessed the incident you have to take it with a grain of salt.

This is not quite the same situation, but I had an ex-girlfriend once who swore up and down that the cat-eating-the-poisoned-salmon, no-wait-he-got-hit-by-a-car legend happened to her parents. When I talked to them, it turned into a FOAF of the parents.

These things slip through your fingers like sand, like Uri, er, I mean certain Amazing Performers incredible talents.

180

Lib,

it is the nature of Urban Legends that they are spread by being told as a “true” story. The 10K reward is not associated with story as it is spread (or “vectored”, as they like to say on alt.folklore.urban.legends) in it’s natural “urban legend” state. The 10K reward is only associated with the story when it is discussed as an Urban Legend, and being debunked. Since you probably heard it “vectored” and not discussed as an urban legend, you (and the vast majority hearing the story) would not have heard of the reward.

Regarding the evidence you describe as new, it isn’t really new. David addressed the FOAF aspect, which is a big part of it. Additionally, the creation of new false memories of this “event” is something to be expected.

I don’t blame you being indignant, it does almost sound like we are calling you a liar. This is why I normally don’t correct people when I hear them passing off an urban legend, they are often angry, and even when they aren’t, it’s still something of a downer to hear that the funny story isn’t true.