23 Comments
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Eric's avatar

Let us not forget the Sinbad genie movie that people claim doesn’t exist also.

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Ruth's avatar

Yes, Ed McMahon did do those commercials.

I remember fruit and I *think* I remember the cornucopia.

And yes, I believe in alternate universes. :)

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Patty's avatar

I fully remember the carnicopia and Ed McMahon with the check!

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Jacqueline Church's avatar

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fruit-of-the-loom-cornucopia/

Take a deep breath, go for a run.

The little insignificant memories are easily explained by the way memory works. Our brains assemble memories and reconcile with lots of inputs. Lots of things can affect accuracy: trauma, what you, ahem, ingest and in what quantities, as well, when you BELIEVE your memory to be accurate, you want any evidence to support it and that becomes "proof" regardless of reality. Unless you're me, cuz I absolutely remember things perfectly.

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R.C.McDovetail's avatar

I dunno about Fruit of the Loom but when I was a kid all my Adidas stuff had two stripes instead of 3, and said "Aribas" on it, but I think that's just because it fell off the back of a delivery truck and my Uncle John happened to find it. He was always finding stuff.

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Zach Dahlem's avatar

My favorite theory that encompasses all of this plus the fact that the last 8ish years have just very much not hit is that when they cranked up the Large Hadron Collider for the first time in the early 2010s (I believe it was in 2014 but may be off by a year or so either way) they tore a hole in space-time and flipped us into an alternate timeline. I’d like to say I think that’s ridiculous but damn if it wouldn’t explain Trump.

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Julie Putney's avatar

You're not crazy, the collective memory is unreliable at best. I'm older than you & remember the things you are talking about

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jacque's avatar

Snopes is on the case https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ed-mcmahon-publishers-clearing-house/ Ed worked for American Family Publishers sweepstakes, competition to Publishers Clearing House. Like who knew there were multiple companies doing that thing back then 😀

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Sherri Patterson's avatar

I was gonna say exactly this! I saw this a while back and kinda felt a little dumb that I didn’t realize there were multiple companies doing big giveaways and advertising them on tv. I chalk this one up to how I ask for a Kleenex after I sneeze even when it’s a different brand of tissues.

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Laura Wagner's avatar

Thank you!

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Emma's avatar

The Berenstain Bears one, as I kid I always just thought that was how they pronounced their name, like how Feinstein and Weinstein are pronounced differently despite being spelled the same. The Kazaam/Shazam one was very real for me. It does blow my mind that the effect is named after Nelson Mandela when that is the most embarrassing one lol. You could not get me to admit I thought that Nelson Mandela died in prison, if you sent me to gitmo.

I do like that theory about it being a side effect of the multiverse, that is fun! I hope all our alternate selves are having a great time debating stuff that actually happened in our timeline! 😵‍💫

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Andrea Shilkoff's avatar

Ed totally did the PCH, all the happy people were SO glad to see him at their door.!! You have piqued my curiosity, Corey, I gotta do some digging!! Lol!

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Amy Hess-Kibben's avatar

Even my mom confirmed, it was publisher not American!!!

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Andrea Shilkoff's avatar

Just to confirm .. Mandela did not die in prison, right? (I thought he was freed after apartheid?) 😃😃

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Gina Marie Di Dio's avatar

He was freed and lived on. He’s deceased now.

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Andrea Shilkoff's avatar

Thank you, i thought so! It figures that the person that the Mandela Effect is named after is THE one I knew! Lol!

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Jul 10, 2023
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Andrea Shilkoff's avatar

Thank you! Such an amazing man

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Jul 10, 2023
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Gina Marie Di Dio's avatar

Ed was a spokesperson for American family publishers, a competitor of Publishers’ clearing house. AFP went out of business in the ‘90’s and McMahon died in 2009. It’s what you said. We mix memories up. It’s also an example of marketing and advertising’s hold on the collective consciousness, especially in the 1980’s, when tv advertising was so big.

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Gina Marie Di Dio's avatar

Sorry, you didn’t say anything about memories, I got mixed up because I read someone else’s comment, and responded to yours. But you get the point. Haha 😆

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Jul 10, 2023
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Gina Marie Di Dio's avatar

That’s it. I think we see it the way it was laid out and associate a bunch of fruit with a cornucopia of fruit. It was popular in the second half of the last century for the cornucopia of fake fruit to be a dining room table decor, especially around fall/Thanksgiving. My mom had one for years when I grew up in the ‘70’s-80’s. Fruit of the Loom swears it was never their logo, so I’m sure it never was, we just assumed it was because we associate the bunch of fruit with being in a cornucopia.

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Jul 9, 2023
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Corey Ryan Forrester's avatar

Ben I love you for this and we should talk about it more lol

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Laura Wagner's avatar

OMG glad I was already high!

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