Lesser Known Examples of the Mandela Effect

These bears are intent on deceit! (Photo by Ellen Forsyth on Flickr under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license)

Your memory is not as good as you think it is. That's because your brain is a treacherous, deceitful jerk intent on gaslighting you at the drop of a hat. It will also make you drop your hat just for laughs.

Many of us remember things a certain way that turn out to not be accurate. When it's just you are a few people, you can write it off as a trick of your slyboots mind. But when many people share the same "wrong" memory, some think something else is at play. That something else is called "The Mandela Effect". This effect is named for South African anti-apartheid leader, and later South African President Nelson Mandela. Many people swear they remember that he died in jail. However, that is demonstrably not true. The theory, which is the only plausible one, is that at some point our timeline shifted to our current one. And in this one, Mandela did not die in prison. See, it's simple and reasonable.

One of the most well known examples of this effect involves some illustrated bears. Many, many people swear that a series of children' books was called The Berenstein Bears. However, if you go to a library (which still exist, even in this timeline), you will find the books are called The Berenstain Bears. Timeline shift.

Other examples include a genie movie that supposedly starred the hilarious Sinbad and whether chartreuse is green or red (in this timeline, it is green). 

We have done some serious research and have found lesser known examples of the Mandela Effect that will have you serious questioning whether or not you live in a shifted timeline. Read on to review these common memories that are not accurate in our current timeline. If your sanity can stand the shock. The time shock!

1. Senator Ted Kennedy died in 2004 when he was attacked by hungry pelicans.

2. Steven Spielberg's name was Stephen Spielberg. And for a while it was Johnny Action.

3. Whoopi Goldberg was married to Clive Barker in the mid 90's.

4. The witch on H.R. Puffenstuff was played by Joyce DeWitt.

5. "Wednesday" used to be spelled "Whensday".

6. Queen Elizabeth threatened to behead all Americans during a July 1976 visit to Boston.

7. Ann Meara played Marion Cunningham for the first season of Happy Days.

8. Rhett Butler's famous final line in Gone With the Wind was "Frankly my dear, I could go for some Johnnycakes."

9. Sammy Davis, Jr. was Sammy Davis, III.

10. In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy befriended a sickly owl named Bernice that wanted the Wizard to give her a nice sweater.

11. McDonald's was MacDonald's, and they sold almonds.

12. There was a weekend morning show with Jim Nabors, Ruth Buzzi, and a guy in a dog/horse suit. This show was called Meet the Press.

13. Richard Benjamin was an actual movie star.

14. There was this song that kinda sounded like da-dee-dum a-doop-a-do oh yeah deep-a-do. That song was really good.

15. This blog was really funny.

 An audio version of this post is available here.