Faulty TV Memories

[Stanislav]

Human memory is at once both amazingly able and inherently fallible. Juries and attorneys continue to place faith in eyewitness testimony, even though many studies confirm that such testimony is notoriously unreliable.

There are many phenomena that can make what seem to us like rock-solid memories actually mistaken. Stress, or the unexpected nature of the incident, can distort our observations and, subsequently, our memories; publicity, media coverage, and word-of-mouth after the fact can alter memories (there is a tendency for memories to gradually conform to an accepted group/community agreement over time); memories of distinct, different events may merge and combine over the years; even plain old "wishful thinking" can make us believe that we saw what we wanted to see.

This often occurs with television memories, especially regarding live, breaking news stories. For example, if you were to ask a sample of Americans who were alive and watching television the week JFK was shot, almost every one of them will swear to you that they saw Ruby shoot Oswald live. Yet, only one network (NBC) actually showed the incident as it happened, and unless you happened to be tuned to NBC and happened to be watching at that moment, you didn't see it live. Of course, tape of the footage was subsequently repeated over and over that weekend, and one could theorize that at the time, with videotape still a relatively new technology that most viewers did not quite understand, and the fact that a good tape looks "live," the confusion is easy to excuse.

Yet, 25 years later, the same phenomenon occurred when the Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated in a huge fireball shortly after launch. As has been discussed in this forum, there was almost no live coverage of the launch. Nonetheless, pretty much everyone remembers seeing it as it happened that day.

More recently, I have actually met folks who insist that they saw the first plane hit the World Trade Center, live on TV, on 9/11. (Even President Bush infamously made this gaffe, which entered into the lore of 9/11 conspiracy theorists.) Try to point out to them that, unless the various networks had psychics running the show who advised them to point a camera at the WTC before that totally unexpected attack occurred, and show them documentation of the fact that footage of the 1st plane did not even surface until much, much later that day, and they will stare at you for a moment, and then continue to insist that you are wrong -- they KNOW what they saw.

My own life has seen a few of these TV memories that turned out to be bogus, though perhaps not on as large a scale. For instance, in a previous thread on this board about disruptions to network programming during the 1977 New York City blackout, I related having witnessed some odd technical glitches during an ABC broadcast of Soap that day. My memory was subsequently discredited by a poster who politely pointed out that Soap had not yet debuted at the time. (This was probably one of those "mixed memories" situations -- my mind had taken something I saw well after the blackout, and merged it in among the actual network problems I witnessed that evening.)

Interestingly, I have just had another TV memory debunked. Previously in this forum, I had discussed the incident in which a Spanish-language network reporter was taping an outdoor interview with a woman whose estranged husband then proceeded to shoot her dead as the camera rolled. I had seen this footage only twice previously, and it had been many years since. I swore that, after the shooting, the reporter (perhaps coldly, but astutely) had advised her cameraman, in English, to "keep rolling."

Well, this weekend, the case was featured on one of MSNBC's "true crime" type shows. (You know, the ones they run all day long on holidays when everyone has the day off). : They repeated the critical moments of the tape several times. Not only was I surprised to hear no such "keep rolling" instruction verbalized on the tape, but even the video itself did not match my recollections at all -- I had remembered it as being shot from a greater distance and from a drastically different angle. But there was only one camera rolling there, and I can't dispute that what I thought I saw (distorted and filtered through the prism of time) wasn't so.

So, how about you guys? Have you had any experiences of seeing something on TV, then seeing it replayed many years after the fact, and being shocked to find that it was very different from the way you remembered it?

 

[Davros2006]

I'm thinking about it right now, and I'm sure something will turn up soon. Of course, with YouTube, those faulty memories get resolved.

 

[Ultimajock]

This often occurs with television memories, especially regarding live, breaking news stories. For example, if you were to ask a sample of Americans who were alive and watching television the week JFK was shot, almost every one of them will swear to you that they saw Ruby shoot Oswald live. Yet, only one network (NBC) actually showed the incident as it happened, and unless you happened to be tuned to NBC and happened to be watching at that moment, you didn't see it live. Of course, tape of the footage was subsequently repeated over and over that weekend, and one could theorize that at the time, with videotape still a relatively new technology that most viewers did not quite understand, and the fact that a good tape looks "live," the confusion is easy to excuse.

...and one thing about that footage is that a frequently-repeated version of it had much of the sound removed. In several of his later interviews, Mickey Spillane, who had been fascinated by the events of that weekend for many years, frequently complained that the tape had the car horn blasts just before the shooting and Oswald's shout of pain removed from it...

 

[Stanislav]

This often occurs with television memories, especially regarding live, breaking news stories. For example, if you were to ask a sample of Americans who were alive and watching television the week JFK was shot, almost every one of them will swear to you that they saw Ruby shoot Oswald live. Yet, only one network (NBC) actually showed the incident as it happened, and unless you happened to be tuned to NBC and happened to be watching at that moment, you didn't see it live. Of course, tape of the footage was subsequently repeated over and over that weekend, and one could theorize that at the time, with videotape still a relatively new technology that most viewers did not quite understand, and the fact that a good tape looks "live," the confusion is easy to excuse.

...and one thing about that footage is that a frequently-repeated version of it had much of the sound removed. In several of his later interviews, Mickey Spillane, who had been fascinated by the events of that weekend for many years, frequently complained that the tape had the car horn blasts just before the shooting and Oswald's shout of pain removed from it...

Understandable, as some who think Oswald's killing was part of a plot (either the same plotters as killed JFK, or a separate plot to insure Oswald's silence) believe those timely horn blasts were a "signal" to Ruby.

Not to mention that without sound, we can't hear NBC's Tom Pettit's iconic utterance ("He's been shot! He's been shot! Lee Oswald has been shot!"), nor CBS/KRLD's Eddie Barker in the midst of the hubbub repeatedly misstating Oswald's name as "Lee Harold Oswald."

 

[Ultimajock]

This often occurs with television memories, especially regarding live, breaking news stories. For example, if you were to ask a sample of Americans who were alive and watching television the week JFK was shot, almost every one of them will swear to you that they saw Ruby shoot Oswald live. Yet, only one network (NBC) actually showed the incident as it happened, and unless you happened to be tuned to NBC and happened to be watching at that moment, you didn't see it live. Of course, tape of the footage was subsequently repeated over and over that weekend, and one could theorize that at the time, with videotape still a relatively new technology that most viewers did not quite understand, and the fact that a good tape looks "live," the confusion is easy to excuse.

...and one thing about that footage is that a frequently-repeated version of it had much of the sound removed. In several of his later interviews, Mickey Spillane, who had been fascinated by the events of that weekend for many years, frequently complained that the tape had the car horn blasts just before the shooting and Oswald's shout of pain removed from it...

Understandable, as some who think Oswald's killing was part of a plot (either the same plotters as killed JFK, or a separate plot to insure Oswald's silence) believe those timely horn blasts were a "signal" to Ruby.

Not to mention that without sound, we can't hear NBC's Tom Pettit's iconic utterance ("He's been shot! He's been shot! Lee Oswald has been shot!"), nor CBS/KRLD's Eddie Barker in the midst of the hubbub repeatedly misstating Oswald's name as "Lee Harold Oswald."

...was that Pettit? I thought that was Ike Pappas of WNEW New York (and later CBS). Or maybe Pettit and Pappas were doing the same exact thing at the same time. Interestingly, about five minutes later, when the correspondents begin interviewing each other because only the correspondents were available to each other (the Dallas police were kinda busy, y'know?), Pappas interviewed the news director of KHJ Los Angeles, Geoff Edwards (yes, the guy who a decade later was employed by Chuck Barris), who had assigned himself to cover the event. Another odd person to attend the Oswald assassination was John Peel, as a stringer for the Liverpool Echo; Peel had been working for WRR-FM Dallas, and a few months later started his rock radio career as KLIF's resident Beatle expert...

 

[Stanislav]

This often occurs with television memories, especially regarding live, breaking news stories. For example, if you were to ask a sample of Americans who were alive and watching television the week JFK was shot, almost every one of them will swear to you that they saw Ruby shoot Oswald live. Yet, only one network (NBC) actually showed the incident as it happened, and unless you happened to be tuned to NBC and happened to be watching at that moment, you didn't see it live. Of course, tape of the footage was subsequently repeated over and over that weekend, and one could theorize that at the time, with videotape still a relatively new technology that most viewers did not quite understand, and the fact that a good tape looks "live," the confusion is easy to excuse.

...and one thing about that footage is that a frequently-repeated version of it had much of the sound removed. In several of his later interviews, Mickey Spillane, who had been fascinated by the events of that weekend for many years, frequently complained that the tape had the car horn blasts just before the shooting and Oswald's shout of pain removed from it...

Understandable, as some who think Oswald's killing was part of a plot (either the same plotters as killed JFK, or a separate plot to insure Oswald's silence) believe those timely horn blasts were a "signal" to Ruby.

Not to mention that without sound, we can't hear NBC's Tom Pettit's iconic utterance ("He's been shot! He's been shot! Lee Oswald has been shot!"), nor CBS/KRLD's Eddie Barker in the midst of the hubbub repeatedly misstating Oswald's name as "Lee Harold Oswald."

...was that Pettit? I thought that was Ike Pappas of WNEW New York (and later CBS). Or maybe Pettit and Pappas were doing the same exact thing at the same time. Interestingly, about five minutes later, when the correspondents begin interviewing each other because only the correspondents were available to each other (the Dallas police were kinda busy, y'know?), Pappas interviewed the news director of KHJ Los Angeles, Geoff Edwards (yes, the guy who a decade later was employed by Chuck Barris), who had assigned himself to cover the event. Another odd person to attend the Oswald assassination was John Peel, as a stringer for the Liverpool Echo; Peel had been working for WRR-FM Dallas, and a few months later started his rock radio career as KLIF's resident Beatle expert...

Pappas was there, but covering it for radio -- Pettit was the "He's been shot! etc." exclaimer on NBC-TV. One interesting tidbit about Pappas was when he learned from someone at the scene that Ruby ran the Carousel Club -- he was stunned to realize that he had one of Ruby's business cards right in his pocket, Ruby having given it to him earlier that weekend.

If you watch the coverage of the aftermath of the shooting, you can see that all the reporters on scene were right on top of each other due to the cramped area and the sheer mass of humanity present. On CBS's footage, as Eddie Barker is addressing KRLD's camera, you can simultaneously actually see Pettit, not more than a few feet away, holding his mic and facing a slightly different angle and addressing HIS (WBAP) camera! In fact, if you listen to the audio of the CBS tape at that point, you can just about hear, in a low buzz, Pettit's commentary under Barker's. Even with the very directional hand mics, they were so close together that there is some audio crossover there.

 

[Stanislav]

This often occurs with television memories, especially regarding live, breaking news stories. For example, if you were to ask a sample of Americans who were alive and watching television the week JFK was shot, almost every one of them will swear to you that they saw Ruby shoot Oswald live. Yet, only one network (NBC) actually showed the incident as it happened, and unless you happened to be tuned to NBC and happened to be watching at that moment, you didn't see it live. Of course, tape of the footage was subsequently repeated over and over that weekend, and one could theorize that at the time, with videotape still a relatively new technology that most viewers did not quite understand, and the fact that a good tape looks "live," the confusion is easy to excuse.

...and one thing about that footage is that a frequently-repeated version of it had much of the sound removed. In several of his later interviews, Mickey Spillane, who had been fascinated by the events of that weekend for many years, frequently complained that the tape had the car horn blasts just before the shooting and Oswald's shout of pain removed from it...

Understandable, as some who think Oswald's killing was part of a plot (either the same plotters as killed JFK, or a separate plot to insure Oswald's silence) believe those timely horn blasts were a "signal" to Ruby.

Not to mention that without sound, we can't hear NBC's Tom Pettit's iconic utterance ("He's been shot! He's been shot! Lee Oswald has been shot!"), nor CBS/KRLD's Eddie Barker in the midst of the hubbub repeatedly misstating Oswald's name as "Lee Harold Oswald."

...was that Pettit? I thought that was Ike Pappas of WNEW New York (and later CBS). Or maybe Pettit and Pappas were doing the same exact thing at the same time. Interestingly, about five minutes later, when the correspondents begin interviewing each other because only the correspondents were available to each other (the Dallas police were kinda busy, y'know?), Pappas interviewed the news director of KHJ Los Angeles, Geoff Edwards (yes, the guy who a decade later was employed by Chuck Barris), who had assigned himself to cover the event. Another odd person to attend the Oswald assassination was John Peel, as a stringer for the Liverpool Echo; Peel had been working for WRR-FM Dallas, and a few months later started his rock radio career as KLIF's resident Beatle expert...

Pappas was there, but covering it for radio -- Pettit was the "He's been shot! etc." exclaimer on NBC-TV. One interesting tidbit about Pappas was when he learned from someone at the scene that Ruby ran the Carousel Club -- he was stunned to realize that he had one of Ruby's business cards right in his pocket, Ruby having given it to him earlier that weekend.

If you watch the coverage of the aftermath of the shooting, you can see that all the reporters on scene were right on top of each other due to the cramped area and the sheer mass of humanity present. On CBS's footage, as Eddie Barker is addressing KRLD's camera, you can simultaneously actually see Pettit, not more than a few feet away, holding his mic and facing a slightly different angle and addressing HIS (WBAP) camera! In fact, if you listen to the audio of the CBS tape at that point, you can just about hear, in a low buzz, Pettit's commentary under Barker's. Even with the very directional hand mics, they were so close together that there is some audio crossover there.

And BTW, FWIW Tom Pettit can be seen at the extreme right edge of the uncropped version of the iconic Robert Jackson Pulitzer Prize photo of Ruby shooting Oswald (he is the gentleman in the glasses holding a microphone). 99% of the time, you will see a cropped version of that photo that cuts Pettit out of the picture. He can also be seen in profile on the right side of the Jack Beers photo taken just a second or two before Ruby fired. (And, if I'm not mistaken, isn't that Ike Pappas in front of Pettit in the Beers shot? If so, that proximity may be the source of the confusion -- Pettit's exclamation may have been picked up by Pappas' microphone.)

(Forgive me, I didn't mean for this thread to become another dissecting of JFK assassination minutiae, but I'm fascinated by the subject...)

 

[OldNumber7]

This may qualify as one of the most widely published faulty TV memories: About a decade ago, TV Guide did an issue recapping the "100 Most Memorable TV Moments" (or something like that) and the first moon landing was at the top of the list. What was interesting was that the writer described how "we actually saw" the lunar surface approach as the lunar module was touching down. Actually, there was no broadcast of that moment. The crew had a film camera, not a video camera, pointed out the window and the film was widely played AFTER they returned; but there was no live TV of the moment. The networks all used simulation with models or animation to depict the descent for their viewers as it happened live. The only video camera aboard the lunar module was stowed on the side of the craft to be deployed as Armstrong began his climb down the ladder. I wrote a letter to TV Guide about their horrendous error, but they never responded or corrected it.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

And BTW, FWIW Tom Pettit can be seen at the extreme right edge of the uncropped version of the iconic Robert Jackson Pulitzer Prize photo of Ruby shooting Oswald...

And can anyone confirm or debunk the story that, just after the shooting,
the plainclothes Dallas PD officer (in the white hat next to Oswald) said
to Ruby: "Jack, you son of a b****!"

 

[Stanislav]

And BTW, FWIW Tom Pettit can be seen at the extreme right edge of the uncropped version of the iconic Robert Jackson Pulitzer Prize photo of Ruby shooting Oswald...

And can anyone confirm or debunk the story that, just after the shooting,
the plainclothes Dallas PD officer (in the white hat next to Oswald) said
to Ruby: "Jack, you son of a b****!"

It is reported that a policeman said that at some point during the scuffle that ensued. I don't know if it can actually heard on the videotapes (I'd have to dig out what I have to confirm that). What is clear is that half the Dallas PD were regular patrons of the Carousel Club, and almost all of them knew him by sight as he was quite the police "groupie" who often hanged around Police HQ, handing out free passes and such. Conspiracy theories aside, if any cops had noticed Ruby present at the Oswald transfer, they probably wouldn't have batted an eye. Ruby was even present earlier at the famous midnight press conference, posing as a reporter, even correcting one reporter's facts (correcting the name of Oswald's "Fair Play for Cuba" committee -- one wonders how Jack knew THAT). But Ruby was such a regular presence in the building that no one would have thought to throw him out -- he was about as normal a sight there as the paint on the walls.

 

[Stanislav]

This may qualify as one of the most widely published faulty TV memories: About a decade ago, TV Guide did an issue recapping the "100 Most Memorable TV Moments" (or something like that) and the first moon landing was at the top of the list. What was interesting was that the writer described how "we actually saw" the lunar surface approach as the lunar module was touching down. Actually, there was no broadcast of that moment. The crew had a film camera, not a video camera, pointed out the window and the film was widely played AFTER they returned; but there was no live TV of the moment. The networks all used simulation with models or animation to depict the descent for their viewers as it happened live. The only video camera aboard the lunar module was stowed on the side of the craft to be deployed as Armstrong began his climb down the ladder. I wrote a letter to TV Guide about their horrendous error, but they never responded or corrected it.

Likewise, with Apollo 13, many will swear that they watched the television transmission that preceded the tank explosion (they didn't -- it was not carried by the networks) or that the mishap occurred during that transmission (it didn't -- the camera had been turned off several minutes beforehand).

 

[KeithE4]

Another one is Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game against the NY Knicks on March 2, 1962, when he was with the Philadelphia Warriors (Philly won 169-147). Thousands of people claim to have seen this game, either in person or on TV.

Unfortunately for ESPN Classic and NBA-TV, it wasn't televised. It was a meaningless Friday night game between two teams in a division dominated by the Celtics that season. Radio archives exist, though.

Not only that, but the game was played in Hershey PA and the attendance was just over 4000 fans. Very few people actually saw it first-hand, 100% of whom were at Hersheypark Arena.

 

[dhett]

And BTW, FWIW Tom Pettit can be seen at the extreme right edge of the uncropped version of the iconic Robert Jackson Pulitzer Prize photo of Ruby shooting Oswald...

And can anyone confirm or debunk the story that, just after the shooting,
the plainclothes Dallas PD officer (in the white hat next to Oswald) said
to Ruby: "Jack, you son of a b****!"

It is reported that a policeman said that at some point during the scuffle that ensued. I don't know if it can actually heard on the videotapes (I'd have to dig out what I have to confirm that). What is clear is that half the Dallas PD were regular patrons of the Carousel Club, and almost all of them knew him by sight as he was quite the police "groupie" who often hanged around Police HQ, handing out free passes and such. Conspiracy theories aside, if any cops had noticed Ruby present at the Oswald transfer, they probably wouldn't have batted an eye. Ruby was even present earlier at the famous midnight press conference, posing as a reporter, even correcting one reporter's facts (correcting the name of Oswald's "Fair Play for Cuba" committee -- one wonders how Jack knew THAT). But Ruby was such a regular presence in the building that no one would have thought to throw him out -- he was about as normal a sight there as the paint on the walls.

I think the Beers photo kinda backs up your point. I was amazed that no one seemed alarmed by the aggressive posture Ruby was taking - no one was even looking at him. Perhaps they mistook him for a reporter with a mic, or maybe they just expected to see Ruby at such a gathering of police officers. I'm sure it happened quickly, but no one in the entire photo saw it coming, least of all the officer in the light suit and hat.

 

[Corky Marlowe]

What about Arthur Godfrey firing Julius LaRosa on the air? I've heard it happened in prime time on "Arthur Godfrey And His Friends", I've heard it happened on his daytime TV/radio "Arthur Godfrey Time" simulcast, and I've heard it happened on the third hour of "Arthur Godfrey Time" which was only on radio, meaning nobody ever saw it on TV.

 

[Ultimajock]

What is clear is that half the Dallas PD were regular patrons of the Carousel Club, and almost all of them knew him by sight as he was quite the police "groupie" who often hanged around Police HQ, handing out free passes and such. Conspiracy theories aside, if any cops had noticed Ruby present at the Oswald transfer, they probably wouldn't have batted an eye. Ruby was even present earlier at the famous midnight press conference, posing as a reporter, even correcting one reporter's facts (correcting the name of Oswald's "Fair Play for Cuba" committee -- one wonders how Jack knew THAT).

...in fact, IIRC, the footage of Ruby at the midnight press conference came to light only a dozen years ago or so; CBS bought KTVT/11 Fort Worth-Dallas (Fox had dislodged CBS from its affiliation with KDFW/4 in the deal with New World Communications) and soon afterwards a former KTVT cameraman who had covered the press conference died (his widow found the old reel of film in his closet stash after the funeral)...

 

[Ultimajock]

What about Arthur Godfrey firing Julius LaRosa on the air? I've heard it happened in prime time on "Arthur Godfrey And His Friends", I've heard it happened on his daytime TV/radio "Arthur Godfrey Time" simulcast, and I've heard it happened on the third hour of "Arthur Godfrey Time" which was only on radio, meaning nobody ever saw it on TV.

...the third option is the truth; on the audio aircheck that exists, Godfrey ends by ID'ing "The CBS Radio Network," which he did only at the end of the radio-only segments (Tony Marvin would ID the TV and Radio networks at the end of the TV and simulcast segments)...

 

[Laura151]

You're right, there was very little coverage of the Challenger launch. However, those of us who were tuned in to CNN (including me), did see the launch and the explosion, as CNN did give it live coverage.

 

[Stanislav]

You're right, there was very little coverage of the Challenger launch. However, those of us who were tuned in to CNN (including me), did see the launch and the explosion, as CNN did give it live coverage.

Oh, I know -- some (few) saw it live; most didn't. CNN had it (don't forget there was yet no MSNBC or Fox News back then). The Orlando-Daytona Beach stations would have carried it live (as they do all launches). And NBC viewers on the West Coast saw it as a live update during their feed of Today (with KNBC's Kent Shocknek commentating -- the source of the "My God.....there's been an explosion" clip one often hears in Challenger tributes -- it sounds like Tom Brokaw, but it wasn't). I don't recall from a previous thread on this subject if CBS or ABC carried it during their own West Coast feeds of their morning shows (don't believe so). I figure maybe 5% of the total TV viewers in the U.S. saw it live, if that many. But, of course, within minutes all three networks broke into regular programming nationwide, and we all suffered through watching endless replays of the horror all day long. :'(

 

[Davros2006]

I don't know if this classifies as faulty, but I do swear remembering seeing the animated "O Canada" film used to sign on and off the CBC (until they began 24/7 broadcasting two years ago) and Radio-Canada (which still signs off at night) where the animation starts in the east and goes west (as opposed to seeing the film start in the west and going east, which has featured in more tape collections as of late).

Can anyone confirm this memory?

 

[mleach]

What about the 1974 TV suicide of Chris Chubbuck?

I was only 7 when this happened but I do remember hearing from those who SWEAR that the actually saw the suicide on TV and this was in MARYLAND !! I know the national networks did a story on this but I can't find anything at all online that says the networks actually showed her suicide.

I wonder if this is case of people talking about it for so long that in their minds they believed that they did see it but really didn't.