Televisual Mandela Effects

[Satchmo Distel]

15 minutes from explosion to news flash was pretty quick for the mid 80s, suggesting at least that they were planning to make the planned lift-off a top story on the 6pm news.

[Satchmo Distel]

John Peel, 1987, Channel 4, late night, saying we were reaching the point where the only solution might be some kind of assassination. I was amazed it didn't become a huge story.

[the]

15 minutes from explosion to news flash was pretty quick for the mid 80s, suggesting at least that they were planning to make the planned lift-off a top story on the 6pm news.

Not really, there'd have been journalists in the background watching TV feeds of the launch and covering the story anyway, but then when something went wrong, that becomes the biggest story and the running order gets updated.

The launch would certainly have been the intended lead story on Newsround though.

[Icehaven]

I realise I'm contradicting my own complaint here about one person's false memory not constituting a Mandela effect, but; I was certain Leslie Crowther's car accident that effectively ended his career was during the 1987 hurricane, and was a result of either a tree falling on his car or him driving into a tree that had already fallen, but it was actually years later in 1992. I'm not even confusing it with Gorden Kaye's similarly brain-injuring crash, as that was due to a storm, but was in 1990.

[JesusAndYourBush]

15 minutes from explosion to news flash was pretty quick for the mid 80s, suggesting at least that they were planning to make the planned lift-off a top story on the 6pm news.

And Newsround was even quicker at about 6 minutes after.  (It'd have interrupted The Really Wild Show.)

I realise I'm contradicting my own complaint here about one person's false memory not constituting a Mandela effect...

I think people understand that we're playing fast & loose with the whole "Mandela Effect" thing and that nobody here is arrogant enough to think that the whole universe changed around them (possibly caused by some timey-wimeyness at CERN) rather than accept that the brain sometimes garbles memories or conflates two or more seperate meories together etc.

[the]

And Newsround was even quicker at about 6 minutes after.  (It'd have interrupted The Really Wild Show.)

Newsround didn't break through in newsflash form, it went out in its scheduled slot of 5pm.

[Chriddof]

I've heard that on CITV there was a newsflash, coming in the middle of Thames TV's long-forgotten magazine show "Splash" - apparently one of the presenters had to hand over to ITN for a few minutes. There doesn't seem to be any footage of this available. On the CBBC clip on Youtube, it begins with Schofield doing what would have been a standard link to Newsround, only delivering it a little more sombrely than usual - which ties in with what the wrote.

Actually, watching the CBBC clip again, it does seem slightly inappropriate having the jaunty bongo-crazy stylings of the Newsround theme play over a load of astronauts and a civilian getting blown the fuck up. Although things were happening so quickly that something like that wouldn't have occured to anyone.

[Pseudopath]

a load of astronauts and a civilian getting blown the fuck up

Without wanting to be pedantic, the astronauts didn't get blown up. The crew module actually survived the break-up of the shuttle and the astronauts were likely conscious for at least part (if not all) of the 3 minutes it took the cabin to plummet into the ocean.

Lovely.

[DrGreggles]

I've heard that on CITV there was a newsflash, coming in the middle of Thames TV's long-forgotten magazine show "Splash"

I read that as 'Spatz' for a moment...

[Alberon]

Without wanting to be pedantic, the astronauts didn't get blown up. The crew module actually survived the break-up of the shuttle and the astronauts were likely conscious for at least part (if not all) of the 3 minutes it took the cabin to plummet into the ocean.

Lovely.

They were almost definitely alive until the crew compartment hit the ocean several minutes after the explosion. I hope they weren't conscious. There doesn't seem to have been any scribbled messages left.

[the]

(..) Thames TV's long-forgotten magazine show "Splash" (...)

I do recall Splash, although I never watched it. All I remember about it was that I perceived it to be fairly 'activities'-based and it contained Nino Firetto. In fact, Splash was probably Peak Nino Firetto.

edit: just realised Splash is also where I knew Lisa Maxwell from, aka. Lily Lin(n)eker in Bottom.

[Famous Mortimer]

John Peel, 1987, Channel 4, late night, saying we were reaching the point where the only solution might be some kind of assassination. I was amazed it didn't become a huge story.

If you remember the show, I bet some hardcore Peel fan will have a recording of it.

[the]

Without wanting to be pedantic, the astronauts didn't get blown up. The crew module actually survived the break-up of the shuttle and the astronauts were likely conscious for at least part (if not all) of the 3 minutes it took the cabin to plummet into the ocean.

Without wanting to be pedantic, them plummeting into the ocean and dying was the direct outcome of them, moments earlier, getting blown the fuck up.

[dr beat]

I've heard that on CITV there was a newsflash, coming in the middle of Thames TV's long-forgotten magazine show "Splash" - apparently one of the presenters had to hand over to ITN for a few minutes. There doesn't seem to be any footage of this available.

Yeah that's how I remember it watching on ITV. I was 8 at the time and it was the first newsflash I can recall seeing.

[Ambient Sheep]

There doesn't seem to have been any scribbled messages left.

If there had been, do you think we would have been told about them?  It took long enough (months? years?) for NASA to admit that they were probably still alive when they hit the water.

Thankfully, I tend to agree that the concussion from the blast and then the G-forces of the tumbling capsule probably rendered them incapable of much thought before their demise.

[Pseudopath]

Without wanting to be pedantic, them plummeting into the ocean and dying was the direct outcome of them, moments earlier, getting blown the fuck up.

The Challenger didn't actually explode.

The space shuttle was engulfed in a cloud of fire just 73 seconds after liftoff, at an altitude of some 46,000 feet (14,000 meters). It looked like an explosion, the media called it an explosion and even NASA officials mistakenly described it that way initially. But later investigation showed that in fact, there was no detonation or explosion in the way we commonly understand the concept. A seal in the shuttle's right solid-fuel rocket booster designed to prevent leaks from the fuel tank during liftoff weakened in the frigid temperatures and failed, and hot gas began pouring through the leak. The fuel tank itself collapsed and tore apart, and the resulting flood of liquid oxygen and hydrogen created the huge fireball believed by many to be an explosion.

You may have even heard an explosion when watching the footage in documentaries, but this has invariably been added on by sound engineers for dramatic effect.

[yesitsme]

I've heard that on CITV there was a newsflash, coming in the middle of Thames TV's long-forgotten ...


At first glance I thought that said 'Thomas...

I thought it was going to be 'The Space Shuttle Challenger has exploded kiling all on board.  We now return you to the Island of Sodor.'

Peep! Peep! said Thomas.

[the]

The Challenger didn't actually explode.

Oh of course becoming a catastrophically massive erupting disintegrating mid-air fireball is such a vastly diverging concept from 'getting blown the fuck up' that it requires a finger-wagging event of tosser proportions

[Pseudopath]

Oh of course becoming a catastrophically massive erupting disintegrating mid-air fireball is such a vastly diverging concept from 'getting blown the fuck up' that it requires a finger-wagging event of tosser proportions

Fuck's sake. You didn't even make the original observation, so I don't know why you're getting so pissy about it. This is what a rocket looks like when it gets "blown the fuck up". Notice the obligatory jaunty music.

[the]

_{It was meant to be tongue-in-cheek ;)}

[Pseudopath]

_{It was meant to be tongue-in-cheek ;)}

Ah...soz. That one flew (and exploded broke apart) way over my head.

[non capisco]

I could have sworn you saw the teacher one smiling and waving out of the window just before it exploded.

[chocky909]

Sex in the city was actually Sex and the city. Probably a common one this, but I would have put money on it.

What I've never seen mentioned and is the main (I think) reason for this mix up is that there was another US TV show at around the same time or earlier also being shown on Channel 4 called Caroline In The City starring Lea Thompson.

Also when you *say* Sex And The City quickly it pretty much sounds the same as Sex In The City so that didn't help either.

[Billy]

Tim Vine telling a joke about hijacking a plane on Children in Need 2001, a few weeks after 9/11.

I'd love to find a clip one day to check if Gaby Roslin's stunned silence and Vine's "Sorry, I wrote that one months ago" actually happened or was just in my head.

[Pseudopath]

What I've never seen mentioned and is the main (I think) reason for this mix up is that there was another US TV show at around the same time or earlier also being shown on Channel 4 called Caroline In The City starring Lea Thompson.

Better Midlands made this link on the previous page, but I do agree.

[Jim Bob]

What I've never seen mentioned and is the main (I think) reason for this mix up is that there was another US TV show at around the same time or earlier also being shown on Channel 4 called Caroline In The City starring Lea Thompson.

Also when you *say* Sex And The City quickly it pretty much sounds the same as Sex In The City so that didn't help either.

Eh, I think it's more to do with 'Sex in the City' rolling off the tongue more naturally than 'Sex and the City'.  It should have been titled 'Sex in the City' by all rights, in much the same way that Interview with the Vampire should have been titled 'Interview with a Vampire'

[idunnosomename]

If you think the Challenger is harrowing read up on bits of the crew of Columbia getting strewn across rural Texas in 2003

[mr. logic]

Tim Vine telling a joke about hijacking a plane on Children in Need 2001, a few weeks after 9/11.

I'd love to find a clip one day to check if Gaby Roslin's stunned silence and Vine's "Sorry, I wrote that one months ago" actually happened or was just in my head.

Sort of similar, Channel Four airing that plane episode of Father Ted the same week as 9/11. Certain this happened.

[Satchmo Distel]

Sarah Kennedy asking Tommy Cooper's wife if Tommy had ever died on stage.

[buzby]

I also remember the Challenger flying over our school on the back of another plane as was the fashion of the time.
But that wasn't on telly as well as never happening.

It wasn't the Challenger - it was the Enterprise, the aerodynamic test shuttle that never went into space. It was flown over on the back of it's modified Boeing 747 launch/carrier vehicle in May 1983 on it's way to be an exhibit at the Paris Airshow (from the 24th of May to the 5th of June) and landed as RAF Fairford (which was the designated Shuttle emergency landing airfield in the UK) on the 20th of May on the way to Paris.

After attending the airshow, it then conducted a tour of France and Germany and then the UK on the way back to the USA. It landed at Stansted on the 5th of June and then flew over various cities and airports in the UK including Glasgow (where it was also supposed to overfly the Rockwell factory in East Kilbride, but the pilots missed the target), Heathrow, Manchester (when you prpbably saw it, video here) and Liverpool (I went to see it) on the 7th of June before flying back over the Atlantic to visit Canada.

15 minutes from explosion to news flash was pretty quick for the mid 80s, suggesting at least that they were planning to make the planned lift-off a top story on the 6pm news.

BBC Childrens had been following the story closely due to the involvemnt of Christa McAuliffe. The deputy head of children's programming and creator if Newsround, Edward Barnes, confirms this:

We'd been following it closely because a teacher, Christa McAuliffe, was on board. It happened 10 minutes before we went on air and we broke the story.

IIRC in the run-up to the lauch attempts McAuliffe had even been interviewed via satellite on Blue Peter.