Tom Hanks perpetuates urban legend on The Late Show

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Steve Timko

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Jan 9, 2021, 2:22:20 PM1/9/21
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The story about Lee Marvin and Captain Kangaroo at Iwo Jima is great, but it's not true.

Ironically, Colbert told Tom Hanks he was a great talk show guest. Maybe this is why. Hanks said he saw it himself, when it never happened.


PGage

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Jan 9, 2021, 3:00:35 PM1/9/21
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As I tried to point out during all the hyperventilating during the Brian Williams affair, this kind of thing is not related to honesty, or even to memory impairment. This is the predictable and expected outcome of the normal processes underlying human memory. This particular phenomenon is referred to as Source Confusion. Tom correctly remembers the story, but has forgotten the source of the story. Once those two things get disconnected, we lose the ability to accurately evaluate or contextualizing the memory, and sometimes, as wrong as it is, it still subjectively feels real. 

When I was teaching I would call this the National Enquirer effect, because it is not uncommon for people to casually see a headline in the NE while standing in the checkout line, and later, regardless of how outlandish, report it as true to their friends, because they had forgotten where they had read it.

This is why, in formal communication, we should always check the source and not rely on subjective memory. Confidence in a memory is independent of accuracy. But I’m not sure we hold raconteurs on late night talk shows quite to that standard.

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Kevin M.

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Jan 9, 2021, 3:05:52 PM1/9/21
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In the documentary on Mr Rogers a couple of years ago, they talked about some of the urban myths of the man, like the reason he wore sweaters was because he was an ex-Marine who had tattoos covering his arms

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Tom Wolper

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Jan 9, 2021, 5:43:03 PM1/9/21
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On Sat, Jan 9, 2021 at 3:05 PM Kevin M. <drunkba...@gmail.com> wrote:
In the documentary on Mr Rogers a couple of years ago, they talked about some of the urban myths of the man, like the reason he wore sweaters was because he was an ex-Marine who had tattoos covering his arms

The story Tom told about Lee Marvin on the Dick Cavett show is true. Like me, I assume Tom has a subscription to the Cavett Show in his YouTube feed and they posted this recently:

Jon Delfin

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Jan 9, 2021, 5:58:23 PM1/9/21
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And the part about Bob Keeshan?

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Doug Eastick

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Jan 9, 2021, 7:48:09 PM1/9/21
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I love when PGage explains things from his professional background.

I hated anything but math and science in school.


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two...@gmail.com

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Jan 9, 2021, 8:54:02 PM1/9/21
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As the urban legend (and Hanks said) the Keeshan story was supposed to be on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

On Jan 9, 2021, at 5:58 PM, Jon Delfin <jond...@gmail.com> wrote:



JW

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Jan 10, 2021, 5:34:07 AM1/10/21
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> As I tried to point out during all the hyperventilating during the Brian
> Williams affair, this kind of thing is not related to honesty, or even to
> memory impairment

The important difference here is that if we have to take Hanks' stories with a grain of salt, fine; as long as they're entertaining (which Hanks' stories usually are), it's okay. But if we have to take the NBC Nightly News with a grain of salt, they're in trouble.

PGage

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Jan 10, 2021, 4:13:38 PM1/10/21
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My argument about Williams has always been that his misstatements were unfortunate given his profession, and that he should resolve to do better, but that they were not by themselves disqualifying. He did not make mistakes about events he was reporting, he made mistakes about his own personal experience. If in an interview a historian mis remembers attending a Beatles concert as a teen, that does not necessarily decrease the credibility of his book about the Vietnam War.

I think most people assume Williams was consciously lying to make himself look heroic, which might tend to make them think he was an unreliable reporter. I think he was victim of the kind of common, every day memory illusions that plague all of us, and that did not directly relate to his professional work.  I would hate to have millions of fact checkers researching every one of the personal anecdotes I used to tell as a college teacher. 

 My view at the time and now is that Williams had become so comfortable as a guest on talk shows that he allowed that informal raconteur role to leak into his news reporter persona. I thought he should not have been banned from his job at NBC, but should have stopped appearing as a personality on entertainment shows (though I did always enjoy him on TDS).

All’s well that ends well. I never watch the NBC Nightly News, but often watch Williams’ “The 11th Hour” on MSNBC, which I think during the Trump Era has consistently been the best hour of news on commercial television.


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Jon Delfin

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Jan 10, 2021, 6:10:33 PM1/10/21
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I have a very clear memory of flying around the crab apple tree in our front yard when I was a child. What are you trying to say? That it was some other kind of tree?

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PGage

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Jan 10, 2021, 6:29:54 PM1/10/21
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Exactly.

Well, not exactly. Of course it may have been a crab apple tree, but it could have been a different tree, or a different house, or even some other kid you saw home movies of flying around the crab apple tree.

And you may not have been flying.



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