Fact Checking Thread

Couldn't find it myself, even in prototype versions on TCRF. Plus it just sounds untrue. You can cut.

For Creator Provincialism, in the Real Life folder, it originally had the Thai language being read from right to left.

I have corrected that as Thai is actually read from left to right.

It would be great to take another look in Creator Provincialism.

I have no idea where the incorrect information claiming Thai to be read right-to-left came from. Brahmic scripts (with extremely few exceptions) including Thai seem to have always written left-to-right for at least 2000 years.

Edited by Albert3105 on Dec 20th 2020 at 12:29:59 PM

This part on ET's Trivia page seems off.

• Franchise Killer: In addition to being one of the ultimate Genre Killers in entertainment as far as video games go, this game also severely affected the status of Spielberg's classic film, and the E.T video game is rumored to be the reason why it took MCA/Universal another 6 years before they released E.T. on home video (it got a later reissue in theaters instead, and then it got pulled entirely for a couple of years after that run ended). This game didn't quite kill off other E.T games in utero, but guaranteed those games would be small projects, and none have been produced since 2002.

Was the video game REALLY enough to affect the film's reputation? And where are these rumours even coming from?

Edited by harryhenry on Dec 26th 2020 at 2:54:44 AM

Doubtful. I don't think most people have even heard of the game. Plus it says it is "rumored" to be the reason, which means it's likely wrong. Cut.

I've bolded the speculating part, and italicised the crufty words (New Media):

• The Mysterious Mr. Enter was temporarily banned from YouTube in January 2015 due to a copyright claim by either Viacom or 20th Century Fox. He was posting a review of the show and it was under fair use, but those companies bypass the fair use disclaimer, seemingly viewing fair use as legalized piracy or believing that Enter's scathing reviews of their material hurts their bottom line, and shut down his account. He then filed a dispute and two weeks later, his channel went back up.

That's borderline conspiracy theory garbage. I doubt these companies are aware of who Mr. Enter is enough to conspire against him. And while I agree that copyright law is nonsensical and should be less restrictive, I doubt that these companies are "declaring war" on fair use through an animation Caustic Critic with, last I checked, less than 300k subscribers. Easy cut.

I mean, it does happen, like with Derek Savage and IHE, But Daddy Derek ain't an entire corporation.

Yeah that's what I meant. Derek Savage made sense because he was a much smaller creator with less of a brand name to worry about, same with Digital Homicide and Jim Sterling. But I doubt it would happen with Viacom and Fox, two large corporations with better things to do than wage war on a small and already highly controversial animation Caustic Critic. That was what I had meant by my comments.

I remember some weird shit with Pixel Pinkie's copyright team going after him, or some double standard when it came to positive vs negative reviews, but my memory is foggy when it comes to the specifics and I've come to realize that Mr. Enter's word should never be taken at face value.

From what I remember, that involved whoever was running the series/company's YouTube account at the time defending their decision to take down his review in the comments section. It seems incidental to the Viacom/Fox issue, though, and I agree that they most likely weren't actively targeting him specifically.

There's a few examples from OldShame.Western Animation that I wanted to bring up here:

• The Fairly OddParents!:
  • Series creator Butch Hartman (as well as most of the crew) have actually apologized for the episode "It's a Wishful Life" due to the sadistic treatment of Timmy and its really disturbing aesop.
  • The staff also regret "Twistory" due to its Unfortunate Implications regarding British people. Said episode is now almost never rerun.
  • Sparky was a character hated by fans and most of the staff, which led him to be removed in the tenth season.

I've seen the first claim repeated a few times throughout the wiki, and I have never seen any kind of source for it. (The closest I could find was this video, where the host mentions the claim near the start, then notes that he couldn't find a primary source for it either.) The other two are a bit less prevalent but similarly steeped in speculation. I suspect they may have originated from a game of telephone born from people despising the episodes/character in question.

"Twistory" is almost never aired on television, but it's apparently not entirely banned at present if the wiki is anything to go by. The wiki also claims Butch apologized for It's a Wishful Life" but it's not sourced. Not sure about Sparky but I know that Butch himself loved Sparky.

Are you able to find the actual ad described in this So Bad, It's Horrible entry?

On work description for The Three Musketeers (2011) has the following:

and the YMMV page also has this:

Yet it's listed on InNameOnly.Live Action Films:

Also an internet reviewer I follow who looks at book to film adaptations has also said it's an In Name Only adaptation of the source material.

This is on PopCultureUrbanLegends.Animated Films:

• It's commonly claimed that Disney lost the rights to Tarzan, hence why they no longer make merchandise of it. Disney still owns the rights to the film (plus, the original character is in the public domain in selected territories, so it'd be very difficult for the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs to take the rights back); more likely the reason there isn't any merchandise of it is simply because the film isn't very popular compared to the rest of the Disney Renaissance.

The reason I'm bringing this here is because several pages state legal issues with Burrough's estate as to why the character doesn't appear (Disney Heros Battle Mode, for one). Which is correct?

Everything related to Disney's Tarzan is either owned by Disney or public domain, but the Burroughs estate still owns the trademark so Disney may wish to not sour their relationship.

Found this on Intouchables.

• Americans Hate Tingle: A smashing hit in every country it was screened, with high critical praises... and a complete bomb in the United States, with generally negative reviews and racism accusations. Ironically, The Upside became a hit in States and a massive failure abroad with terrible reviews to boot.

Edited by Bubblepig on Jan 27th 2021 at 5:52:16 AM

From Briefcase Full of Money:

• A briefcase full, not of banknotes, but of bearer bonds (which are as good as money) was the subject of the world's biggest mugging; At 9:30 AM on May 2nd, 1990, John Goddard, a 58-year-old messenger with money broker Sheppards, was mugged at knifepoint on a quiet side street in the city of London. Mr. Goddard was taking Bank of England Treasury bills and certificates of deposit from banks and building societies. In total, he was carrying 292 million pounds sterling, or 378 million dollars. Best part? At the time of the mugging, the thief had absolutely no idea what he'd stolen! It was the financial equivalent of an Empty Quiver; the news that it was in the wind brought every criminal syndicate in the world to London in search of the briefcase; the thief was eventually found dead in a bedsit in a slum district, chopped into a million pieces; since then the bonds have been surfacing in every third-world country, starting with Nigeria and most recently in the Cook Islands (in the Pacific, somewhere); the search for the case was allegedly the inspiration for the film Rōnin.

The Wikipedia article of the robbery states that the thief was simply shot dead, not "chopped into a million pieces".

Edited by Albert3105 on Jan 29th 2021 at 9:53:45 AM

I've been cleaning up misuse of Getting Crap Past the Radar, and I came across this on Literature.Eight Days of Luke (slightly rephrased from the original):

From how it's written, this might be GCPTR, or it might be Defying the Censors, depending on how things went down between Jones and Macmillan. I don't suppose anybody has read Jones' autobiography and can determine which it is?

This example from Trivia.Super Robot Wars might need to be looked at:

• No Export for You: One of the most frustrating examples, however, would go to Alpha: Banpresto was able to get the green light from almost all the license-holders stateside to use their properties, and it would have been the ideal time to release it, as Mobile Suit Gundam Wing was at the height of its popularity. There was even a significant amount of work put into localizing it until the aforementioned Harmony Gold said no, not wanting Super Dimension Fortress Macross to be brought stateside and interfere with the sales of Robotech (a series which had ended over 10 years prior). As Macross was essential to the plot of Alpha, this pretty much killed any chance of the game being released.

If it's indeed a rumor, I think it should be removed. Thoughts?

Edited by gjjones on Feb 3rd 2021 at 3:24:22 PM

From Trivia.The Frontier:

• What Could Have Been: America was originally intended to be 15, but was later changed to 18 to avoid Unfortunate Implications. Unfortunately, she's still written as a 15-year old, with only a Happy Birthday card in her inventory confirming her age.

This video,

That sounds like stealth complaining. "Unfortunately, she's still written as a 15 year old" You can cut I think.

From BannedInChina.Malaysia:

• Also according to The Other Wiki, the episodes "But I'm a Cheerleader" and "The Videotape" from Friends are also banned, at least from broadcast.

There is an episode called "The One With The Videotape," but I cannot find any record of an episode with "But I'm a Cheerleader" in the title - Google only gives results pertaining to that 90s movie. The only source on Wikipedia for this claim is this link.

Edited by mightymewtron on Feb 8th 2021 at 8:29:26 AM

I think the source might be mixing up the movie with an episode of Friends, becuase I can't find any episode by that title either.