The Question for which Berenstein Skeptics Have No Answer

My auditory memory says it's "stein", though my visual memory can't back that up.

When the story first started making the rounds I asked my girlfriend "Remember the books about a family of bears when we were kids? What were they called again?". She immediately said BerenSTAIN. FWIW she grew up in a rural east coast town, so perhaps it's somewhat of a regional thing?

a reply to: occrest

The pic was taken of the books all stacked on 9/11/01?

Imagine how much an authentic book with the original spelling would be worth?

originally posted by: Milah

originally posted by: TombEscaper

For what it's worth, here is an anonymous (of course) post from the below link:

The son of the Berenstains is at this point pretty over the kerfuffle and thinks everyone who thought it was -stein (as I did and still do) is crazy. We privately refer to the brand as Berenstein in our office anyway and have only slipped up on the phone to the son once. It caused a great deal of silent paroxysms around the room for a good 10 minutes while the offender gradually lost more and more color from their face while Mike Berenstain gently explained how to spell his name.

www.metafilter.com...

That's ALOT of fans to call crazy. Doesn't sound like the author of Bible Storybooks to me. Perhaps HE has been changed, too. It would make sense he's been threatened to keep his mouth shut or ELSE.

Theres goes the neighborhood! (Or should I say, THIS neighborhood?)

Wonder how do Stainers explain or rationalize the vast majority of then-childhood English-speakers worldwide who are agreeing it was always BerenstEin? Occam's razor? Mass delusion?

What is the probability that a random person has the surname Berenstain? Now compare that to the probablity that a random person has the surname Berenstein. Not that most of us are applying Occam's razor; in fact it seems the Berenstainers seem to have less detailed accounts of 'why' they believe it always was stain, other than physical evidence itself which is what Steiners are disputing in the first place.

I'm not even sure that Occam's Razor would be on the side of the "Stainers." Which is a more rational explanation - that thousands or millions of people all mistakenly remember something the same way for no explainable reason, or that trickles of a merging of universes have begun to occur, when postulations within sectors of the scientific community actually give validity to the idea of multiple or parallel universes?

It will be a beautiful day in THIS universe if and when we can start getting some answers to some of these strange anomalies.

originally posted by: Milah

Wonder how do Stainers explain or rationalize the vast majority of then-childhood English-speakers worldwide who are agreeing it was always BerenstEin?

The "vast majority?" Do you have a valid source on that or is that just your assumption?

originally posted by: Milah

What is the probability that a random person has the surname Berenstain? Now compare that to the probablity that a random person has the surname Berenstein.

What's that have to do with anything? If their name was "Berenstain" that was their name. It doesn't matter how few other people had the same name.

originally posted by: Milah
Not that most of us are applying Occam's razor; in fact it seems the Berenstainers seem to have less detailed accounts of 'why' they believe it always was stain, other than physical evidence itself which is what Steiners are disputing in the first place.

Gee, all they have is the physical evidence itself? Not much to go on there! If you're talking the popular definition of Occam's Razor then almost ANY explanation makes more sense than physical reality magically changing--including a lot of people perhaps falling victim to the implanting of false memories as a result of being swept up in the discussions of this online.

If you're going to suggest that a large number of people remember a previous timeline prior to all physical evidence suddenly being changed then you need to also have an explanation of why some people remember and some don't. How many people must have been friends or business associates of the Berenstains in their very long careers? For just one example, proudce someone who knew them who claims they used to spell their name Berenstein. If it's just anecdotal accounts of childhood memories there really isn't much of a case.

Stan and Jan Berenstain illustrated and wrote other things before the Berenstain Bears books..

www.cbgxtra.com...

And look at that, they were known as the Berenstain's then too. Amazing.

So when did this magical switch occur? Can the "stein" experts answer that question??

originally posted by: DelMarvel

The "vast majority?" Do you have a valid source on that or is that just your assumption?

TALLY Stainers vs Steiners in any available BB anomaly discussion, even this one.

originally posted by: DelMarvel
Gee, all they have is the physical evidence itself? Not much to go on there!

If you're talking the popular definition of Occam's Razor then almost ANY explanation makes more sense

Which is what I said: In fact it seems the Berenstainers seem to have less detailed accounts of WHY' they believe its stAin (than Steiners).

originally posted by: DelMarvel
proudce someone who knew them who claims they used to spell their name Berenstein. If it's just anecdotal accounts of childhood memories there really isn't much of a case.

Every parent adult or child who used the books as an educational tool may have civil matter rights that haven't necessarily expired and may be entitled to bring about a class action or at very least subpoena an investigation; i would not be surprised if that happens with the next decade or so; as an individual I do not have to produce anything due to the nature of my argument; as a former fan I'm just one of a blatant majoriy demanding ANSWERS, not restitution for damages!

It is the burden of the Berenstein company, which was in the business of selling and profitting from sale of their feducational books - for several decades now (since 1962) - to set the record straight!

it may very well turn out to be a blatant, widescale, classified public Psyop indeed. where false memories were implanted in which case a formal public investigation would effect discovery, in tandem with Subpoena of events/docs surrounding the announcement of Jan Berenstein's death that instantly triggered at least THOUSANDS of Berenstein Bears fans' instant upheaval as to the 'misspelling' of her her name posthumously.

Anyways, Bernstainers do seem to be exclusiely focused on the physical: the current lettering on available physical books & media that are still around today, which doesn't get anywhere at all again due to the nature of this event horizon that many of us suggest transcends the physical; not supernatural, but paranormal - and I would suggest there may be a diabolical element as well; heck perhaps the books can be 'exorcised' one by one back to their uncorrupted form, Bible Storybooks and all! =D

alas, the following article appears to sugar-coat the anomaly and offers a simplified explanation/closure for the whole Stain/Stein fiasco:

www.complex.com...

1985, Hanna Barbara teamed up with Australia’s Southern Star Productions to produce a Berenstain Bears cartoon show, which aired in America on CBS. Despite the “A” being in the title, the show opts to go with the “BerenstEin” pronunciation

Ah yes, lets pretend these were NOT books we LEARNED TO READ letter by letter from and that even our teachers 'misspelled' it while they were teaching us how to read and write!

having been following this whole thing for a couple of months now, the part that fascinates me most is how difficult it seems to be for so many people to grasp... like for real, people, stop bringing up the physical evidence, we're not talking about the physical evidence, we all know it all says stAin, kindly keep your oh so witty quips about government facilitated book changing teams for your stand up routine where i'm sure you get the reception you so richly deserve.

The question this thread poses is so damn on-point - why have we all only suddenly realised? we've had global communication for a long time, most of us have been here on this very website throwing strange ideas around for many years... how did something so ubiquitous take so long to get recognised?

The realization waves conveniently happen after the author's DEATH; in Jan's case reportedly 1000s of people spoke out online (per 'complex' link above); likely many perplexed as to why her obituary news was spelled wrong! (RIP)

2012 Jan Berenstein: dead at 88yo, name 'changed' (posthumously?) to Berenstain
2000 Charles Shultz: dead at 77yo, name 'changed' (posthumously?) to Schulz

and seriously how could anyone who at least once in a while read the Comics section NOT notice the crossed T's in his signature are now GONE?!

originally posted by: NewzNose
a reply to: occrest

The pic was taken of the books all stacked on 9/11/01?

^^^ THIS.

Lets separate the Berenstein phenomenon from the Mandela Effect phenomenon for a second. Lets only use celebrety death memories for Mandela Effect, and create a separate nomenclature for the memories of altered media; such as the Bears, Mirror mirror, and Interview with A vampire.

By making this separation, we can see how a closed media (copyright) system could easily litigate against any brand mis-representation of any alternate spelling, and use the courts to force confidentiality agreements on all parties publishing any variant on the official title. This can and has been done throughout the history of copyright/branding, so its not that far fetched for there to be some agenda (conspiracy) to change these brands for a corporate goal.

What was the biggest event in the corporate takeover of the western world?: 911

What is the primary source of peoples knowledge when it comes to that event?: the corporate media

Could this alteration of media (and not timeliness) just be some form of cognitive dissonance to make us distrust our own memories of 911?.

To me that is more feasible than us all shifting timeliness--but hey I'm open to suggestions.

Does anyone remember it being "Looking glass upon a wall..."
www.archive.org...
(Snow White starts page 213 on the book numbers, I think its about page 240 of the file itself)

I think the problem with trying to include Mirror, Mirror in this is we have too many sources of the narrative itself that exist prior to the Disney version. I'm going to group "Mirror, Mirror..." with "Play it again, Sam", since we KNOW (or anyone who studied film at a tertiary level knows) "Play it again Sam" was screened on a theatrical trailer and not on the motion picture itself.

If we make the definition of the phenomenon too broad, will will just end up with all sorts of false memories being lumped in, Australia and NZ have never moved, and no "timeline shift" could change that. Lets try and limit the stupidity when dealing with this topic.

Good argument except I would think its only being noticed now because somebody, I don't know who, brought it up on the Internet. It became popular from there, after so many of us had just never noticed the new spelling. So yes I thought the spelling changed as well, however I will admit I may have been wrong and just misread the name in the first place, and that would be because stain is not the most common way to spell those type of names, stein is.

What are the more recent examples? I've not been on ATS in awhile.

Proof would be better if we could find original books. I threw out all my kids books, except one I was using to wedge a door in place and that one I finally threw out before this all came to light. I had kept them for many years until I thought why am I keeping them?

a reply to: Milah

If the name had once been spelled "Berenstein" in "this reality" there would still be millions of books out there that could be produced as evidence. That clearly doesn't seem to be the case.

If the "vast majority" of people who read these books remember "Berenstein" and there has been a timeline shift that means there would have been a day where millions of moms pulled out a book to read to their child only to discover the name had magically changed.

For that matter, there would have been a day when millions of kids pulled out their books only to discover the name had magically changed.

Yet I'm not seeing first hand accounts of those moments. It just seems to be people who have discovered this only after having it pointed out to them as adults. That in and of itself indicates that childhood powers of observation and memory may not be as keen as many of us would like to think.

a reply to: DelMarvel

It's funny that everyone remembers it being Berenstein Bears, but totally ignore all the previous works done by the Berenstains, I've linked to a page showing works done before the Bears with the name Berenstain.

How do they explain that? Don't worry, I already know the answer. Ignore, ignore, ignore.

originally posted by: Milah
Imagine how much an authentic book with the original spelling would be worth?

Here you go, Stan and Jan's first book, published in 1951! 11 years before the Bears came about..

www.ebay.com...

How do you explain this?

a reply to: Chadwickus

This one is a bit more perplexing than chemtrails. there is a mountain of physical evidence to explain the facts, and ZERO physical evidence on the other side, yet so many are willing to cling to the theory as if it were in fact "true".

Is this just a result of a society not trusting anything or anyone? (including their own memories)

a reply to: network dude

It's even more vain than that.

They think the entire world has changed, not that their memory is wrong.

I distcinctly remember 30+ years ago that it was BerenSTAIN because my little 10 or 12-year old cousin at the time would make silly poop jokes about calling them the Bear-Stains, his joke being that they left stains in their underwear (I suppose it was funny to a 10 or 12-year old boy).

But the point is, I knew back then that it was "BerenSTAIN", and I have remember it that way since.

Plus, the theme song to the cartoon says "Berenstain" although with a southern/country accent). In fact, it might be the singers southern accent (sounding a little like Dolly Parton, but it wasn't) that might have made people think it was "Stein" rather than "Stain".

originally posted by: network dude
a reply to: Chadwickus

This one is a bit more perplexing than chemtrails. there is a mountain of physical evidence to explain the facts, and ZERO physical evidence on the other side, yet so many are willing to cling to the theory as if it were in fact "true".

Is this just a result of a society not trusting anything or anyone? (including their own memories)

I think part of the reason is people really crave the mystical and it has become harder and harder to have that experience.

a reply to: Milah

I never read the Berenstain Bears but I was a fan of Peanuts as a child and still have some books over fifty years old and his name has always been "Charles Schulz."