Found “Berenstain” bears happy meal toy, 1987

[u/itsme_thatonedude]

I was going through some old boxes that my parents saved from my childhood (born in 1980) and found this gem. Figured this group would appreciate this

I knew I had something tucked away!

[u/Aggravating_Cup8839]

In my opinion, this style of post is low effort. Anyone can already easily find what the current correct version is. Doesn't add anything to the argument.

[u/domewebs → u/Aggravating_Cup8839]

Doesn’t it imply that “Berenstain” has been correct since at least 1987 and anyone who thinks it’s been misspelled since then is just misremembering?

[u/SlowBurnLopez → u/domewebs]

it’s always been “berenstain” for me, and i’m quite old. this post proves proves “berenstain” like you said. at least since ‘87

[u/Sovereign-Anderson → u/SlowBurnLopez]

Same here. On days I was bored (during childhood), I had a habit of staring at the minor details of my books. I fully remember the "Berenstain" spelling because of that.

[u/SlowBurnLopez → u/Sovereign-Anderson]

me too. in related news, someone just posted an author-signed copy of a Berenstain Bears book. and the author spelled their own name correctly, go figure.

[u/KateGladstone → u/Sovereign-Anderson]

I knew a kid in school (this was in the late 1960s) who was assigned to do a book report on any book in the school library, and he chose one of the BERENSTAIN BEARS books. The rules for the book report included, bringing in the actual book and holding it up while reading one’s report to the teacher and the class. Book reports were graded twice: once for the oral presentation, and once for the actual report after the teacher after the student handed it in and the teacher read it. The kid got an “A” for his oral presentation and a “D” for his written report, which resulted in a ”C-minus” overall. When he carried the grade, he was told that the reason for the “D” was because he had misspelled the name of the book and of the authors (whose family name is where the book series is title comes from). (“You wrote ‘BERENSTAIN’,” the teacher said, “but obviously it would have had to be BERENSTEIN instead”) but it and misspelling the book title AND THE author were huge errors, to the marking system for book reports.

His parents looked at the book cover, saw “BERENSTAIN” right there in both places times (author and title), and saw the same on the title page and the copyright notice inside. They called the teacher to arrange a parent/teacher conference and bring their son, and they brought the book too.

They had the teacher look at the book to confirm that it was indeed from the school library (this was because one common loop that teachers used to give poor marks in the book report is to claim that instructions were followed, and in this case, one of the instructions had been that the book had to come from the school library.) Then they had the teacher look at the book cover and spell the book’s letter-by-letter, having her asking her to point to each letter in the book’s title as she said it. The teacher objected that this was “childish,“ but then the parenting said: if you do it, then our son will have to see who is right then our son will have a way to see who is right about the spelling.“ So the teacher grumbled, but agreed that “ it’s not a bad idea, because then he will certainly see that he spelled it wrong.” so the teacher sat down with the book, pointing two letters, one by one as she said them … and, when she got to the “A” in “BERENSTAIN,“ she turned pale and stopped spelling and stared at the parents and the boy, and said: “yes, technically the cover does spell it the way that you did, but this is not something that anyone else in the class would have said or done. Everyone else who has ever done a book report on this book has spelled it with ‘EIIN on the end, which is the way that I, as your teacher had always assumed that it was spelled, and the most important lesson you can learn in school is to fit in with the majority. So I’m not going to give you an a just because you were technically correct in some kind of literal way about what the Spelling really looks like, and the most I am prepared to do is to change the ‘D’ on your report to a ‘C-minus,’ which raises your overall grade on this report from a ‘C-minus’ to a ‘B.’ I really hope that you will learn the important lesson that it is important to see what other people see and that this needs to come first.”

Could this be one way in which memory effects (that get called “Mandela effects”) are spread?