Brainsquatch

Summary

Hyperfixed – "Brainsquatch" (January 15, 2026)

Episode Overview

This episode of Hyperfixed, hosted by Alex Goldman, investigates a listener-submitted “problem” that occupies the strange territory between pop culture, memory science, and the paranormal. Listener Matt—a new father, diehard skeptic, and regular viewer of Bob’s Burgers—is deeply bothered by his vivid memory of an “original animation” version of the episode Brunchsquatch, although such a version seemingly doesn’t exist. With help from memory researchers and cast members, the Hyperfixed team unpacks the “Mandela Effect,” explores the quirks of human memory, and ultimately tries to answer whether Matt’s recollection says something supernatural about the universe, or merely about the weirdness of the brain.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Matt’s Memory Mystery (03:14–12:02)

• Matt's Story
  • Matt, a skeptical Bob’s Burgers fan and new father of twins, binges the series as comforting background noise ("I need music or TV or something. So I threw on the show called Bob's Burgers." —Matt, 04:12).
  • After several rewatches, Matt becomes convinced that he saw the episode Brunchsquatch with the show’s normal animation, not the fan-art style for which it is known.
  • He searches online and finds many others who “remember” this same version, with Reddit and Facebook posts echoing his experience.
  • Matt is highly skeptical of anything paranormal, including the “Mandela Effect,” but can’t shake the uncanny feeling of his memory being “off.” (“I don't want to be the type of person that believes that I somehow passed into a parallel universe where the only difference is a goddamn episode of Bob's Burgers.” —Matt, 09:25)

2. Explaining the Mandela Effect (06:45–25:00)

• What Is the Mandela Effect?

  • Avery explains: A phenomenon where large groups of people share the same vivid but provably false memory. ("The most popular theory... is that they're actually true memories from another dimension." —Avery, 07:10)
  • Classic examples: The Monopoly man’s monocle, the Fruit of the Loom cornucopia logo, Pikachu’s tail, and C-3PO’s silver leg.

• Guest Expert: Dr. Wilma Bainbridge (13:36)

  • Professor Bainbridge, University of Chicago, shares her lab's work on visual false memory and the Mandela Effect.
  • Her experiments debunk popular explanations:
    • Inattention is not to blame: Even when people look directly at a detail (e.g., C-3PO’s silver leg), they still misremember it.
    • Social media/model contamination isn't enough: Most images online are correct, but people still misremember.
    • Schema Theory: We remember templates or “gists,” not perfect images, so our brains fill in expected details (like a monocle on a rich cartoon man).
    • Boundaries and Memorability: Weird and novel images are less likely to be solidly encoded; we remember what’s easiest to process, and boundaries (like a change of scene or style) “flush” short-term memory and shift us to recalling the essential template instead.
  • Memorable Quote:

    "So the idea is... when we remember things, we don't remember picture perfect images, we remember sort of like the gist or templates of things." (Wilma Bainbridge, 21:24)

• AI and Memory Testing

  • Bainbridge’s lab runs still images of Brunchsquatch through an AI model to test the “memorability” of traditional versus fan art animation. The fan art is slightly less memorable, but not enough to explain the scale of the confusion.

3. Tracking Down the “Truth” (26:02–31:46)

• Cast Confirmation
  • The Hyperfixed team contacts Laura Silverman (voice of Andy on Bob’s Burgers), who does her own sleuthing:
    • Confirms with a writer/producer: There was never an original, regular-animation version of Brunchsquatch. (“First of all, the answer to the question is no. A regular animation version of ... Brunchsquatch... does not exist. There is not one.” —Laura Silverman, 28:21)
    • Suggests fans may confuse it with “Beefsquatch,” an earlier, similarly themed episode.
    • Shares her own reaction to the episode’s jarring visuals:

      "I found it very disorienting. Like, it almost made me feel like I was gonna pass out or throw up and to walk away... it goes by so fast... you’re not going to remember unless you look back at it." (Laura Silverman, 29:07)

4. Memory "Boundaries" and the Real Explanation (37:24–41:53)

• How Boundaries Affect Memory

  • Psychological “boundaries” (scene or style changes) interrupt short-term memory processing. The episode Brunchsquatch contains over 35 style changes in 22 minutes—often not linked to story beats, thus likely coded as “incidental” and quickly flushed.
  • In memory’s absence, our brains fill in the gap with the show’s default animation schema, creating a “memory” of an episode that never existed.

• Timestamps:

  • Discussion of boundaries begins around 37:24.
  • The schema theory application to Matt's situation and final explanation detailed 39:31–41:53.

• Matt’s Satisfaction

  • After being walked through the science, Matt is reassured—not crazy, not a dimension-hopper, just a victim of normal memory quirks:

    "This is just a false memory. Which it is. I'm not in a parallel universe. It's a false memory. Me and a bunch of other people share this very odd, specific memory. And now I want to meet these people. They're like my brothers." (Matt, 41:04)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• "I don't want to be the type of person that believes that I somehow passed into a parallel universe where the only difference is a goddamn episode of Bob's Burgers." —Matt (09:25)
• "I was shocked by how I wildly failed it [the Mandela Effect quiz]." —Wilma Bainbridge (15:26)
• "If it would be at all interesting, we could try running some of the fan art scenes versus some of the original art scenes through our AI model that we're developing to see if it flags the fan art ones as being more false memory inducing." —Wilma Bainbridge (25:00)
• “A regular animation version of ... Brunchsquatch... does not exist. There is not one. Okay, so that's the answer to that question completely, 100%.” —Laura Silverman (28:21)
• "Apparently, if you're just watching TV and the scene changes, that creates a boundary. If a new character gets introduced, that creates a boundary... boundaries can essentially, like, flush your memory." —Amor Yates (37:27)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:14 – Matt introduces his memory mystery and Mandela Effect skepticism
• 06:45 – Discussion of the Mandela Effect, origins, and popular theories
• 13:36 – Dr. Wilma Bainbridge joins, Mandela Effect science begins
• 21:24 – Schema theory and memory templates elaborated
• 25:00 – AI/memorability experiments proposed
• 26:02 – On-the-ground answers from Bob’s Burgers’ Laura Silverman
• 37:24 – Concept of memory "boundaries" explained
• 41:04 – Matt acknowledges and embraces the science-backed (non-paranormal) explanation

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Conclusion

Brainsquatch is both a fun and deeply nerdy ride through memory science and internet mystery, anchored by real-life confusion over a cartoon episode and solved through a blend of pop culture sleuthing and academic psychology. The episode effectively demystifies what feels supernatural—the shared memory of “an episode that never was”—by grounding it in the normal (though still mysterious) function of human memory. The memorable moments include the humility shared by guests around their own memory errors, and the emotional closure for a listener realizing he shares only a neurological oddity, not a quantum adventure, with fellow fans.

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Further Exploration

• For more on collective memory and the Mandela Effect, visit Wilma Bainbridge’s lab: brainbridgelab.uchicago.edu
• Submit your own intractable problems or become a premium member at hyperfixedpod.com

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(End of summary)

Transcript

[Avery Trufelman]

Articles of Interest is a show about clothing for people who don't necessarily think they're interested in clothing. My name is Avery Trufelman, I make the show, and I just finished a whole season about the intersection between the military and the outdoor industry. Would you believe they are deeply, deeply interwoven? And this year, in 2026, they're going to be new episodes about tattoos and what they mean for our self expression, about bras and whether or not their technology is outd an episode about the greatest designer you've never heard of, and a look at what it means to make clothes truly accessible for everyone. If you're ready to change your relationship with the clothes you wear every day, check out Articles of Interest wherever you get your podcasts. This episode of Hyperfixed is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save Hundreds of Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. This episode of Hyper Fixed is brought to you by Quince. Quince, not like quintuplets, but spelled like a deciduous tree that bears hard, aromatic, bright golden yellow pome fruit similar in appearance to a pear. What does that have to do with clothing made with premium materials, thoughtful design and enduring quality so you stay warm, look sharp and feel your best all season long? No clue. And not my problem. Quince, the company, not the fruit, has everything you need. Men's Mongolian cashmere sweaters, wool coats, leather and suede outerwear that actually hold up to daily wear and still look good. Each piece is made from premium materials by trusted factories that meet rigorous standards for craftsmanship and ethical production. And by cutting out middlemen and traditional markups, Quince delivers the same quality as luxury brands at a fraction of the price. You will not bear a resemblance to a pair, but you will bear a resemblance to a person wearing fashionable clothes because you will be a person wearing fashionable clothes because it's cold out. I got myself a Mongolian cashmere ribbed beanie and it's been keeping my head warm. I don't know what else to tell you about that does the job doesn't look like a pair, looks like fashionable clothes. Refresh your winter wardrobe with quints. Go to quints.com hyperfixed for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N c e.com hyperfixed free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com hyperfixed. Hi, I'm Alex Goldman, and this is Hyper fixed. Each week on our show, listeners write in with their problems, big and small. And I solve them. Or at least I try. And if I don't, I at least give a good reason why I can't. This week, Brain squatch. So right out of the gate, there are two things you should know about this week's listener, Matt. The first is that he recently became a father to and primary caretaker of a pair of twin girls. The other thing that you should know about Matt is that he's a deeply skeptical person.

[Matt]

I'm not the type of person who believes in, like, the paranormal or, like, weird phenomenons. I. I have friends who will be like, oh, yeah, my grandfather definitely comes back from, like, the dead and does weird things around our house. And I'm just like, no, I don't. I don't really vibe with that. I don't think that's. That's how it works. I think that there is an explanation for pretty much everything, even if there's no explanation for that right now. And I kind of don't let, like, weird or esoteric things get in my head.

[Avery Trufelman]

But recently, Matt had an experience that felt like a defied explanation, at least logical explanation, at least as far as he's concerned. And as a result of that experience, one of those weird, esoteric things that he doesn't let into his head, it got into his head, and it's been driving him nuts. So he came to us hoping we could sort it out. It all started about a year ago, shortly after Matt's daughters were born.

[Matt]

When my daughters were born, you know, I didn't go out. And I'm also one of those people that, like, can't have, like, no sound happening around me. I need music or TV or something. So I threw on the show called Bob's Burgers.

[Avery Trufelman]

In case you've never heard of this show, Bob's Burgers is an animated sitcom in the tradition of the Simpsons. It follows a family of five, two parents, three kids who run a struggling burger joint in a seaside town. And the show's very funny and very sweet. And its creators are famous for their playful approach to the show's form as well as its content. Like, there are entire musical episodes of the show, for example. Okay, back to Matt.

[Matt]

So I watched it a little bit back when I was in high school, and I enjoyed it. And now it's been on for, like, 12 or 13 years, and I was like, oh, I've never watched this show in its entirety. Let me throw it on. So I start watching it, but, like, I'm doing dad stuff in between, so I'm only, like, half paying attention to all of it. And then as soon as I finished the whole show, I was like, all right, I'm just gonna throw it on again. And then it kind of spiraled, and I watched it about four or five times.

[Avery Trufelman]

So here's Matt, New Data Twins, watching Bob's Burgers on a loop, but really only partially paying attention to it. Until one day when he notices something strange about one of the episodes.

[Matt]

I think it was the season 8 episode. One episode called Brunch Squatch Brunch Squatch is kind of well known because they got, like, a. A hundred different animators to animate different bits of the episode. And it cuts in randomly throughout all these animators. It's a really cool episode.

[Avery Trufelman]

So Matt is watching Brunch Squatch for the umpteenth time. He's looking at the way all these different animation styles are getting remixed together, how they're changing from one moment to the next, seemingly without any rhyme or reason. And suddenly it strikes him. I've seen a different version of this episode.

[Matt]

I was like, wait a second. I've seen this episode with original animation.

[Avery Trufelman]

Matt felt certain that he had seen a version of Brunch Squatch without the fan art. This episode that is famous for its use of fan art. In fact, he had very clear memories of seeing specific scenes drawn in the standard everyday Bob's Burger style of animation. But when he went looking for that version of the episode, he couldn't find it anywhere. It was like it never existed. And that was so confusing to him because he was certain he'd seen this alternate version. And it turns out he wasn't the only person who felt that way.

[Matt]

So I Google it, and a bunch of people online are like, hey, why can't I find the original Brunch Squatch episode of Bob's Burgers? I know it exists. I know I saw it. And then a whole bunch of people start being like, me too. This is definitely the Mandela Effect, which is something that I'm very, very aware of and think is very, very stupid and fake. Are you guys aware of the Mandela Effect?

[Avery Trufelman]

The Mandela Effect is this name given to a very particular phenomenon in which a large group of people share the same vivid but provably false memory. The term was coined back in 2010 when a paranormal researcher named Fiona Bruno realized that she and Countless other people shared crystal clear memories of Nelson Mandela dying in prison while fighting apartheid. The reason this was so striking, of course, was that at the time of this realization, Nelson Mandela was still very much alive. In fact, he died three years later at home of a lung infection. Since then, there have been countless examples of this false memory phenomena, and some of them are really very compelling. So why would Matt be bristling about this? Well, the thing is that the most popular theory about why so many people share these false memories is that they're actually true memories from another dimension. And that at some point, some of us were pulled into this dimension where everything is the same except for these small and generally inconsequential details.

[Matt]

And of course, my skeptic brain is trying to be like, okay, well, let's break down why I definitely didn't see the original Brunch Squatch or why it probably doesn't exist. And I'm. I made this up. Essentially, my head is the first thing that I told myself.

[Avery Trufelman]

So Matt's like, okay, first off, I was super sleep deprived while I was watching the show. Second of all, I was only half paying attention while I watched it. And third, all of the characters that get introduced in this episode do appear in other episodes, So I have seen them drawn in the traditional Bob's Burger style of animation. To Matt, all of those explanations made rational sense. So for a while, that was enough to convince him that he'd made the whole thing up.

[Matt]

But I couldn't stop thinking about it, and I kept on Googling, like, Brunch Squatch original animation. And people on Reddit and Facebook are like, yes, I saw this. I remember this. And all the Reddit posts, all the Facebook posts are from, like, this year, and the episode is from, like, at least, like, six or seven years ago. So I really was, like, just, like, driving myself insane trying to, like, figure out, like, maybe they did make an original episode or. And then I really would lose my mind. I'd end up on, like, the Wikipedia for parallel universe theory and try to read that and understand it. And then I would get so angry that I'd put it away because, like, I don't want to be the type of person that believes that I somehow passed into a parallel universe where the only difference is a goddamn episode of Bob's Burgers.

[Avery Trufelman]

But then recently, Matt threw on Bob's burgers again, and the Brunch Squatch episode just happened to play. And it stirred up all these old questions that he'd pushed into the back of his mind. And serendipitously, right after that, Hyperfix posted a call out asking listeners to write in with their most intractable problems.

[Matt]

And I was like, you know what? Screw it. They're not going to get back to me. It's a dumb question. Um, and, you know, clearly, here we are. But, like, like, that's the thing. I don't even know what my question is. Like, what is it that I am. Is it possible that I did see this episode? I don't think it exists. That is one thing that I'm pretty positive on. I don't think original Brunch Squatch Bob's Burgers exists. But so what does that mean that I believe that I passed into a parallel universe? I feel nuts that I am even somewhat considering the idea.

[Avery Trufelman]

Listening to Matt, I could hear him strain under the silliness of his own question. And I empathize with him because it sucks when the logical and illogical parts of your mind are at war. And I wanted to help him settle that. Let's go with percentages here. How? What percentage certain are you this episode exists?

[Matt]

Little. Like, based on how tired I was and all of that, I think that it is, like, 80% likely that I made it up. But how do you explain all the people online?

[Avery Trufelman]

That's exactly what I was going to say. But if this thing does exist, why would Fox spend the time and money it takes to make the thing and then bury it? I mean, the only thing I can think is that there was some kind of rights issue. But even. Even that doesn't really make any sense.

[Matt]

Like, that's the thing. I think this is like, an interesting, like, rabbit hole to dive down. But, like, the reason why I really questioned even reaching out to you guys is like, I don't think this has an answer. And, like, what's the point if the question doesn't have an answer?

[Avery Trufelman]

Well, I mean, it does have an answer. The answer is yes or no.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Avery Trufelman]

The answer is it existed or it didn't.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Avery Trufelman]

But, like, I think a more interesting question is what would cause a delusion like. Like, what would cause, you know, dozens of, if not hundreds of people to share this opinion?

[Matt]

Did they all have twins recently?

[Avery Trufelman]

Okay, so let's recap this whole thing. Brunch Squatch is an episode of Bob's Burgers that came out in 2017, but the first time Matt saw it was last year. The episode is unique in that it cycles through dozens of styles of fan art in 22 minutes. But Matt and a bunch of other people online feel certain that they've seen a version of this episode drawn in the original Bob's Burgers animation style. In other words, no fan art. And some of them also believe that this is evidence of an interdimensional jump. But one of the most convincing pieces of evidence for this theory is that all of the Reddit posts about this seem to have been posted in the last year, even though, again, the episode came out nearly eight years ago. And it's left Matt feeling crazy. And it is our job to convince him that he isn't, either by proving that there is an alternate version of this episode, or finding a better explanation for why Matt and so many other people feel convinced that they've seen something that doesn't exist. Assuming it doesn't. So we start with the easy stuff. The only definitive way to confirm the existence of an alt version of Brunch Squatch is to talk to the people who created it. So we emailed animators and executives and left messages with the show's production company and its publicists. But we did this around the holidays, when nobody was in any kind of rush to get back to anybody. So while we waited for them to get back to us, we decided to explore this other explanation for what was happening, which was that this Brunch Squatch confusion was another manifestation of the false memory phenomenon known as the Mandela Effect.

[Wilma Bainbridge]

So, do you know what the Monopoly man looks like?

[Avery Trufelman]

I mean, in my head, he has a mustache and a top hat and a monocle and a suit.

[Wilma Bainbridge]

Okay, well, you're wrong. Oh, no, he doesn't have a monocle. But that's a really common false memory that people have that he has a monocle.

[Avery Trufelman]

Oh. This delightful human is Wilma Bainbridge. She's a professor of psychology and the founder of the Brainbridge Lab at the University of Chicago. She also holds the distinction of leading the first truly academic study of the Mandela Effect, which means her job is to identify and study collective false memories, like this one about the Monopoly man wearing a monocle. So I know that your research focuses on the connection between human memory and perception, but, like, how did you decide to start working on the Mandela Effect specifically?

[Wilma Bainbridge]

Yeah, so when I was scrolling on Reddit one day, this was actually right before starting my lab at the University of Chicago. I was about to become a new professor, and I saw this Reddit post about the Mandela Effect.

[Avery Trufelman]

This post Wilma's talking about showed different versions of various pop cultural icons that are often falsely remembered. There were three versions of the Monopoly man, three versions of the Fruit of the Loom logo, 33 Pikachus, 3 C 3 PO's, which, by the way, is a very hard thing to say. Like, my mouth wants to just call them 33 pos. This reminds me of how my son used to call R2D 2RT duty. Anyway, the post invited her to choose which of these three versions is the real one. It's like a quiz. And Wilma makes her choices. She chooses the Monopoly man with a monocle, the Fruit of the Loon logo with a cornucopia, the Pikachu with a yellow tail, and the all gold version of C3PO. And because Wilma is very familiar with these images, she feels very confident about her choices. But when she looks at the answers.

[Wilma Bainbridge]

I was shocked by how I wildly failed it. Like, I was convinced the Monopoly man had a monocle, that the Fruit of the Loom logo had a cornucopia. I fell for almost all of them except for the Pikachu one. Because I'm like, a huge Pokemon fan, so I knew Pikachu very correctly.

[Avery Trufelman]

But being a huge fan does not necessarily protect you from the Jedi mind trickery of the Mandela Effect. Because when I took this quiz, I got all of them wrong, including C3PO, who apparently has a silver leg that I somehow never registered during the 600 million hours I have spent watching Star Wars. But even more baffling than the fact that Wilma and I and so many other people seem to get these wrong is the fact that we seem to be getting them wrong in exactly the same way. So what. What's going on there? Like, why is this thing that I'm. These things that I'm. All of which I'm obviously well enough acquainted with that I've seen dozens, if not hundreds of times. Why am I not remembering pieces that feel pretty elemental to them?

[Wilma Bainbridge]

Yeah, so this is what we were really interested in looking at in our study, where we looked at the visual Mandela effect. So there's two possible explanations of the Mandela effect. One is that it is a false memory phenomenon. Another explanation is that we leaped across dimensions in the mid 2010s. Have you heard about this?

[Avery Trufelman]

I've heard this, but I mean, it just requires a sort of Herculean level of belief that I just do not have.

[Wilma Bainbridge]

Okay, yeah. So many people on the Internet think that these. How? Like, how could so many people have the same false memory? The only possible explanation is that we change dimensions partway through. So, unfortunately for those folks, our study does have evidence against the interdimensional timely Hypothesis.

[Avery Trufelman]

What is the evidence?

[Wilma Bainbridge]

Okay, well, maybe I'll start with that and I'll work backwards from there. So we ran four experiments in our study. In one experiment, we're curious. Do people spontaneously produce these Mandela effects, even if it's their first time learning about this character? Like, maybe it's something about, like, people have seen the Monopoly men so many times that there's more opportunities for the memory to get warped. So. So in our experiment, we took people who didn't know any of the icons, like, for example, someone who didn't know what the Monopoly men looked like, and we showed someone the correct picture of the Monopoly men for the first time. Like, here he is. No monocle. This is the correct version. We then had them do another task for like a minute or two, and then we asked them draw that picture of the Monopoly man that we just showed you. And in their drawings, sometimes they would still put in a monocle even though they had just learned what the correct version was for the first time. If we had jumped dimensions in the mid 2010s, then people wouldn't have made that mistake. They would, like, have a correct memory of that image they just saw. And it's also unlikely that we just jumped dimensions in that brief few minute gap between them seeing the picture and drawing the picture.

[Avery Trufelman]

So.

[Wilma Bainbridge]

So the only possible explanation is that people are actually having an error in their memories that's causing them to insert the monocle on the icon.

[Avery Trufelman]

But what is causing that error in people's memories? What's making people add a monocle to a character they've just been introduced to that does not have a monocle? And the truth is, Wilma's team still hasn't been able to figure it out, at least not entirely. But through their experiments, they have been able to disprove some of the most popular theories about the Mandela effect, including my theory about why I got the C3PO question wrong, which, by the way, also happened to be my theory about why Matt misremembered this episode. That is that neither of us were paying close enough attention to what we were watching.

[Wilma Bainbridge]

Totally, yeah. So then our next question was, is it that people are just not looking at that Mandela effect part? Like, for C3PO, you're probably looking at people's faces, right? You're not looking at his legs during the movie. So is it just people are not looking at the future and then filling it in from memory?

[Avery Trufelman]

For this experiment, Wilma's lab used eye tracking technology, which allowed them to see in a kind of heat Seeking map kind of way. Exactly which features the participants were looking at. And then they tested the participants memory.

[Wilma Bainbridge]

And we found even when they look at C3PO's leg and see that it's silver, they still make that Mandela effect error moments later saying that he's all gold. So even if you look at the feature, you still make the error.

[Avery Trufelman]

For the next experiment, they looked at the theory that these false memories were actually being caused by exposure to the Mandela effect. Meaning like the more times people repost these false versions of the Monopoly man with a monocle, the more people see them, the more likely it is that the false images will become so familiar that it will replace the correct image in our memories.

[Wilma Bainbridge]

Likely. When we ran the study five years ago, it was a little bit less popular. And so at that time we quantified basically, if you search on Google Monopoly man, what proportion are him with a monocle like a false image versus how many are correct? And for these icons, overwhelmingly a majority were the correct version. At least at that time it was not that people had been infected by this social media phenomenon.

[Avery Trufelman]

Now for the final experiment. Wilmer's team tested this theory that at the time felt like the best and most scientific explanation for, for what was happening with the visual Mandela effect. It's called Schema theory. But as someone who works and communicates information outside of the sciences, it doesn't entirely feel right to call it a theory. I mean, at least not while I'm also talking about an interdimensional leap theory. Because even though schema theory is somewhat abstract and not entirely testable, it is still the best explanation that we have for understanding the way that our brains process, interpret and recall information.

[Wilma Bainbridge]

So the idea is that when we remember things, we don't remember picture perfect images, we remember sort of like the gist or templates of things. Right. So for the Monopoly man, you don't remember a photograph of the Monopoly man, you just remember him as fitting the template of like a rich older guy. Right, right. And so the idea is then when you remember him later, you're filling in details from that schema or that template. And, and that's why you insert a monocle, because a monocle is part of your schema of like a rich older guy. Does that make sense?

[Avery Trufelman]

Yes, that does make sense.

[Wilma Bainbridge]

And that, yeah, that does make a lot of sense for a lot of these Mandela effects, but it can't explain all of them. In particular, the Fruit of the Loom logo one is really perplexing because when do you ever see A cornucopia in real life. Like, we see fruit all the time. It's never with a cornucopia. So our final takeaway is that it is not that people are not looking at the future. It's not that these effects happen because they've been infected by social media, and it's not necessarily that we're filling in from schemas.

[Avery Trufelman]

So what is going on here right now? Their best guess is that there's something specific about these images that causes false memories.

[Wilma Bainbridge]

And that's something we're working on studying now.

[Avery Trufelman]

So. So we're interesting.

[Wilma Bainbridge]

Yeah, we're working on building an AI model that can detect false memories from images.

[Avery Trufelman]

These AI models, called convolutional neural networks, are different from the large language models that power programs like ChatGPT in that instead of dealing with sequential information, they work best on static things like images.

[Wilma Bainbridge]

It basically applies a lot of filters to the image, sort of like Photoshop filters. But then it applies these filters in a way that's similar to how our brain's neurons work, where, based on a region of the image, it decides whether to fire or not. And then you have many layers of these artificial neurons that then filter down to a final response on whatever your task is, like, predict the false memories of this image or predict what's in the image. And these have been shown to be really good models of the human visual system.

[Avery Trufelman]

From this AI model, Wilma and her colleagues have been learning about what makes an image more or less likely to produce false memories. And so far, there seems to be a correlation between images that are forgettable and images that produce false memories. And that may seem super obvious, but what isn't obvious is the qualities that they found that make something forgettable. It seems that jarring, novel, or weird images are actually the most forgettable. And the images that are easiest for us to remember are generally the ones that are easiest for us to understand.

[Wilma Bainbridge]

It's because they're easy for the brain to process. Like, we don't have to use up a lot of brain power to understand what's going on. So it's almost like it can get compressed and saved in the brain.

[Avery Trufelman]

The thing is, all of the tests they've been running and the models they've been building have been done on still images. None of this work has been done on moving images, let alone an animated TV series with 300 episodes in its catalog. So it's unclear how some of these discoveries might apply to this episode of Bob's Burgers. But based on Everything that Wilma told us. We were starting to wonder if maybe the issue with Brunch Squatch was that the fan animation was simply less memorable than the original Bob's Burger style of animation. Maybe it was just too weird, too jarring, too novel. And when we explained Matt's question to Wilma, she volunteered to put Brunch Squatch to the test.

[Wilma Bainbridge]

If it would be at all interesting, we could try running some of the fan art scenes versus some of the original art scenes through our AI model that we're developing to see if it flags the fan art ones as being more false memory inducing.

[Avery Trufelman]

Yes.

[Wilma Bainbridge]

Would that be helpful or interesting?

[Avery Trufelman]

Yes, absolutely. What would you need from us to do that?

[Wilma Bainbridge]

Just some pictures of either type of art.

[Avery Trufelman]

So you just need still images?

[Wilma Bainbridge]

Still images? Yeah. It might not work because it seems like there's also the whole narrative and story and our AI can't capture that. But yeah, maybe it could be like those fan art styles are just not so memorable and cause a lot of false memories.

[Avery Trufelman]

After our call with Wilma, we sent her a series of still images showcasing both the traditional style of animation on the show as well as select pieces of fan art pulled from the Brunt Squatch episode. And while we waited for the results of her test, we turned our attention back to answering the most burning question of all.

[Matt]

Is it possible that this episode exists in its original format?

[Avery Trufelman]

Is it possible that there was a normal version of Brunch Squatch? That it was released and then buried or leaked and then removed? Or is this really a giant collective delusion? The only people who could answer this question for us were people who worked on the show. And they still hadn't responded to our outreach. So we adjusted our approach a little. During our first round of outreach, we'd focused primarily on people who would have been most directly involved with or looped in on a creative decision like this. We reached out to animators, executive producers, the show's publicist. This time, however, we focused on performers on the show, on the actors who voiced the characters. And to our great and very welcome surprise, someone responded immediately. And because the universe is cute, sometimes this person just happens to play one of the twins on this show.

[Laura Silverman]

Oh, hi, it's Laura. Is this Amor?

[Amor Yates]

Yes, this is Amor. Hi, Laura.

[Laura Silverman]

Hi, how are you?

[Avery Trufelman]

This is Laura Silverman, who, along with her real life sister Sarah Silverman, play the cartoon twin brothers Andy and Ollie on Bob's Burgers. When Hyperfix producer Amora Yates first wrote to her asking about Brunch Squatch, Laura Emailed back saying, sorry, but she doesn't know anything about the episode. But then, like, 15 minutes later, she emailed back again, saying, hey, can you get on a phone call? I have an answer for you.

[Laura Silverman]

Okay, so this is kind of exciting to, like, me doing this loose thing. Like, at first I was like, you're asking the wrong person. I don't know anything, you know? But then I thought, you know, I looked it up, and I'm like, oh, all these people talking about it and having, like, this phenomenon happen. It's sort of interesting.

[Avery Trufelman]

So Laura took it upon herself to do a little sleuthing.

[Laura Silverman]

I called John schrader, who is a writer, producer on the show, Married to Nora smith, of course, who's, like, super badass writer and producer on the show. And he was sort of confused. He's never heard of this. So in his confusion, he kind of tipped what might be an explanation for this phenomenon. So, first of all, the answer to the question is no. A regular animation version of. What's it called? Brunch Squatch.

[Amor Yates]

Yes. Brunch Squatch.

[Laura Silverman]

Yeah. Does not exist. There is not one. Okay, so that's the answer to that question completely, 100%.

[Avery Trufelman]

As to the question of why so many people thought there was a regular animation version of brunch squatch, John's best theory was that people were conflating it with an earlier episode called beef squatch, which has some overlapping themes and images, including that of gene, the son of the family, Wearing a sasquatch mask to drum up customers for the restaurant. But when amor told Laura about our conversation with wilma, about how weird images are actually less likely to be stored in the brain, that idea totally resonated with her experience of watching brunch squatch for the first time at the Season 8 premiere party, which was at an arcade, by the way.

[Laura Silverman]

I remember standing and watching it, and it. I found it very disorienting. Like, it almost made me feel like I was gonna pass out or throw up and to walk away, because I also didn't know. I had no idea it was fan art. I don't know things, you know, I'm not proactive. No one tells me anything. So I just showed up because it was, like, a kids thing. And I started watching it, and I was like, is it me? Like, is there something wrong with me? Am I having a stroke? And then, yeah, I found out. I found it very disorienting, But I thought it was the coolest idea. And I think the fan art is amazing. But it goes by so fast and it's one style to the next, scene to scene. So, like, you're not going to remember unless you, like, look back at it or you look at the fan art, you know, laid out. Because it is kind of like a roller coaster of sorts. But that's interesting. I'm not super into Reddit, but recently I have started getting into Reddit and I never had a single like or whatever, like arrow up. And I see people that have the preferred answer or the winner answer, and I was like, man, like, I gotta take this over too. Have the winning answer.

[Amor Yates]

Oh, yeah, you have the winning answer. You have the winning answer.

[Laura Silverman]

But I feel like I probably would just, like write it and then go like, oh, yeah, right. Like, you know, like I wouldn't even get it.

[Amor Yates]

Well, now you're gonna be on a podcast, so now everyone's gonna know you had the winning answer.

[Laura Silverman]

Yes, everybody will know that I knew somebody who knew.

[Avery Trufelman]

Finally, we had a definitive answer. There was only ever one version of Brunch Squatch, and I want the Reddit records to show that Laura Silverman is the one who should get credit for reporting this. But as to the question of why Matt and so many other people thought there were two, we only had the faintest outline of a theory. And when Wilma emailed us with the results of the test she'd run, it started to feel like we had even less than that. That's after the break. Hey, it's Christopher Kimball from Milk Street Radio. Sounds like I'm bragging. And I am. We're the number one most downloaded food podcast in America. You know, Milk Street Radio travels the world in search of the the very best food stories you'll hear about smuggling eels on the black market, the secret intelligence of plants, and insider tips to eating in Paris. And every week, listeners call in with their toughest culinary mysteries. Discover a world of food stories by searching your podcast app for Mill Street Radio. This episode of Hyperfixed is brought to you by Gusto. Oh, my. It's winter and it's so cold and windy. I hope I don't get blown away by a Gusto wind. And I'm kidding. This ad has nothing to do with the weather. It's About Gusto, an online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. I was just pranking you by pretending it was about the weather. Gusto is all in one remote, friendly, and incredibly easy to use. So you can pay, hire onboard, and support your team from anywhere. Automatic tax filing, simple direct deposits, health benefits, commuter Benefits, Workers Comp 401k, you name it. Gusto makes it simple and it has options for nearly every budget. Save time with automated tools built right in, Offer letters, onboarding materials, direct deposit, and more. Personally, the thing that leaves me colder than this winter weather is having to do payroll stuff at all. Now that we're in the new year, I have so much stuff to prepare for tax time and I would simply love some help. But don't spend your evenings guessing at tax forms or tracking down onboarding docs. Gusto handles all of that so you can spend time on the parts of your business that you actually love. Like warming yourself by a fire. So don't get left out in the cold this year. By the way, that's a metaphor. Try gusto [e-mail] hyperfixed and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com hyperfixed one more time gusto.com hyperfixed. This episode of Hyperfixed is brought to you by Drip Drop. So if you're anything like me and you have a physically demanding and unrelenting profession where you have to sit in a tiny room in your basement and talk into a microphone, you are going to need to stay hydrated. Drip Drop is a doctor developed proven fast hydration solution that helps your body and mind work better. Think clearer, focus, better energy, elevated mood, even that fresh skin glow. And I'm not talking about the fresh skin glow like ET's finger when he goes Elliot, I'm talking about just looking good and feeling fancy free. It uses a precise ratio of electrolytes and glucose for rapid absorption, delivering three times the electrolytes and half the sugar of leading sports drinks so you feel results fast and without the sugar crash. And if you're like me, you love electrolytes but you hate sugar crashes. Drip Drop science backed formula is trusted by firefighters, medical professionals and over 90% of top college and pretty. There are 16 original flavors and eight zero sugar options that fit seamlessly into my routine morning post workout or midday slump. I personally like the orange flavor because I like orange flavored stuff and also I've mentioned electrolytes are among my favorite things in the world and sugar crashes are among my least favorite. Right now Drip Drop is offering podcast listeners 20% off your first order. Go to dripdrop.com and use promo code HYPERFIXED. That's dripdrop.com promo code HYPERFIXED for 20% off. Welcome back to the show. So before the break we confirmed that there was only one version of Brunch Squatch. And that was the version of it that cycled through dozens of different styles of fan art, which begged the question that started this journey to begin with. Why did Matt and so many other people feel convinced that they'd seen a different version, A version that was animated in the show's traditional style of animation? After speaking with psychology professor Wilma Bainbridge about the common causes of the Visual Mandela effect, we started to suspect that perhaps the cause of all this confusion was that the fan animation was simply less memorable than the traditional style of Bob's animation and that its forgettability was causing these false memories. So Wilma offered to test that theory using the AI Program her lab had designed to measure memorability. And after a couple weeks, she emailed Amor the results of the test.

[Amor Yates]

Okay, so, as you know, we sent Wilma some stills of the animation from the Brunch Squatch episode, as well as stills from a normal Bob's Burgers episode. And the idea was that she was gonna run both sets of images through this program that she and her postdoc created. And the program would test the image's memorability. And hopefully she'd be able to tell us that the reason why people are misremembering Brunch Squatch was because this fan art was measurably less memorable than the normal animation.

[Avery Trufelman]

Right. So give me the bad news.

[Amor Yates]

Okay, so she ran the stills through the program, and sure enough, the fan art images were less memorable. Okay, but not by much.

[Avery Trufelman]

Okay.

[Amor Yates]

And definitely not enough for us to confidently explain what's happening here.

[Avery Trufelman]

Okay, so does that mean that we have no explanation for why Brunch Squatch is producing so many false memories?

[Amor Yates]

Actually, we do. And it may be even simpler than the explanation for all that other stuff we were talking about earlier. Okay, so after Wilma told me that the fan art was only slightly less memorable than the normal art, I was like, okay, so what's going on here? Why are we seeing so many false memories? And although she couldn't say for sure, Wilma theorized that this particular false memory phenomenon has less to do with the style of the animation than. Than with the fact that the style keeps changing without any rhyme or reason. Apparently, there's a lot of work in the memory field about how boundaries impact memory.

[Avery Trufelman]

What. What does that. What are boundaries?

[Amor Yates]

Okay, I'll get to that in a second. So what researchers have found is that boundaries can essentially, like, flush your memory. For example, when you're walking through a doorway, it's more likely that you're gonna forget what just happened. Than walking the same distance in a single room.

[Avery Trufelman]

That is unbelievable.

[Amor Yates]

I know. Isn't that crazy? But even more fascinating is the fact that these boundaries don't have to be physical and you don't have to be the one crossing them. Apparently, if you're just watching TV and the scene changes, that creates a boundary. If a new character gets introduced, that creates a boundary. If the character changes locations, that creates a boundary.

[Avery Trufelman]

But if my memory's getting flushed every time a scene changes, the how am I able to hold the continuity of an entire television show in my brain?

[Amor Yates]

Yeah, that's a very, very valid question. And that's because not everything is getting flushed. Okay, so you remember earlier when we were talking about schemas, like this whole thing about how instead of remembering the thing as it is, we remember a template for it, and then we fill in from that template? Well, the reason why we do that is because our brains can't hold every single detail, everything we see and experience. So the pieces we hold onto are the pieces that are getting coded as being important or essential to the thing. And the same thing happens when you're watching a TV show. And every time you cross a boundary, like important details stay incidental, details get flushed. And because this is happening subconsciously, you don't know which details are getting coded as important and which aren't.

[Avery Trufelman]

So because the animation changes aren't actually tied to the story in any way, you think that they might be getting coded as incidental and then flushed?

[Amor Yates]

Yes, exactly. Also, I took note of every time the animation style changes, and for a 22 minute episode, there are over 35 animation style changes. And sometimes the animation is changing in the middle of a scene, which creates yet another boundary event in the middle of this otherwise continuous action.

[Avery Trufelman]

Damn. I mean.

[Amor Yates]

Okay, okay, so going back to schema theory, if the changes in animation are the incidental things getting flushed, and again, this is happening over and over and over again in this episode, then our brains would fill in from the schema, which is the normal Bob's Burger style of animation.

[Avery Trufelman]

I mean, it does sound like you solved it.

[Amor Yates]

I mean, ultimately this is just a really compelling theory. But so is most of this stuff. I mean, the reason why researchers haven't nailed down an explanation for the Mandela effect is because the human memory is like a very complicated system with lots of variables and interconnected parts. But all that said, yeah, I think this is definitely better and more logical than the interdimensional jump theory.

[Avery Trufelman]

So do I. So do you think we're ready to follow up with Matt?

[Amor Yates]

Yeah, I do. I just hope that he's not super disappointed about the fact that this really just boils down to your brain is playing tricks on you.

[Matt]

This is the outcome that I expected.

[Avery Trufelman]

When we reconnected with Matt, we told him about everything we'd learned. We explained schema theory and boundaries and flushing. But the headline of all of our findings was that Matt had not jumped between dimensions and he was not going crazy. His mind was simply playing tricks on him. And to further corroborate this, we found Reddit posts about people experiencing this phenomenon dating as far back as six years ago.

[Matt]

I was curious if I would talk to you and I'd be like, wow, I am. I am in a parallel universe. This is crazy. This is just a false memory. Which. Which it is. I'm not. I'm not in a parallel universe. It's a false memory. Me and a bunch of other people share this very odd, specific memory. And now I want to meet these people. They're like my brothers.

[Avery Trufelman]

All right, Matt, thank you so much. I'm glad that we can assure you that you're not insane and that you aren't dimension hopping. There's always a chance that we're wrong.

[Matt]

Yeah, no, maybe I am in a separate dimension. I'll figure it out someday, I'm sure.

[Avery Trufelman]

I mean, actually, I think the likelihood is pretty slim that you would figure it out. I think you're just going to have to live in the uncertainty for the rest of your life.

[Matt]

No, I'm built different. I'll figure it out.

[Avery Trufelman]

All right, well, thanks so much. Hyperfixed is produced and edited by Emma Cortland, Amor Yates and Sari Safra Sukanek. It was engineered this week by Noah Smith. Music is by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder and me. Special thanks this week to Wilma Bainbridge, Anastasia Mikhailova, Laura Silverman, John Schroeder and cm. You can get bonus episodes, access our discord and much more by becoming a premium hyperfixed [e-mail] join. We also have Merch like T shirts, sweatshirts, hats, [e-mail] and premium members get a 15% discount on everything. So definitely go get stuff. It supports the show. You'll be the envy of all your friends and peers. It's a win win for everybody. Hyperfixed is a proud member of Radiotopia from prx, a network of independent creator owned listener supported podcasts. Discover audio with vision at Radiotopia fm. Thanks so much for listen, Speaking of.

[Amor Yates]

Squirrels and how much we hate them, you know, I go for a lot of walks, and I go for a lot of walks in Prospect Park. And every time I am about to approach a squirrel, and if I'm alone, I will go the other direction because I am really afraid of them. And I think people are way too casual about how squirrels are. Like, they're brave.

[Avery Trufelman]

There's such, like, an. This is such, like, an LA Person opinion. Squirrels are nothing to do with me being squirrels. Come on. Come on. If you grow up in a place like Ann Arbor, Michigan, you know what the arbor is for? It's for trees. There's squirrels everywhere, and they want nothing to do with you unless they're rabid, at which point, run. Otherwise, they are totally harmless.

[Amor Yates]

You don't know that until it's too late. You could just be, like, listening to some music, and you walk up and then you suddenly interact with a squirrel that has other plans. So you don't know that until it's already happening. So I think you want to hear.

[Avery Trufelman]

Absolutely. One of the most horrifying experiences in my life. And I'm sorry, Matt, we'll get to your interview in just a second, but this is really important stuff we're doing here.

[Matt]

I'm loving this.

[Avery Trufelman]

My. My interactions with squirrels are, like, orders of magnitude more complex and developed than yours.

[Amor Yates]

You're assuming so many things about my relationship with squirrels.

[Avery Trufelman]

I lived in a house that backed right up to a woods. What do you think was in that woods? Turtles and squirrels. That's it. That's all we had. But when I lived in Queens, I used to ride my bike to wnyc, which is, you know, downtown Manhattan. And so my bike ride every day was, like six miles or something. It was pretty, pretty hefty. But I also am a clumsy idiot. And at one time, I broke my glasses and had to get home, so I was, like, biking half blind, but I was riding my bike down the road, and I remember it so clearly because there was a car right near me blasting. It was great when 808 and heartbreak came out. So Heartless by Kanye west was on the radio, and a squirrel dashed out in front of my bike, and I crushed it to death by riding my bicycle over it. Horrible. So scarring. And I, like, stopped. I was like, oh, my God, is there anything I could do? And then I turned back and there was a squirrel corpse that I had created with my bicycle. You know what it sounds like when a car goes over one? Do you know the crunch of a bicycle killing a squirrel. Horrible.

[Amor Yates]

Honestly.

[Avery Trufelman]

Good. Oh, my God. Ooh, we're lively this morning. Radiotopia from prx.