I was perusing the Top Headlines sidebar at AceOfSpadesHQ as I usually do every morning when I saw this:
Crazy But True TV Fact:
Mr. Ed Was Not A Horse [dri]
Okay, I thought, I'll bite. Clicking on the link brings you to the Snopes website. Snopes is where I usually go to debunk the chain email urban legend nonsense that I occasionally receive from my mother and various other misguided (although extremely earnest) friends who are not, apparently, naturally skeptical.
The Snopes article claims that Mr. Ed was not a horse but instead was a zebra.
I found this to be ridiculous on its face but I read through the entire article anyway. It was well written and had an air of authority to it but still seemed like utter BS to me.
And, as it turns out, it is utter BS.
The Mr. Ed was a zebra story is part of a special section at Snopes called
"The Repository of Lost Legends." The acronym of the title is a clue. Clicking on the Mr. Ed link also yields a clue: It plays an audio clip of Mr. Ed saying, "Maybe I didn't go to college but I'm not stupid."
There are eight other "lost legends" and each one is equally false (and funny if you are in on the joke). Snopes says that they created this section to illustrate a point: You should be suspect of even supposedly reliable authorities (in this case, Snopes). They call it "False Authority Syndrome" and they have a page about it
here.
There has yet to be an acknowledgement from the guy at AceOfSpades who posted the original link that he was duped although several people have noted the fakery in the comments section. So remember: If it smells funny there is usually a pretty good reason. Don't let common sense fall victim to a false authority.
EDIT: That the above story could actually be believed by anyone (and you know that it has) is the reason why a significant majority of our citizens elected a man to be president who is the least qualified person in any room he walks into.