Disney fans stunned after finding out part of iconic intro animation ‘was all in their imagination’

We've all heard of The Mandela effect, but one related to Walt Disney Pictures' iconic intro has left film fans scratching their heads.

The Mandela effect is a sort of false memory that occurs when multiple people incorrectly remember the same thing.

The name refers to widespread false memory that Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980s.

Other prominent examples include the fact that Britney Spears never wore a microphone headset in the 'Oops!...I Did It Again' music video and that we all thought 'Looney Tunes' was called 'Looney Toons'.

The latest Mandela effect to leave people stunned involves the iconic castle animation that appears before several Walt Disney Studios movie.

We all remember the whoosh of Tinker Bell flying over to sprinkle fairy dust and dot the ‘I’ in Disney with her wand, right?

Well, it turns out that it never actually happened and TikTok users have had their minds blown as they realized their childhood memory is as real as Tinker Bell herself.

One user posted the intro with a voiceover saying: "How this even possible?"

A screengrab underneath reads: “Is Tinker Bell in the beginning of Disney movies?

“Fake. Based on everything that we know, this never actually happened. Disney did not release a video intro where Tinker Bell ‘dots the I’ on the word Disney.

“Instead, people are likely combining several memories into one.”

TikTok/@marelize.pretorius

And Disney fans aren't happy about it.

One penned: “I'm tired of people telling me I remember wrong. This I remember vividly.”

Another added: “I remember this intro from around 25yrs ago. It was on all the Disney VIDEOS not CD or Blu-ray...VIDEOS.”

Someone else commented: "It did happen, I saw this as a child, I'm 35 and I saw this when I was 5..before google was born."

Another claimed that they also remembered this intro, albeit only at the start of the Peter Pan film.

However, others insisted that this intro never happened.

One person said: “I’ve never seen this intro with Tinker Bell on.”

A second wrote: “I don't remember this, it's obv fake. But there's a cartoonist one where she flies around and dots the I, I swear.”

Disney

But, why exactly do human beings collectively misremember things like this?

Well, our memories aren't always precise. They can change over time and we can even have different memories in different contexts.

According to Medical News Today, memory is also very suggestive, meaning what other people recall can impact on what we remember.

Thus widespread incorrect information can subtly influence our individual memories, giving rise to false beliefs and the Mandela effect.