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A 28-Year-Old Urban Legend: The <em>Three Men And A Baby</em> Ghost
By
Jen Carlson
Published Jan 22, 2015
Modified Jan 22, 2015
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Jan 22, 2015
Modified Jan 22, 2015
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Remember the urban legend that immediately spread upon the 1987 release of Three Men and a Baby? It persisted for years, and still has a little life in it today. The movie stars Ted Danson, Tom Selleck, and Steve Guttenberg as three Manhattan bachelors who find a baby on their Manhattan loft's doorstep, and during one scene there's an unplanned cameo from... a ghost.
Incase you never thought to look into this again (there was no internet then, after all, to gather information and conspiracy theories from), here's what happened as time passed and the mystery of the ghost was allegedly solved.
During the above scene, a human figure can be seen in the background, partially covered by a window curtain. It was immediately explained as a ghost. Specifically it was believed this was the ghost of a boy who died in the apartment—according to Wikipedia, the 9-year-old had "committed suicide with a shotgun there, explaining why the house was vacant because the grieving family left."
That doesn't look like a top hat! (via News from the Spiritual World)
According to Snopes, things kind of spiraled from there—"More detailed versions of the rumor have the boy's mother suing the film studio after they refuse her request to remove the image from the film, and making the rounds of various TV talk and news magazine programs (e.g., Oprah, Geraldo, 60 Minutes) to repeat her strange tale of woe. Even wilder versions have the mother spotting her dead son, dressed in his burial clothes, in the film. In stock folkloric fashion, the mother immediately goes insane and has to be confined to a mental institution, where she has remained ever since."
It turns out the apartment was actually created in a Toronto sound stage, and the ghost was just a cutout prop from the movie (of Danson's character wearing a tuxedo and top hat), which was left on the set. Even the NY Times had to address the spreading rumor: "Urban legend aficionados please note: That cardboard cutout of Ted Danson briefly glimpsed in one scene of Three Men and a Baby is not the ghost of a little boy who died in the bachelors' apartment before filming started."
Danson is later shown with the cutout (pictured)... but it looks a little different, no? So let's keep this urban legend alive for future generations.
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3 men and a baby
ghost
three men and a baby
urban legend
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Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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