Of course, the silliness has always been refuted, since nobody has an authentic example of "Berenstein" that isn't itself an error or misprint.
It also touches on the lack of care that people tend to have when it comes to getting names right. The creators of the Bears dealt with this in school, with a teacher who absolutely refused to believe that the A spelling was correct, asserting "there is no such name". A very large number of people throughout history have suffered similar fates, where others would dispute the spelling of their name, or indeed their entire name.
There's no satirical or arrogant component inherent in this phenomenon. For example, pick any five people at random in your life and ask them if they remember any of the following iconic lines:
* Snow White "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" * ST:TOS "Beam me up, Scotty" * Star Wars "Luke, I am your Father" * Wizard of Oz "Fly my pretties, fly" * Casablanca "Play it again, Sam."
I've done about 50-100 of these 5x5 samples in casual groups/workshops and have never had a single all-negative response. Problem is, none of the lines above were ever said.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berenstein
Undeniable proof that the conspiracy goes so deep it altered tapes as they were read. :P
Given how often people love to swear with certainty that they remember Berenstain spelled as Berenstein [0], I find it kind of neat/interesting when this sort of digital archaeology refutes the silliness with undeniable proof.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berenstain_Bears#Name_discrepa...
Edit: that's one of the ROMs they recovered from tape backup -- wanted to add context since, if you don't actively expand the list in the article, my comment appears wildly non-sequitur