Quick question regarding a conversation going on elsewhere: Have you ever walked into the wrong theater at the multiplex (or put the wrong disk in the DVD player) and watched a whole movie that was different than what you thought you were seeing?

This question is prompted by a grandmother and 8yo who sat through the first 15 minutes of GET HIM TO THE GREEK before deciding that they weren’t seeing TOY STORY 3 and leaving the theater. Also by a group of older women who watched all of TRANSFORMERS unsure if it was the chick flick they’d been planning to see.

I’m trying to get a grasp on this. I know that sometimes people don’t see things they don’t expect to see. I know that people try very hard to make shoehorn things into their pre-existing mental models. I also know that people in a group are less likely to jump up and say “This is wrong!” that people who are alone.

Once, I sat through ten minutes of a history channel documentary wondering when they were going to tie the subject of strip mining to the show on ancient Rome I was expecting (wrong night and I’d missed the opening).

But GET HIM TO THE GREEK?? Once Russel Brand dropped his first f-bomb, wouldn’t you get it? I just don’t understand. Has anyone had this experience?