I was having an iChat with a friend, who I had previously considered to be a reasonably well-adjusted chap, when he asked me out of the blue if I had heard that Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon was an alternate soundtrack for The Wizard Of Oz.
My first thought was to keep him chatting long enough for me to contact the relevant mental health authorities but a little googling revealed that there was actually something to this.
Apparently if you start Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wizard of Oz at the same time, the one serves as an eerily synchronous soundtrack for the other. There are entire websites devoted to the phenomenon.
I like to think that I’m well up on my weird memes but this was a new one to me. I set Acquisition the task of downloading a pre-synched movie file so that I could investigate this strange synchronisity.
I watched it from start to finish and my conclusion is that some people have waaaaay too much time on their hands. You could probably achieve similar results by watching the evening news whilst playing Tiny Tim’s Greatest Hits.
What’s really puzzling is that none of the websites devoted to the Floyd/Oz meme ever mention the requirement of being completely stoned to fully comprehend the startling coincidences. I can only imagine how the hidden meaning of Pink Floyd’s album was discovered by some suitably wasted slackers:
"Dude, let’s watch The Wizard Of Oz."
"No man, let’s listen to Dark Side Of The Moon instead."
"Hey, why don’t we do both…"
"Whoa!"
Stay away from marijuana, kids. It’s a gateway drug that leads to DVD mash-ups.