As further compensation for my failure to produce a “Snide Remarks” column this week, check out today’s entry at Film.com, “Hollywood Is Terrible with History.” It contains gems such as this:

If you watch closely in the famous chariot-race scene in Ben-Hur, you can clearly see that one of the “chariots” is actually a Volkswagen Beetle.

The only thing keeping it from being a “Snide Remarks” column is that it doesn’t say “Snide Remarks” at the top of it.

(For complete background on this feature, read the introduction here. But here’s the gist: I registered a fake e-mail address for actress/singer Raven-Symone and announced it here, with the disclaimer that it wasn’t real, figuring dumb people would ignore that part and write to it anyway. And I was right.)

It would appear that Raven-Symone’s fans are getting stupider. I know! I wouldn’t have thought it was possible either, but here we are. As has become my custom, I have put my favorite passages in bold type.

CHILDREN’S LETTERS TO RAVEN-SYMONE

Aug. 10, 2007:
hi raven im shakira 4rm texas i love you so much i feel like i can talk to u i like in a person. Also ppl have said u were having a baby is that true. luv shkira

[Does "4rm" mean "from"? It should mean "forearm." "I'm Shakira, forearm Texas." I don't know what that would mean, though.]

Continue reading…

There is no new “Snide Remarks” this week. Believe me, I am just as traumatized by this news as you are. Well, perhaps slightly less, since I’ve had all weekend to get used to it, whereas you have been blind-sided by the news first thing on a Monday morning. But I have also had to live with the guilt and shame attendant on not producing a new column, and that burden is mine alone.

However! The next blog entry after this one is a new batch of Children’s Letters to Raven-Symone, so that should make everyone happy.