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Of interest particularly to the Scandinavians here is an article on
lemmings today in my local newspaper (Toledo Blade) and the hoax that
Disney Studios invented in 1958 about mass suicide among lemmings.
The Disney film was produced as part of the "True Life
Adventures" series, and remains fairly fixed despite exposés over
the last 20 years about the hoax. For some reason the producers
thought lemmings occasionally committed mass suicide as a solution to
over-population: the article states that at rare times lemmings in Norway
migrate, and that at times some might be forced off cliffs or riverbanks
during the migrations. This apparently struck the film-makers as a
great cinematic episode: they hired Alaskans to trap lemmings, then in
Alberta, Canada they deliberately panicked the lemmings and filmed them
running off a riverbank, then claimed this was a scene of the lemming
mass suicide in Norway!<br>
There is still a phrase in American English today "like lemmings to
the sea" meaning people who mindlessly follow everyone else towards
disaster.<br>
Was there not also a <i>Duck Tales</i> episode about lemmings rushing to
the sea?</body>
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