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The Happy Endings Foundation
Status: Hoax
The Happy Endings Foundation believes that all children's books should have happy endings. Those that don't should be banned.

The organization was (supposedly) started seven years ago by Adrienne Small after she noticed that her daughter seemed miserable after reading Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Mrs. Small plans to rewrite the Lemony Snicket books to give them a happy ending.

Some upcoming events planned by the Happy Endings Foundation include a Halloween "fun and greeting" celebration instead of trick or treating. "Children will be encouraged to knock on someone's door and offer a smlie." Sounds fun. A few days later the foundation will also be hosting a Bad Book Bonfire. Bring along a book with an unhappy ending and watch it go up in flames!

Although the media seems to have accepted the Happy Endings Foundation as real, based on the uncritical articles about it in the press, it definitely isn't real. The biggest clue is the disclaimer that appears on its site:
Most characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living, dead, or half dead, is purely coincidental. None of the non-fictitious people, places or things named in this website were harmed during the creation of the site. We're not sure if the Loch Ness monster is fictitious or non-fictitious, you decide.
Internet sleuths have also figured out that the Happy Endings Foundation website is registered to an advertising firm, artscience.net, that lists A Series of Unfortunate Events as one of its clients. In other words, the Happy Endings Foundation is a marketing hoax.
Posted By: Alex | Date: Sun Oct 07, 2007 | Permalink | Total Comments: 1
Category: Advertising, Literature/Language
Comments
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.
Page 1 of 1 pages
And here I thought it was an off-shoot of Wal-Mart and their clean and happy cds and dvds campaign.
Posted by Christopher Cole  in  Tucson, AZ  on  Mon Oct 08, 2007  at  08:52 PM
Page 1 of 1 pages

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