Is This Pink Floyd Theory Cosmic Coincidence or Something Hilariously Prophetic on Roger Waters’ Part?

Podcast listeners, particularly those who love a dose of silly comedy in an otherwise aggressively serious and negative age, have likely come across the McElroy Brothers on occasion. This trio of real-life siblings is best known for the comedy advice podcast My Brother, My Brother And Me. But they also have quite a few podcasts on the side, including the sorely underrated Til Death Do Us Blart.

Videos by American Songwriter

You’re probably already putting together what this podcast is about. The three brothers, joined by fellow podcasters Tim and Guy from The Worst Idea Of All Time, watch the 2015 film Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 every single year around Thanksgiving and come up with comedy magic each time with their commentary. They’ve done it for 11 years, and each time it gets funnier.

But there’s something about the 2017 episode of this annual podcast that might resonate with Pink Floyd fans. Specifically, host Griffin McElroy brought to light a stunning phenomenon: the entirety of Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 syncs up almost perfectly with Pink Floyd’s legendary 1973 prog-rock album The Dark Side Of The Moon. The whole episode is hilarious, but I strongly recommend listening to it for this strange bit of music history lore.

So, did this podcaster discover some hidden secret unknown to fans of Pink Floyd and Kevin James alike? That seems to be the case. I couldn’t find any evidence of this “urban legend” floating around the web before 2017. But whether or not it’s rooted in reality is another story. Even though it definitely seems like the album syncs up with the movie.

A Cosmic Coincidence or Something Hilariously Prophetic on Roger Waters’ Part?

It’s likely neither. I doubt Roger Waters is some kind of future-seeing witch. But I also doubt that this is just a strange coincidence. I say that because this isn’t the first time someone has claimed that The Dark Side Of The Moon syncs up perfectly with a movie.

Enter The Dark Side Of The Rainbow theory. This rumor has been around since way back in 1995. A journalist from the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette published a piece claiming that Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon has a number of notable moments in which it syncs up with scenes in the 1939 fantasy film The Wizard Of Oz perfectly. 

The rumor spread like wildfire. It was such a “thing” that even album engineer Alan Parsons and members of Pink Floyd had to publicly deny any intended connection to the movie.

What we’re possibly seeing here with both Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 and The Wizard Of Oz (which would make for a wild back-to-back viewing experience, by the way) is what is known as apophenia.

Apophenia is the “tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things.” Sure, it seems like the music is syncing up with these movies. But if you grabbed a scene from any media and played it on repeat throughout The Dark Side Of The Moon’s runtime, you’d likely find a “sync” moment with ease. Our brains are funny like that.

Even though this phenomenon can be more or less explained, it’s nonetheless hilarious. Especially since someone on the internet also took the time to sync up the song with the entire Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 film online for everyone’s viewing enjoyment. You can search it up, but I’m sure that wouldn’t make the producers very happy. So, I recommend putting this film on mute via Netflix while playing The Dark Side Of The Moon in the background.

Photo by Victor Chavez/WireImage