Dark Side of the Rainbow

Although the Dark Side of the Rainbow effect has become famous, its origin is murky. In 1994, fans of Pink Floyd discussed the phenomenon on the Usenet message board alt.music.pink-floyd. At that point, knowledge of who first thought of combining the two works, and why, was already lost.

Since then, several waves of attention rippled through popular culture. In August 1995, a newspaper in Fort Wayne, Indiana, published the first mainstream media article about the synchronicity, citing alt.music.pink-floyd. Soon afterward, several fans began creating websites in which they touted the experience and tried to comprehensively catalog the corresponding moments. A second wave of awareness began in April 1997 when a Boston radio DJ discussed Dark Side of the Rainbow on the air, leading to further mainstream media articles and a segment on MTV news.

In July 2000, the cable channel Turner Classic Movies aired a version of Oz with the Dark Side album as an alternate soundtrack. That same month, an episode from season two of the animated television show Family Guy aired that made reference to the effect; entitled “The Story on Page One”, the episode included Peter Griffin saying to Luke Perry, “I’m telling you, Dark Side of the Moon totally syncs up with the Wizard of Oz!” (Also, in the January 2002 episode “Stuck Together Torn Apart,” from Family Guy season three, the character Mort Goldman tells Griffin that he and his wife “like to watch old movies while listening to Hotel California to see if it syncs up in a significant way. And so far, no. Nothing has.”)

Several music groups have also alluded to the phenomenon. In February 2003, the reggae cover-band group Easy Star All-Stars released a cover album of The Dark Side of the Moon entitled Dub Side of the Moon, which they claimed was intentionally edited to be “compatible” with The Wizard of Oz. In June 2003, the alternative rock band Guster released an album containing the song “Come Downstairs & Say Hello,” which opens with the lines “Dorothy moves/To click her ruby shoes/Right in tune/With Dark Side of the Moon.” On the DVD commentary track of Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, Jack Black states at one point that “if you start playing Dark Side Of The Moon at this point in the film… It doesn’t sound very good at all!” before laughing.

Dark Side of the Rainbow has also turned up in the funny pages. In June 2006, a “Born Loser” newspaper comic strip built a punch-line around a headache the main character developed while listening to the Dark Side of the Moon while watching The Wizard of Oz.