Older on hallucinating | Vermont Business Magazine

Submitted by tim on Mon, 06/22/2026 - 04:26

by Jules Older

I host an occasional humor blog called Jokers. Last week I sent the Jokers a quiz. It went like this:

Ready for your Great Lines from Great Movies Quiz, Jokers? I’ll supply the line, you name the movie. Here we go …

“You can stick this marriage right in your bottom!”
“The only reason you're still breathing is because I never kissed you.”
“That's what you are, you're just bastard people.”
“It seems that Angelique has a rare case of brake fluid...”
“I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”

Reply with your Google-free answers, then stay tuned for the results.

But before I got to the answers, something unexpected came up. The first Joker who responded confessed that while she couldn't identify the movies, her favorite AI search engine, Perplexity, could. As proof, she proudly sent me this:

“You can stick this marriage right in your bottom!”

Movie: Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) – Delivered by Miranda Hillard (Sally Field) during a heated argument with Daniel (Robin Williams).

“The only reason you're still breathing is because I never kissed you.” Movie: Poison Ivy (1992) – Said by Ivy (Drew Barrymore).

“That's what you are, you're just bastard people.”

Movie: The Hangover (2009) – Screamed by Alan (Zach Galifianakis) at a wedding coordinator.

“It seems that Angelique has a rare case of brake fluid...”

Movie: Joe Dirt (2001) – Said by Joe Dirt (David Spade) while describing his "heck of a dog."

“I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”

Movie: Casablanca (1942) – The classic, deeply sarcastic line from Captain Renault (Claude Rains) right before he is handed his casino winnings.

Great. AI goes where no-one — or at least no-one on my Jokers list — has gone before. Only one thing though … with the exception of Casablanca, every answer it gave was incorrect. False. Wrong. Perplexity was hallucinating.

Hallucinating. According to Wikipedia, A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external context stimulus that has the compelling sense of reality.

That's a fancy way of saying that somebody who thinks things are there that really aren't there is either on drugs, has a debilitating disease or is crazy.

Ah, but there's another kind of hallucination, one that involves not humans but Artificial Intelligence. Again, from Wikipedia: In the field of artificial intelligence (AI), a hallucination or artificial hallucination (also called bullshitting,[1][2]confabulation,[3] or delusion[4]) is a response generated by AI that contains false or misleading information presented as fact.

Translated into plain English: When AI doesn't know something, rather than saying, “I don't know,” it makes stuff up. That's just what Perplexity did with movies. My question — is this peculiar to Perplexity or is it typical of all AI responses?

I decided to find out. And started with the ever-popular ChatGPT. I asked:

What movies do these lines come from?

“You can stick this marriage right in your bottom!”
“The only reason you're still breathing is because I never kissed you.”
“That's what you are, you're just bastard people.”
“It seems that Angelique has a rare case of brake fluid...”
“I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”

Five seconds later, ChatGPT responded:

Here are the movie matches for those quotes:

“You can stick this marriage right in your bottom!”
→ A Fish Called Wanda
“The only reason you're still breathing is because I never kissed you.”
→ Tootsie (spoken by Les after discovering Dorothy is actually Michael Dorsey)
“That's what you are, you're just bastard people.”
→ Waiting for Guffman
“It seems that Angelique has a rare case of brake fluid...”
→ Soapdish
“I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”
→ Casablanca (Captain Renault's famous line)

ChatGPT score: 100% correct. No hallucinations.

Next, Grok. After an annoying set of sign-ins and confirmations, Grok also got every answer right — in three short seconds. Score: 100% correct. No hallucinations.

Now, Claude. Unlike ChatGPT, I had to sign in. And unlike ChatGPT and Grok, Claude wasn't as instantly certain. But it was considerably more loquacious — so verbose that I've truncated its response to give you time to actually accomplish something today:

The search for #2 didn't find the exact quote. Let me check the remaining ones I'm less certain about.

Searched the web

I now have enough to answer all five. I know #2 and #5 from memory (Casablanca for #5 is very well-known), and the "only reason you're still breathing" line sounds like it could be from a vampire/supernatural context — let me quickly verify.

I can't find the source of quote #2 online. It may be slightly misquoted or from a lesser-known film. Here's what I can confidently answer on the others:

1. "You can stick this marriage right in your bottom!"
This is from A Fish Called Wanda (1988), said by the character Wendy. Quotes.net

2. "The only reason you're still breathing is because I never kissed you."
I wasn't able to pin this one down with certainty — my searches didn't return a definitive match. It has the flavour of a vampire or supernatural romance (a kiss being deadly), but I'd rather admit I don't know than guess wrong.

3. "That's what you are, you're just bastard people."
This is from Waiting for Guffman (1996), delivered by Christopher Guest's character Corky St. Clair in a spectacular meltdown.

4. "It seems that Angelique has a rare case of brake fluid..."
This is from Soapdish (1991). It's a wonderfully chaotic scene where an actor is reading unrehearsed lines off a teleprompter and stumbles — clearly meant to say "brain fever" but misreads it as "brake fluid," leaving everyone baffled.

5. "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"
This is the immortal line from Casablanca (1942), delivered by Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains) — immediately followed by a croupier handing him his winnings. One of cinema's great hypocritical moments.

Claude’s score: 80%. With my compliments for confessing what it didn't know rather than hallucinating.

On to DeepSeek, which suffers the disadvantage of being a Chinese chatbot trying to come up with American and British film quotes. A few seconds after signing in, I got this — the incomplete passages are how they showed on my MacBook Pro:

Here are the movies your lines come from, based on the search results:

Line	Movie
1. “You can stick this marriage right in your bottom!”	Unknown (Not found in search results)
2. “The only reason you're still breathing is because I never kissed you.”	Never Been Kissed (1999)
3. “That's what you are, you're just bastard people.”	Waiting for Guffman (1996)
4. “It seems that Angelique has a rare case of brake fluid...”	Unknown (Not found in search results)
5. “I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”	Casablanca (1942)

How to Find the Remaining Lines

If you'd like to identify the two unknown quotes, here are a couple of suggestions:

Search for a specific phrase: Try putting the entire line in quotes on a search engine or a site like IMDb or QuoDB. For example, searching for "rare case of brake fluid" might lead you directly to the right movie.
Think about the tone: The line about "brake fluid" is unusual. It could be from a horror or dark comedy film (like the Carrie or Thelma & Louise equivalents) where something sinister is disguised as a medical condition. The line about sticking a marriage "in your bottom" has a very distinct comedic, likely British, tone.

DeepSeek score: a sad 20% — including one hallucination.

Finally, in the name of science, I needed to check Perplexity for myself. Its response was … perplexing:

Here’s where each line comes from:

“You can stick this marriage right in your bottom!” — A Fish Called Wanda.
“The only reason you're still breathing is because I never kissed you.” — Westworld.
“That's what you are, you're just bastard people.” — Waiting for Guffman.
“It seems that Angelique has a rare case of brake fluid...” — Soapdish.
“I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” — Casablanca.

One small note: the second line is sometimes misremembered or quoted in other contexts, but this exact wording is listed for Westworld in the source I found.

Perplexity got four out of five, but it created one hallucination. Score: 80%. What makes it perplexing is that its new answers were so different from the response my friend got, the response that set this whole report in motion.

* * *

OK, what do we make of all this? Crucially, AI, which used to be infamous for hallucinations … is still hallucinating.

But, at least in this limited sample, not all platforms are still reporting a reality that doesn't exist. Both ChatGPT and Grok were not only free of hallucination, they got every answer right. Claude didn't fare as well, and DeepSeek failed miserably — and hallucinated. As for Perplexity — let the user beware. Initially, it hallucinated every movie except Casablanca; then it changed its answers, got every one right … except for a new hallucination.

So. My advice:

Choose your AI helper carefully.
Whichever one[s] you choose, double-check its answers. Otherwise, you'll end up quoting Mrs. Doubtfire when that perfect line you're quoting … actually came from A Fish Called Wanda.

Jules Older has been a disc jockey and medical educator, clinical psychologist and TV villain, writer and filmmaker. Jules’ work has won awards in four countries. He’s lived in two of them — the USA and New Zealand. Jules’ latest kid’s books include Special Ed and the White Force.

To support vital journalism, access our archives and get unique features like our award-winning profiles, Book of Lists & Business-to-Business Directory, subscribe HERE!

Vermont Business Magazine