We were wrong.

Wrong about critters. Wrong about Beavis and Butthead. Wrong about Huey, Dewey and Louie.

Newspapering is an industry that lends itself to automation, but at its heart, it is a human-intensive endeavor. Humans have many admirable traits, but they make mistakes.

We run 'em. We regret 'em. We correct 'em.

Cringing, sometimes.

Corrections in the Observer used to run under a blunt headline called "We Were Wrong." These days they usually land on Page 2A under the banner "Corrections and Clarifications," but a vestige of the former headline remains. A computer file that corrections are placed in each day is still named "www."

Over the years, we've made serious goofs. And then there are the ones that are merely embarrassing:

Sept. 21, 1973: "The jetliner pictured in Tuesday's Observer was incorrectly identified as a DC9 and incorrectly identified again Thursday as a Boeing 707. The airplane in the photo was a Boeing 737."

Nov. 10, 1975: "A story incorrectly said the Klansmen marched two blacks through town about 3 p.m. and more out of town by 3:40 p.m. The story should have said the Klansmen marched two blocks through town and were out of town by 3:40 p.m."

Animals vex us

Nov. 16, 1975: "A caption on the front page of Saturday's Observer incorrectly identified cattle as pigs."

A 2004 article in the Gaston County edition mentioned that the animals in Richard Jansen's "Threshing Wheat," a New Deal-era mural in Lincolnton's post office, were donkeys.

Readers called to set us straight. "They are mules," acknowledged a correction the next day.

Feb. 10, 1983: "A story in Wednesday's Observer should not have implied it is permissible to use spotlights when hunting deer."

Can you spell that?

Forget riots and wars. Covering a spelling bee is the most dangerous assignment in journalism.

Hell's top gremlins are dispatched to ensure that something gets misspelled in those articles. Knowing this, such stories - and the recondite words contestants are given - get scrutiny in the editing stream. Still, things go wrong.

April 24, 1977: "The name of Beverly Sanford, who won The Charlotte Observer's Regional Spelling Bee, was misspelled Saturday."

June 3, 2000: "An article in Friday's Charlotte Observer about the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee misspelled the name of Justin Balletta, a student from Weddington Middle School."

June 3, 2006: "A story Friday about the National Spelling Bee misspelled the name of Bee winner Katharine Close."

Jan. 27, 2002: "Because of an error in using a computer spellchecker, an article in Thursday's Observer about the Union County Public Schools 2002 Spelling Bee contained a wrong word. The article should have said Weddington Middle School eighth-grader Anna South outspelled - not 'outspend' - 23 other students."

There are others. Many. But you get the g-i-s-t.

We're funny about food

Nov. 19, 1981: We printed a canning recipe for pineapple zucchini.

Headline the following day: "Zucchini Recipe May Be Harmful." It was making people sick. Doubtful acid levels, inadequate processing were blamed.

Recipes often make the correction column, usually fixing a dash of this or pinch of that. Sometimes, we go overboard.

In 1978, we ran a recipe for ham salad to serve six. It called for 42 bananas.

In the mid-'90s, someone made a mistake typing in a recipe, making it a quarter cup of baking soda rather than a quarter teaspoon. A reader called to complain that when the cake exploded, it tore off her oven door.

"I have the most dangerous job at the newspaper," says Kathleen Purvis, food editor. "I can kill people."

You'd think we'd know

Sept. 8, 1982: "An Observer story Sunday about the Carolina Free Press at Chapel Hill listed Sen. Jesse Helms' party affiliation incorrectly. Helms is a Republican."

Sept. 10, 1983: "An answer in the Trivia Quiz Friday was wrong. Donald Duck's nephews are Huey, Dewey and Louie."

1979 headline on Ann Landers column: "Inconsiderate clients hairass beauticians."

Jan. 27, 2005 headline in Sports: "Bulls headed toward playoff birth."

Erratum ripple effects

Sometimes our mistakes are contagious. Back in the 1980s, most radio stations in Charlotte did local news. That meant someone came by the Observer about 4 a.m., bought a fresh final edition and rewrote the best stories for rush-hour broadcasts.

On Jan. 15, 1985, the Observer ran a chart listing what was open and closed for the Martin Luther King holiday. It said schools would be closed.

We were wrong. They were open.

That didn't stop radio stations from parroting the Observer's goof.

School officials straightened out the broadcasters before the confusion went on too long. Observer Editor Rich Oppel issued a public apology: "We are not sure how the error occurred, but we are checking."

Aiming at our feet

1987: New branding slogan is announced. "The Charlotte Observer: It rubs off on you." It didn't last.

1988: "A Carolina Watch item in Sunday's Observer named UNC-Asheville Chancellor David Brown but incorrectly carried a photo of singer James Brown."

1999: We sponsored a "Star Wars" contest. All the readers' entries were accidently thrown out before judging.

2001: We reduced the page size to save money on paper. A memo went out to the Observer's sales staff on how to pitch the change to clients. It got leaked and went all over town:

"Use these words sparingly - reduced size, smaller, narrower, shrinking the page, change. Use these positive words - new, user-friendly format, new and improved, fresh new approach, adjusted page size, altered page size, new size, easier to use, environmentally conscious."

Tracking our goofs

Hope Paasch (yep, two A's) was the corrections editor for about a decade. She reviewed the corrections and the form filed by staffers explaining how each mistake was made, watching for patterns.

"Usually it's just a brain blip," she says. "We've had some serious ones. But the one I remember is Beavis and Butthead back in the '90s. We ran a picture of them, and got their names transposed."

St. Peter comes to town

In 2002, the masterful Ben Long fresco of St. Peter Catholic Church on South Tryon Street collapsed. A photograph ran showing a workman sifting through fallen plaster. Beneath it, a headline: "St. Peter picks up pieces of treasured Long fresco."

"Forget the fresco," snapped an editor. "Somebody get over there and interview St. Peter."