Are there any urban legends you were taught/heard that were just dumb or funny?

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Scrappy_The_Crow@reddit

When I was a kid in the '70s, there were absurd rumors that only kids could believe, such as:

Wendy's uses worms in their burgers.
Bubblicious is crunchy because of spider eggs.

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Junior_Ad_7613@reddit

We heard about the spider eggs on the west coast, too.

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Scrappy_The_Crow@reddit

It's amusing how widely these things spread back then, even before the internet.

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Upper_Extreme9461@reddit

Slenderman is an American Urban legend and so is Bloody Mary!!

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as a kid i was told all about the \~mysterious disappearance\~ of the colonoy of roanoke constantly and even took a field trip to the museum dedicated to it once. learning even a little bit about it as an adult was very funny because it's like. they didn't vanish. they moved inland and integrated with the native american community nearby. they carved the name of that community into a tree and everything.

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icedragon42@reddit

It seems to me that every high school in America has some variation of the senior prank where three of some animal are released on school grounds, labeled 1,2, and 4.

I'm sure it's actually happened a few times, but definitely not as often as I hear that story.

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posophist@reddit

If you touch a lamppost with your tongue on a very cold day …

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Aggravating_Anybody@reddit

I (35M) remember I was taught in public school in 5th grade that ONE marijuana joint was more dangerous to the body than ONE HUNDRED tobacco cigarettes.

Seems more like propaganda than an urban legend, but wildly upsetting either way in hindsight now that recreational cannabis is now legal in my state, the same state that approved that curriculum in public schools.

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PromiseThomas@reddit

It really upsets me when curriculum lies about certain drugs, because I think there are some people who assume that if some things were lies, they all must be lies. If smoking weed didn’t kill them or immediately ruin their life, then heroin is probably pretty safe too, right?

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LifeApprehensive2818@reddit

I remember similar lessons in health class; mj causes brain fog that can last for days, it may not be chemically addictive, but the high is psychologically addictive, etc.

Part of it is that we just didn't know enough about what it did to a person, especially to minors. But the uncertainty and caution absolutely got twisted into propaganda; there had to be something evil about it to separate it from socially acceptable tobacco and alcohol.

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Atlas7993@reddit

My grandpa told me the story of the Wild Flotsam. It was a bigfootesque character made of flotsam and held together by a net and river weeds that roamed the state park in our town. It was entirely made up by him, but inspired by this huge ball of flotsam that got caught in the dam after a flood.

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superkt3@reddit

I went to a Catholic school that had previously been home to the nuns who ran it, but by the time I was there in the early 2000's the staff were mostly lay people and the nuns no longer lived there, but the persistent myth was that the nuns still had a secret swimming pool on the top floor.

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timmyisinthewell@reddit

There’s also an old Catholic school myth that the nuns would put saltpeter in the boys food to make them less horny. No idea how that originated

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TehMispelelelelr@reddit

I'd say the dumbest one I believed for a while was a Jackalope as a child.
Take a jackrabbit, and add antelope horns to it. Ta-da! A Jackalope!
People kinda commit to the bit, too, even taking taxidermied rabbits and adding antlers, so I thought I had seen the real thing for quite a long time.
Now that I mention it, it's kinda like a drop bear in that I don't think I've ever seen a single person actually SAY a jackalope isn't real.

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PsychoFaerie@reddit

The Shope papilloma virus (SPV), discovered in the 1930s, is a virus that causes hard, keratinized tumorous "horns" to grow on the heads and necks of cottontail rabbits. It is the biological source of the jackalope legend, as these growths resemble antlers. The virus is spread by insects and does not infect humans.

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ColoradoWeasel@reddit

I was driving my family through the entrance to the Grand Canyon and my kids were all playing on their game boys. Along the road the rangers had cut many trees up and stacked small wood piles every 100 yards or so. The logs were more vertical than horizontal and looked a bit like huts. I told the kids they were jackalope lodges and that I had spotted one coming out. All of them got off the games and started actually looking at where we were going. Every now and then I yelled there’s one. It kept them interested. A small fib. They’re all adults now. I’m not sure if they ever figured it out.

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Self-Comprehensive@reddit

When I was a kid my summer camp combined the Jackalope with snipe hunts. Super fun, super silly memories. Out there banging pans with a canvas sack and being warned that we might attract a deadly Jackalope. And the counselors running up to us and saying the other cabin spotted a Jackalope so we better be careful!

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GreenBeanTM@reddit

Honestly, with how crazy animals can get even in the modern day a rabbit with antlers isn’t that crazy. I believe that more than they frog that “give birth” for lack of a better term out of its back, and that’s a legitimate animal that currently exists.

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Mediocre-Oil-5322@reddit

That if you pee in the pool, it will activate a purple dye that will billow forth and reveal to everyone that you peed.

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Zildjianchick@reddit

Saying Bloody Mary three times in the bathroom with the lights off would make her appear in the mirror

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I_Weep_for_Willow@reddit

And yet I'm still too scared to test it...

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Narrow-Research-5730@reddit

We did it hundreds of times as kids. It would scare us silly.

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superkt3@reddit

Still not a fan of looking at the mirror in the dark and I'm almost 40 🫣

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kjb76@reddit

Not scared of Bloody Mary but I’ll be damned if I ever say Candyman in front of a mirror even ONCE!

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Openly_Unknown7858@reddit (OP)

Tbf looking at your face in the mirror in the dark does cause it to start looking distorted and scary, so that's probably where the legend came from

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No_Importance_750@reddit

Swallowing gum stays in your stomach for 7 years

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Specialist-Slide2842@reddit

I think that's just a popular myth, since where I am from they told me the exact thing.

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No_Importance_750@reddit

Where are you from?

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Specialist-Slide2842@reddit

Venezuela

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No_Importance_750@reddit

Cool! I’ve always wanted to try Venezuelan food.

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sean8877@reddit

Bubble Yum is full of bug parts

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Openly_Unknown7858@reddit (OP)

I used to belief fig newton's had bits of fog wasps in them

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sean8877@reddit

Haha, yeah I think there were a lot of stories like that going around.

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ColoradoWeasel@reddit

Mikey from the Life cereal commercial died from eating pop rocks and drinking soda.

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ArztWurm@reddit

Marilyn Manson had his lower ribs removed so he could pleasure himself orally

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LindsayDuck@reddit

And that he was one of the kids on The Wonder Years

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G00dSh0tJans0n@reddit

Crazy that we all heard these two rumors back in the 90s before social media existed

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Openly_Unknown7858@reddit (OP)

People all the way in australia say they heard these same two rumors as well!

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Crazycatlover@reddit

Does La Llorona count? She scared the shit out of me as a kiddo.

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polkjamespolk@reddit

I have lived in several towns and heard the same stories. Local Chinese restaurant traps cats, serves them on the buffet. Taco Bell employee pooping in the refried beans. They sound ludicrous to me but then the re really is a restaurant that had a roadkill deer in the walk in.

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Meattyloaf@reddit

In my hometown there was a Chinese Restaruant that had animal traps behind it. Let's just say that place having rumors about it using strays, might not have been far fetched. The other Chinese restaruant never dealt with those rumors and were quite a bit better.

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G00dSh0tJans0n@reddit

There was a local Mexican restaurant that during inspection was found to have possum in the freezer. They said it was for personal use.

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ScatterTheReeds@reddit

One guy posted somewhere (years ago before Reddit before Reddit) that his friends pissed into the chili at Wendy’s 🤢

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pawsplay36@reddit

Ok, I actually know about the pooping in the beans. It was in Minnesota. Because they couldn't determine who did it, they let the entire shift go. The most horrible part of the story to me is that people apparently didn't notice, they were selling the product for hours, until people started ending up in the ER.

There may have been other cases, or other stories, but it's possible I am partly responsible for spreading that (true) legend.

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Scrappy_The_Crow@reddit

Damn, what a terrible incident!

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Former-Fig-9686@reddit

When I was in high school there was a country road called by everyone "Jackrabbit Road.". Several guys told me that they had the same experience. You would go out Jackrabbit Road and stop in the middle of the road. (There was very little traffic.) After you sat there for a while, a light would appear somewhere behind you (seen in your rearview mirror). You would take off as fast as you could, and the light would chase you until you reached a lit up area. I never went out there myself.

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WhatABeautifulMess@reddit

Most of them seem kind of funny and dumb if you hear the actual story. The Jersey Devil was just a family in the woods with too many damn kids! #JusticeforMrsLeeds

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CheeseMongoNJ@reddit

Visual descriptions of the Jersey Devil match up with most Pineys I know......

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JimBones31@reddit

The old TB ward was haunted.

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Dave_A480@reddit

There is a persistent one in the Army, that it's illegal to use large caliber weapons (.50cal and above) against infantry....

Along with various equally absurd workarounds (you're only aiming at their equipment, etc)....

It's exceedingly dumb. And it's persistent over decades.

Reality is, any issues weapon is legal against any lawful target - subject to limitations added through rules of engagement....

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