Pre-Internet era rumors and urban legends

Richard Gere gerbil incident, and Rod Stewart's stomach being pumped because he swallowed too much cum.

Every school had a "hot dog girl". Variations included the girl masturbating with the hot dog got it stuck and when kids got a little more savvy about how impossible this was they changes it to got stuck because it was frozen.

Marilyn Manson having a rib removed in order to fellate himself.

Ahem.

Spider eggs in Bubble Yum.

R4 see R1

Marylin Manson being the best friend from the Wonder Years.

I did urban legends with my students last week and used the pop rocks one as an example. Wikipedia has a great comprehensive list.

Jerry ("The Beaver") Mathers being killed in combat during the Vietnam War

I’m trying to remember how I heard Gere/Gerbil.

It’s funny — the internet has been a part of my life so long, I can’t remember certain things about the time before, and I was an adult before it.

Jayne Mansfield being decapitated in her fatal car crash in 1967

I remember hearing that a munchkin committed suicide on the set of Wizard of Oz - apparently untrue.

That I abused my adopted children. LIES! Inside and out!

*slap!*

I never liked Rod Stewart's music but I was so jealous of him when I was a teenager.

I was insanely jealous that he'd taken the cocks, and hot loads, from 20 or more sailors.....

The marriage of Rock Hudson and Jim Nabors.

Olivia Newton-John proclaiming she was a lesbian on the Tonight Show. (At least one DLer still insists this actually happened.)

R15 - Those 20 sailors were pissed off. He had arranged to meet them in a dimly lit hotel room and claimed to be Cyd Charisse.

R5 I heard it as spider eggs in Fig Newtons. Put me off them for a long time.

Plus I didn’t like how mushy they were.

R18 - Oh honey, no. Not spider eggs. You don't REALLY want to know the truth about figs...

That Phil Collins’ In The Air Tonight was about him watching a guy watch his friend drown. Pretty fucked up, but not true.

That I died

The ghost boy in "Three Men and a Baby."

That a kid shot himself in the apartment where they filmed Three Men and A Baby (years before filming) and you can see his ghost in one scene hiding behind a curtain. That one freaked me out. Turns out, it’s just a cardboard cutout of a kid

Out of my head r22! Lol

Chevy had to change the name of their Nova car in Latin American counties because Nova means ‘no go’ and no one was buying the cars. Cute thought, but fake.

R24, creepy synchronicity!

A large woman walking towards the exit at a supermarket had a canned ham fall out of her pussy onto the floor. She looks around and screams "WHO THREW THAT HAM???"

That Gaetan Dumas was patient zero for the AIDS epidemic.

R19 tell me! I don’t eat figs :)

R29 Wasp parts. Seriously. That's what the small crunchy things in Fig Newtons are.

Ramon Novarro dying by having a huge dildo shoved down his throat (and other delicious lies made up by Kenneth Anger)

Wendy's hamburgers are made from worms.

Cass Elliot choked to death on a ham sandwich.

If you got a Tootsie Roll Pop with a star on the wrapper, you could trade it for a free one.

Paul McCartney is dead, his doppelganger took over.

I know it is so because if you play Sgt Pepper backwards the record says Paul is Dead

Customer orders pizza and after eating it, receives a phone call asking them how it was. The worker then tells them he has the AIDS and had jacked off on their pizza when he made it.

Keanu Reeves married David Geffen

The stomach full of cum getting pumped was variously attributed to Elton John, Mick Jagger, David Bowie and Rod Stewart. Basically all the Brits.

Interesting that is never included Freddie Mercury.

Kevin Spacey was straight.

R32, that's the old joke: If Cass Elliot had shared her ham sandwich with Karen Carpenter they'd both be alive today.

That a girl with a beehive hairdo, that she didn't shampoo, just sprayed more Aquanet, died when roaches ate through her skull

[quote]Customer orders pizza and after eating it, receives a phone call asking them how it was. The worker then tells them he has the AIDS and had jacked off on their pizza when he made it.

Never heard that one, but I heard repeatedly the one about a man or woman who had a one-night stand and woke up in the morning to find their lover gone and "Welcome to the wonderful world of AIDS" scrawled in lipstick on the bathroom mirror.

Julia Childs dropping a turkey on the studio floor in front of cameras on live TV. Then picking it up and continuing preparing it, saying to viewers, “Always remember, you’re alone in the kitchen.”

Many years ago there was a knock down drag out fight between my Facebooks friends about whether this actually happened or not. Snopes.com says it’s false, but their lengthy explanations make it sound unconfirmed.

Danny Bonaduce was killed in a freak accident while playing with clackers.

I remember one about if you played the first Men at Work album backwards it said shit about devil worshiping or something like that. My friend and I tried playing it backwards and convinced ourselves we heard demonic sayings and freaked out.

That WIZARD OF OZ/Munchkin urban legend is so ridiculous that I realized it had to be bullshit from the beginning, and I can't believe it got started in the first place. I mean, seriously, IF anyone had actually hanged himself ON THE SET of the movie and the hanging was slightly visible in the background of one shot, don't you think they might have done a re-shoot?

Marilyn Manson is Josh Saviano from The Wonder Years.

The fried rat a customer found in his bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

R43

Playing an LP backwards was a rite of passage for many of us - a friend and I did it with Strawberry Fields Forever to find clues to the Paul is Dead rumor.

Here’s one: Three Men and a Baby and the ghost child in the background.

(Oops.)

This may be a stupid question but, how did anyone manage to play an LP backwards? I can't imagine what technology allowed that, especially not back in the day.

Razor blades on water slides. Kids would tell each other that's what they heard when they were at the water park.

Also razor blades in apples.

That you know someone who has a friend that named their twins Lemonjello and Orangejello.

I heard that from three different people growing up. In two different states. Lol.

Courtney killed Kurt

Bob Eubanks asked couples on The Newlywed Game "Where's the weirdest place you've had sex?" A female contestant said "Up the butt" This was considered an urban legend for decades until someone found the clip.

Similar to that, there was the rumor that a Password contestant said ‘knob’ in response to the given clue ‘doe’. Some say Tom Selleck was the celeb clue giver, it I can’t find a video of this supposed episode.

the actor playing 'Eddie Haskell' from 'Leave it to Beaver' switched careers and became known as 'John Holmes' the famous X porn star.

R49

We put the record (could be LP or single) on the turntable and placed the needle on the inside, closest to the label then manually twirled the record backwards through the grooves. I don’t have a new vinyl setup so I don’t know if it’s feasible these days but it was easy enough to bypass any automatic play. And, I’m sure it was terrible for the actual physical vinyl but we were obsessed with finding clues so we didn’t really care.

Thanks, R57, but that sounds like it would be ruinous to the record, the turntable, AND the stylus (needle).

I remember my parents mentioning Mama Cass and he ham sandwich after she died. I took it as truth because they said it. It wasn't until a few years ago that I found out it's an urban legen, probably here on DL.

R43 it was Queen when I was a kid. Friends and I played the album backwards and I then hid it in the furthest corner of our attic under a pile of stuff.

R59, the rumors about Cass started almost as soon as she died. It was not the truth. Her family was particularly incensed with it, and I know this because I met her ex-husband Donald when he lived in WeHo in the 90s and we ended up discussing this after imbibing. The truth was that she died of heart failure after displaying symptoms for several days and despite giving two concerts in London.

And here's a funny story about the Ohio Players legend: I was about 8 years old (some 50 years ago) and they played the song on the radio. The DJ came on and relayed this myth, played the clip several times, then played the whole song again. I heard this and called my best friend to discuss with him, but he wasn't home. His mother asked if I wanted to leave him a message, so I started telling her this and she got really upset and said something to the effect of "I'll tell him but that's an urban legend and I'll take care of this!" and hung up.

My friend called me the next day and told me his mother, who knew one of the Ohio Players managers, called the radio station and read them the riot act and told them they shouldn't let DJs spread such rumors. She then called her friend who in turn called the radio station and told them they would pull the group's records from the station if they mentioned the rumor again. The radio station issued an apology a few days later.

[quote] The myth has been attributed to a number of stars, including Jon Bon Jovi...

I would have much preferred that the rumor be true about this guy, or that my stomach contents included his semen.

Eddie Haskell became a porn star

Sorry for the duplicate web link. I'm talking about Jon Bon Jovi, that hot bastard.

R61 - I finally read her Wiki entry after I found out the truth. A sad account, especially since it sounded like it might have be preventable. Journalist Grant Wahl's death during the World Cup reminded me of her decline and death.

I wonder what her daughter is doing now.

Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson being the same person.

I remember the day Mama Cass died in 1974. We were at the swimming club that July day when it was announced. The radio jock said she died after choking on a ham sandwich, the very day she died.

I loved ham sandwiches. After that, I was deathly afraid of choking on any sandwich.

Robin Strasser and Susan Lucci are the daughters of Phyliss Diller

Eileen Davidson was born a man

Zsa Zsa Gabor was on the Tonight Show and had a cat in her lap. She asked Johnny if he’d like to pet her pussy. He said sure, but you’ve got to move that damn cat.

[quote]Thanks, [R57], but that sounds like it would be ruinous to the record, the turntable, AND the stylus (needle).

That could break the stylus on a home turntable, but pro turntables have special styli designed for backward rotation so that DJs can cue up songs. (This became the “scratching” used in hip hop, which is not really scratching, just back and forth rotation of the record.)

Jane Fonda asking about one of the moments R69 mentions

That Mr. Green Jeans on "Captain Kangaroo" was a major marijuana dealer and/or was Frank Zappa's father.

That Doris Day (after she retired from films) made secret pornographic movies in the Mojave desert with black men.,

That Dinah Shore was black. This rumor was started in the early '40s by Kate Smith after sexy Dinah was dubbed "Radios new Songbird of the South" and bested Kate in radio ratings and sponsorship deals.

Kate Smith did that? That fat cunt!

r41: that wasn't Julia Child who said it - it was Fanny Cradock.

In the 1980s I heard the story that 1940s starlet Dona Drake was black. NYC Film memorabilia collector Lester Glassner said Harold Nichiolas told him "We all knew she was passing" The rumor was confirmed a few years after her death.

That Olivia Newton-John announced she was a lesbian (or bi) on The Tonight Show, with Johnny Carson.

That someone named their twins Male (Molly) and Female (Femolly), after giving birth.

The Philadelphia version of the gerbil story was that it was local newscaster and later Extra correspondent Jerry Penacoli who had a rodent in his ass. Another rumor concerned local personality and future Attitudes co-hostess Nancy Glass having been born a man.

I had the misfortune of going to high school in West Virginia for a couple of years and they brought in a speaker ostensibly there to give an anti-drug presentation. In actuality he was a “pastor” who’d had a drug habit who spoke about the evils of rock-n-roll and how if listening to records backwards you could hear satanic messages, but don’t try it because it would release demons. This was in a public school in the 80s. They also had an assembly in the gym where the whole school watched the movie California Suite - for no apparent reason I can think of. Weird.

Now there are QAnon rumors by the thousands. The one about snake venom in the water supply reminds me of the Bubble Yum spider eggs - wouldn’t it take a hell of a lot of spiders and snakes to do that? It would be quite expensive to maintain farms to harvest those substances.

That Bruce Wills and Michael J. Fox were lovers and were discovered fucking on someones front lawn in the middler of the night - and Willis was topping Micharelk.

That Kelly McGillis and Jodie Foster got into a bitch-slapping fight in a nightclub over Whitney Huston (who was the girlfriend of one or both of them)

R52, someone still tried to pull that Lemonjello/Oranjello shit at DL whenever a new trashy names thread popped up.

It happened so often that I started posting preemptive disclaimer in the trashy names threads. There were probably multiple DLers who attempted to pass that one off, but one or two got really belligerent and doubled down! “But I was a neonatal records keeper in the Bronx and I typed up the birth certificates — you know nothing!” “But my sister in law is delivery nurse in Atlanta!” or something along those lines.

There was always a sucker who had never heard it before who bought it hook, line and sinker. Same with the woman who supposed named her daughter Clitoris or Female— they’d always try that one, too.

...and the fight destroyed McGillis' career.

I've heard the McGillis/Foster rumor but they were fighting over Gina Schock of the Go-Go's.

I've also heard the Bruce/MJF rumor. But they were in the back seat of a limo and supposedly were discovered after the limo driver got into a fender bender, because the driver was watching them (and jacking off) and not watching the road.

Not trying to stir shit because he's one of my favorite people, but I want to know if anyone else has heard this. I was told this over thirty years ago, back when old toy collecting was a thing. It's similar to the ONJ Tonight Show story.

Bill Campbell outed himself during an interview on a morning talk show (Today possibly?) during PR for "The Rocketeer". Disney was a lot less tolerant about gays back then, and that's when all PR for the movie came to a screeching hault. The movie unfortunately bombed.

Oprah had a few associated with her show, like Donna Karan and Tommy Hilfiger both saying they didn't want black people to wear their clothes and Ciara revealing she was a man.

[quote]Zsa Zsa Gabor was on the Tonight Show and had a cat in her lap. She asked Johnny if he’d like to pet her pussy. He said sure, but you’ve got to move that damn cat.

I have always heard that story with Raquel Welch rather than Zsa Zsa, and Raquel brought it up on one of Johnny's final shows.

The 1969 "moon landing" was faked. That Stanley Kubrick shot the whole thing on an old Hollywood soundstage.

The "Rock Hudson married to Jim Nabors" rumor was rampant in the 70s.

People didn't believe it. How could Rock Hudson possibly be gay?

R70 Who had pro turntables back then? Nobody played any LPs backwards. That's a joke started by some wiseass and it gained traction. Has nothing to do with the turntables used by DJs now.

Area 51 although I haven't ruled it out.

You didn’t have to have a pro turntable, for fuck’s sake. Yes we were little idiots, and probably fucked up our stereos, but you could move the turntable backwards by turning it with your hand. You didn’t REALLY hear anything, but when you are a stupid kid you convince your self that you did.

You didn't do for prolonged periods like a DJ and it was just in a very tiny segment of the album.

Back when those rumors were prevalent, there was a joke:

What do you get if you play a country song backward?

You get back your girlfriend, your job, and your dog.

one of every five miles of Interstate highway is straight so they can land jets during war

The Whitney Houston/Jodie Foster/Kelly McGillis love triangle

Michael Stipe having AIDS

Calvin Klein having AIDS

Hurricanes are caused by a butterfly flapping its wings in Africa.

I'm really old...

After the Empress Catherine II of Russia died, rumors swirled about the cause of her death. Some said she wished to have sex with a horse. The horse crushed as he tried to mount her.

Everyone knew about Rock Hudson and Jim Nabors in the 70s.

Has anyone mentioned Bloody Mary or the pizza delivery guy who jerks off on your pizza?

Or various versions of dead women at the bottom of deep, dark lakes?

Joanie Loves Chachi was the highest rated show in Korea because Chachi means penis in Korean.

Walt Disney being cryogenically frozen.

Thumb in Wendy's chili

That "Soul Makossa" is a song promoting gay sex. "Mamma-Coo-Mamma-sa-Mamma-Maka-moo-saa" translates as "get it on with guy, get it on with a guy"

That Marisa Tomei only won Best Supporting Actress Oscar for MY COUSIN VINNY because presenter Jack Palance read the wrong name off the teleprompter.

Supposedly, he got confused and recited the last name he had just read off alphabetically (Judy Davis, Joan Plowright, Vanessa Redgrave, Miranda Richardson, Marisa Tomei).

A falsehood started almost immediately by that bitchy queen Rex Reed, who had been rooting for Redgrave in HOWARDS END and was pissed off to say the least.

But the urban legend took off in the years just before the Internet and flourished until the advent of YouTube, when people could see the moment for themselves, and the LA LA LAND fiasco at the 2017 Oscars, when the wrong Best Picture was announced and it was immediately corrected on air.

Palance clearly reads the name off the envelope, which only has the winner's name on it.

There's an old Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) album that has a track meant to be played backwards, obviously having fun with the "backward masking" satanic messages thing.

Can't remember the album name but the message was "The record is reversible. Time is not. TURN BACK! TURN BACK! TURN BACK!"

Anyone else remember the one about the babysitter on LSD who put the baby in the oven?

Mountain Dew will lower your sperm count.

There was a brand new T-Bird with only a few miles on it for sale for $100 because it ran out of gas in the desert. The driver died and decomposed before the car was found. They couldn’t get the smell out of it.

That the Earth was flat.

[quote] Mountain Dew will lower your sperm count.

Well, it does appear to be a causal agent in lowered brain cell count. Or is it it the other way around?

I remember the one about the family whose house was burglarized. Weeks later, they took a roll of film that had been sitting in their camera for a while to be developed. They got the photos back, and while flipping through them they were shocked and disgusted to find pictures of the burglar (in every version I heard, he's specified as a black man) sticking their toothbrushes up his ass.

Then there was the family who went on vacation in Acapulco and befriended a little dog on the beach. They became so attached to it that they decided to keep it and took it home with them. When they took him for a checkup and vaccinations, they were shocked and disgusted to learn from the vet that the dog was actually a giant Mexican rat.

Over the years I've been warned by more people than I can count about flashing my headlights at a passing car to warn them that they had forgotten to turn their own headlights on. It's widely believed that this is a gang initiation ritual, and the pledge has to kill the driver of the car that flashed them to become a member.

Marilyn Manson was the kid on the Wonder Years and had his ribs removed so he could suck his dick.

Alanis Morrisette swallowed so much jizz on your that she needed resuscitation.

I loved that Marisa Tomei made fun of the Jack Palance urban legend in her SNL monologue.

President James Buchanan was a FAG!

[quote]Richard Gere gerbil incident, and Rod Stewart's stomach being pumped because he swallowed too much cum.

Gerbilgate made it all the way down to New Zealand in the 80's! The background story R4 posted is interesting

I haven't read the thread yet (great idea OP) but I recall the one about Mickey Rourke giving it to Kim Basinger on the set of 9 1/2 weeks by not bathing for weeks before their intimate scenes.

It sounds like she was treated quite poorly by the director, Adrien Lynne, too. Not sure who the bigger cunts were or if Basinger deserved it or not.

We all had record players back then, and we all could very easily (manually) play the records backwards. And we did in case we could hear something. This was in the mid to late 80s.

McDonald’s ice cream was made from whipped pig fat.

That the Canadian band Klaatu was actually the Beatles.

[quote] Not sure who the bigger cunts were or if Basinger deserved it or not.

Not matter what happened, I can tell you it was Kim Basinger's fault. What a fucking pig. She needed a good smack every now and then.

r111 I want to try this

When I was in school, the rumor is that black widow spiders hid in her beehive and killed her.R39. There was another urban legend about a man trying to rob a house by getting stuck in the fireplace chimney while the people were on vacation and when they got back they found the dead guy suck in the fireplace shute.

[quote]Can't remember the album name but the message was "The record is reversible. Time is not. TURN BACK! TURN BACK! TURN BACK!"

That was “Face the Music” The song was “Fire On High”.

At my high school there was a rumor that twin sisters were caught in the girls room fingering each other, which earned them the creative nickname the 'finger twins.' Nobody seemed to question the fact that they just couldn't wait for the school day to end and finger each other in the privacy of their own home...

Back in the 80s the local radio morning zoo crew spread the rumor that Whitney Houston had stayed in a private castle while on tour in Europe and was secretly filmed having lesbian sex. Our high school was abuzz with that story for days

R119 - It's true. That's where she composed her hit song, "I'm Your Labia Tonight" -- which was later revised for the Puritanical American market,

There was also a rumor that Liz Claiborne admitted to being a satanist on Oprah. My cousin swore that it happened.

R121 - No honey, that was Liz Smith.

Corona beer (made in Mexico) had urine in it.

Procter & Gamble was owned and operated by satanists.

P&G sued and was awarded $19 million.

I knew Mikey. He was a cousin of a kid in my neighborhood.

He definitely did blow up after eating Pop Rocks and drinking soda.

His cousin was there.

We had a local legend growing up - Melon Heads. "(m)elon heads are beings generally described as small humanoids with bulbous heads who occasionally emerge from hiding places to attack people."

We would go drive into the woods and look for them.