What Urban Legends do you remember from childhood?

[Palomiino]

The ones that stick in my mind are;

Supermodels harbour tapeworms as a way to keep their weight down.

Prince had a rib removed so he could give himself oral.

Various iterations of terrorist plots (IRA in the 80s) where an Irish chap told someone you know not to go to a particular shopping centre on a certain date because there was going to be a terrorist attack.

A woman driving her car was being stalked by another driver who was actually trying to warn her about an assailant on her back seat.

Yes, I came to say the rib thing I’d heard about Marilyn Manson, not Prince. It was around the same time that everyone was saying Kel from Kenan and Kel had died (he hadn’t!)

Me too!! When I was at primary school, there was actually a reading comprehension passage in a study book which we were given in year 5! Crazy…

He definitely wasn't bummed to death.
Mr.Almond is still very much alive despite the mythical experiences that were bestowed upon him.

If you eat the pips from an apple an apple tree will grow in your stomach.

the marc almond ones are such a reminder of how homophobic the 80s (and 90s) were.
He was one of the very few out gay pop stars and everyone heard these urban myths about him.

Oh my God!!! That's insane!

I'm loving this thread. Thanks, OP!

It might help if the BBC hadn't published this 4 days ago! Totally fact free article...

www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/mammals/big-cats-in-british-countryside

...and it was from 25 different men

OMO washing powder

A box in the window meant "on my own“

🤣

I thought of two others. A teenage boy was at a party with his girlfriend, having sex with her from behind whilst she leaned out of a window. The boy got tired and asked his friend to ‘finish’ for him and when the girl turned around, she was revealed to be the second boy’s sister.

The other one is a rumour that Marlboro cigarettes were endorsed by the KKK and the ‘proof’ of this was that if you turned a packet of cigarettes upside-down, the words ‘horrible Jew’ seemed to form.

Gosh, so many of these are steeped in racism, misogyny and sexual perversions - it’s so weird.

Or - "Old Man Out"
😆

Mr Almond might have ropey anatomy but his bum and his stomach aren't directly connected. And they are still alive 😉

Someone knows someone who knows someone who went to their new boyfriend’s parents’ house for the first time. Went upstairs to the bathroom and did a massive poo which wouldn’t flush, so she picked it out the toilet and threw it out the window.

Then went downstairs for lunch….in the conservatory…where everyone is silently looking up at the turd that just landed on the glass roof above them.

This 😆

I heard the Marlboro one - the “proof” is the triangle pattern on the packet looks like 3 Ks

@Palomiino I remember something now about there being three k within the folds of Marlboro pkts

Makes more sense - I remember looking at my dad’s cigarettes and thinking ‘huh’?

Remember another one featuring Marc Almond. Allegedly he had smeared himself in cat food and got the neighbourhood moggies in to lick it off his naked body 😺

Vaguely remember one about a courting couple and an escaped serial killer banging the head of the boy on the roof of a car. I think it was called the Hookman legend. I think my Dad used to tell us it on Halloween.

I grew up in a coastal area of the U.K. where people are still regularly helped out of quicksand. Definitely a thing.

If you never farted you would die

If you swallowed chewing gum you would die

If you ate a raw potato you would die

This is how I remember it, from the late eighties.

If you got stung by a jellyfish you would die