Bizarre urban legends about cartoons

[MonkeyFunk]

In my forum-surfing time I've come across a number of outlandish claims about cartoons. Here are some of my favourites:

- The Flintstones used to be sponsored by a brand of chewing tobacco called Yabba; Fred's catchphrase is based on the product's slogan: "Yabba, just a dab'll do".

- Gargoyles was cancelled because the Ku Klux Klan complained to Disney about Eliza being mixed race.

- Osamu Tezuka was an American, and any sources claiming that his cartoons were made in Japan are part of an elaborate hoax perpetrated by anime fans.

Anyone got any more?

[J. B. Warner]

I always facepalm whenever I see someone who honestly believes that the Japanese version of "Pokémon" is full of graphic sex and bloody violence and gratuitous profanity that they cut out in America. I think they just want to trick themselves into thinking they're not watching a kids' show.

[Lavenderpaw]

^ They do know that the only time a character got killed (Ash was petrified) that the Pokemon's magic tears restored him, right?

[Zorak Masaki]

"Some kid was sucked down a drain trying to find Spongebob Squarepants" was a popular one around the mid-00s.

[Lavenderpaw]

"Some kid was sucked down a drain trying to find Spongebob Squarepants" was a popular one around the mid-00s.

"All drains lead to the ocean." - Finding Nemo.

[OriginalGagBonke]

If cartoonists count, didnt Walt Disney have some sort disliking to Jews?{No I didnt get it from that family guy episode if your wondering}.

I remember hearing something from a friend of mine that a girl hanged herself while watching Dora.

[TKnHappyNess]

^ They do know that the only time a character got killed (Ash was petrified) that the Pokemon's magic tears restored him, right?

Well Hunter J is presumed dead until the writers decide to bring her back, but probably won't.

[Dr.Pepper]

I heard something about a little girl in Turkey that jumped off a building thinking she had "Pokemon powers". Did this actually happen?

I remember hearing something from a friend of mine that a girl hanged herself while watching Dora.

I think that actually happened. Also a boy suffacated in sand after mimicing something on Naruto.

[Rick Jones]

I remember hearing something from a friend of mine that a girl hanged herself while watching Dora.

Ever since I was a kid, my mother has told me about some kid that accidentally hung himself after watching Pink Panther, which always seemed kind of strange to me. I've heard different variations of the story like a kid hung playing Superman, Batman or Spider-Man (take your pick).

I don't know if it counts but I think there was a rumor that the kid characters in the Dungeons & Dragons series had really died in the rollercoaster accident and were really in some sort of Purgatory. This kind of reminds me of stuff I heard about Gilligan's Island and Lost, though I guess it was actually kind of true in the cases of one of those.

There was always stuff about the early 90s Disney movies, such as Aladdin telling teenagers to get naked, or about the priest in The Little Mermaid being a little too happy or some pretty suggestive writing in the clouds during The Lion King.

[SpaceCowboy]

I always facepalm whenever I see someone who honestly believes that the Japanese version of "Pokémon" is full of graphic sex and bloody violence and gratuitous profanity that they cut out in America. I think they just want to trick themselves into thinking they're not watching a kids' show.

Sounds similar to the urban legend that circulated back in the late-'90s, where people thought the Japanese version of Dragon Ball Z was full of gratuitous swearing.
This one in particular though does hold some water. Back in those days, there was an infamous fansub group circulating tapes where some nasty and offensive language/racial slurs were inserted into the translation.

I would have thought this legend would have been put to rest once Funimation started releasing their own subtitled versions (with very accurate translations BTW), but it seems to still circulate today in some circles. Most of the time it's been repeated by people who've obviously never bothered to watch the Japanese version.

[straw_hat]

Dragon Ball AF... seriously what the hell?

[Peter Paltridge]

"Dead Bart."

You know how Fox has a weird way of counting Simpsons episodes? They refuse to count a couple of them, making the amount of episodes inconsistent. The reason for this is a lost episode from season 1.

Finding details about this missing episode is difficult, no one who was working on the show at the time likes to talk about it. From what has been pieced together, the lost episode was written entirely by Matt Groening. During production of the first season, Matt started to act strangely. He was very quiet, seemed nervous and morbid. Mentioning this to anyone who was present results in them getting very angry, and forbidding you to ever mention it to Matt. I first heard of it at an event where David Silverman was speaking. Someone in the crowd asked about the episode, and Silverman simply left the stage, ending the presentation hours early. The episode's production number was 7G06, the title was Dead Bart. The episode labeled 7G06, Moaning Lisa, was made later and given Dead Bart's production code to hide the latter's existence.

In addition to getting angry, asking anyone who was on the show about this will cause them to do everything they can to stop you from directly communicating with Matt Groening. At a fan event, I managed to follow him after he spoke to the crowd, and eventually had a chance to talk to him alone as he was leaving the building. He didn't seem upset that I had followed him, probably expected a typical encounter with an obsessive fan. When I mentioned the lost episode though, all color drained from his face and he started trembling. When I asked him if he could tell me any details, he sounded like he was on the verge of tears. He grabbed a piece of paper, wrote something on it, and handed it to me. He begged me never to mention the episode again.
The piece of paper had a website address on it, I would rather not say what it was, for reasons you'll see in a second. I entered the address into my browser, and I came to a site that was completely black, except for a line of yellow text, a download link. I clicked on it, and a file started downloading. Once the file was downloaded, my computer went crazy, it was the worst virus I had ever seen. System restore didn't work, the entire computer had to be rebooted. Before doing this though, I copied the file onto a CD. I tried to open it on my now empty computer, and as I suspected, there was an episode of The Simpsons on it.

The episode started off like any other episode, but had very poor quality animation. If you've seen the original animation for Some Enchanted Evening, it was similar, but less stable. The first act was fairly normal, but the way the characters acted was a little off. Homer seemed angrier, Marge seemed depressed, Lisa seemed anxious, Bart seemed to have genuine anger and hatred for his parents.

The episode was about the Simpsons going on a plane trip, near the end of the first act, the plane was taking off. Bart was fooling around, as you'd expect. However, as the plane was about 50 feet off the ground, Bart broke a window on the plane and was sucked out.

At the beginning of the series, Matt had an idea that the animated style of the Simpsons' world represented life, and that death turned things more realistic. This was used in this episode. The picture of Bart's corpse was barely recognizable, they took full advantage of it not having to move, and made an almost photo-realistic drawing of his dead body.
Act one ended with the shot of Bart's corpse. When act two started, Homer, Marge, and Lisa were sitting at their table, crying. The crying went on and on, it got more pained, and sounded more realistic, better acting than you would think possible. The animation started to decay even more as they cried, and you could hear murmuring in the background. The characters could barely be made out, they were stretching and blurring, they looked like deformed shadows with random bright colors thrown on them. There were faces looking in the window, flashing in and out so you were never sure what they looked like. This crying went on for all of act two.

Act three opened with a title card saying one year had passed. Homer, Marge, and Lisa were skeletally thin, and still sitting at the table. There was no sign of Maggie or the pets.

They decided to visit Bart's grave. Springfield was completely deserted, and as they walked to the cemetery the houses became more and more decrepit. They all looked abandoned. When they got to the grave, Bart's body was just lying in front of his tombstone, looking just like it did at the end of act one.

The family started crying again. Eventually they stopped, and just stared at Bart's body. The camera zoomed in on Homer's face. According to summaries, Homer tells a joke at this part, but it isn't audible in the version I saw, you can't tell what Homer is saying.

The view zoomed out as the episode came to a close. The tombstones in the background had the names of every Simpsons guest star on them. Some that no one had heard of in 1989, some that haven't been on the show yet. All of them had death dates on them. For guests who died since, like Michael Jackson and George Harrison, the dates were when they would die. The credits were completely silent, and seemed handwritten. The final image was the Simpson family on their couch, like in the intros, but all drawn in hyper realistic, lifeless style of Bart's corpse.

A thought occurred to me after seeing the episode for the first time, you could try to use the tombstones to predict the death of living Simpsons guest stars, but there's something odd about most of the ones who haven't died yet. All of their deaths are listed as the same date.

I don't see how anyone could believe this one. Even if you can swallow that they would write, storyboard, and ship overseas an entire episode like this, the tombstone thing at the end crosses the line.

[Rho]

I remember hearing something about a little kid who was on a boat with their family and thought they saw a pineapple in the sea and jumped in wanting to meet Spongebob, and drowned. Not sure if it's true.

[Invidente 7]

- The Flintstones used to be sponsored by a brand of chewing tobacco called Yabba; Fred's catchphrase is based on the product's slogan: "Yabba, just a dab'll do".

-

The flinstones DID a smoking TV ad a long time ago, but I guess it was when smoking was socially accepted...it's still scary thought

[CaptainHero]

"Dead Bart."

I don't see how anyone could believe this one. Even if you can swallow that they would write, storyboard, and ship overseas an entire episode like this, the tombstone thing at the end crosses the line.

What the...

That is disturbing and clearly fake.

Why would they kill Bart off to begin with?

[Romperstoomper]

Darkwing duck got cancelled in Sweden(and Poland) for being "too violent".

Two kids where playing. One kid jumped on the other. Because they did so in Darkwing duck.

The scene where Negaduck jumps on a lying down Darkwing, comes to mind.

[Dantheman]

For years, it was rumored that the Human Torch was dumped from the 1970s Fantastic Four cartoon series in favor of Herbie the robot because Standards and Practices people thought kids would set themselves on fire trying to emulate him, but it turned out the rights for the character was optioned to another studio, to possibly be made into a a TV movie, and couldn't be used by the creators of the show.

But when you think about it, it does seem kinda plausible, considering how violence was toned down in action-adventure cartoons in the 70s (The Superfriends weren't allow to throw punches,etc.)

[Deadman]

"Dead Bart."

I don't see how anyone could believe this one. Even if you can swallow that they would write, storyboard, and ship overseas an entire episode like this, the tombstone thing at the end crosses the line.

this kind of reminds me of suicidemouse. some people believe the following is real

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgWPbnwsIeE

[Light Lucario]

^ They do know that the only time a character got killed (Ash was petrified) that the Pokemon's magic tears restored him, right?

Latios actually died in the fifth Pokemon movie and Lucario might have in the eighth movie. The ending credits showing him and Sir Aaron, without his gloves and with a chocolate bar, always makes me think that they're alive in some time/place or that Heaven has chocolate.

As TKnHappyNess already mentioned, Hunter J, along with all of her men and Pokemon, are dead after the Future Sight attack from the Lake Trio. Unless the writers bring her back, which at this point doesn't look likely, then she's probably long gone.

I have heard about kids jumping off of buildings, thinking that it was okay from watching Pokemon. I think that a couple of cases were true, but I'm not completely sure. I never heard of people who thought that all of the violence and gore from Pokemon was edited out in the dub. I have heard comments where people assume that the Japanese version is more intense with violence, even though there really isn't a lot of differences between the two versions in that department.

One of the craziest urban legends/rumors I've heard about Pokemon was that the creator of the series, Satoshi Tajiri, was arrested for murdering two people testing out the newest games and as a result, the series would end after Johto. Considering that this sounded totally insane, there was nothing mentioning this by a credible source and people in my sixth grade class were just saying it to bother me, I automatically disregarded it as lies. In retrospect, my classmates had way too much free time on their hands to make up stuff just to upset me. Not to mention they made a huge deal about my hobbies compared to what everyone else liked.

[Antiyonder]

Dungeons and Dragons was arugably one of the more daring cartoon from the 1980s. So much so that some fans actually thought that officially the kids died on the rollercoaster with the realm being Hell (and Dungeon Master being Satan). The legend was debunked when by Michael Reaves.