Bizarre urban legends about cartoons

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screwyoujesus

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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?
 
I always facepalm whenever I see someone who honestly believes that the Japanese version of "Pok?mon" 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.
 
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.
 
I heard something about a little girl in Turkey that jumped off a building thinking she had "Pokemon powers". Did this actually happen?
I think that actually happened. Also a boy suffacated in sand after mimicing something on Naruto.
 
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.
 
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. :p
 
"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.
 
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.
 
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 :eek:
 
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.
 
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.)
 
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.
 
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.
 
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