Did you fall for any Urban Legends when you were a kid?

I believed the the actor who played Mikey in the Life Cereal ads in the 1970s died from eating pop rocks and drinking soda. In my mid-twenties when someone claimed that he was actually still alive. I didn't believe him until I checked.

I think a lot of people my age believed that one.

I also believed that swimming after you eat causes possibly deadly cramps (it doesn't) and that turning the light on in the car while it is being driven is illegal (it isn't) until fairly recently.

I never bought into any of them. Not even the legend of Cropsey.

www.imdb.com/title/tt1277936/

It's a strange Staten Island story. Then again, SI was filled with a lot of weird legends and stories....including the haunted house on Grymes Hill.

The term urban legend did not exist then, but there were stories of that type which persisted in my younger days. I didn't necessarily believe them, but as with any story, just suspended disbelief for the sake of an exciting (and often grisly) story. There was one current when I was in high school that I recall about a killer who had a hook for one of his hands. The story was about a couple who had driven out to a remote spot where kids went "necking," and when they got back to the girl's house, and the guy went around to open her door (ancient, chivalric days), he found a hook hanging from the door handle. The story is improbable for a variety of reasons, but the point was to induce that frisson of horror in the telling.

I don't remember hearing about any urban legends--ever.

Did I lead a deprived childhood?

Is it too late?

Urban Legend surrounding the only shopping mall in our area: man dressed in women’s clothing hiding in the bathroom who would abuse and kill you or other kids.

Chief Pontiac living on a small island of local lake, where he gathered leaders of other tribes to plan the Great Rebellion in Detroit.

I remember the one about the girl on holiday in Spain who was bitten by a spider. That turned into a nasty boil and when it burst a load of baby spiders came out. That was told about an unnamed girl who went to the local 6th form college when I was about 14. I

that goes along with the " The tale of Spanish Fly and the floorspeed gearshift"