History Main / UrbanLegends

** Shaggy and Scooby were meant to be a sly shoutout to stoners. In reality, the origina writers of Scooby Doo weren't of that generation, and had little knowledge of the stoner culture.

* Same thread as above, various bands have been accused of bringing various animals (usually puppies) to a show and having them thrown into the audience and stating they weren't going to start the show until all the animals were dead). KISS and Ozzy got this one the most.

* In fundamental Christian circles (X) band admitted to being approached by the devil and signed a contract to become famous musicians, but they had to give up their souls/put subliminal satanic messages in their music to corrupt the youth. LedZeppelin, BlackSabbath (or just OzzyOsbourne himself), JudasPriest and MotleyCrue are the most popular targets of this rumor. Probably taken from the famous tale of RobertJohnson.

* PaulThomasAnderson's ''Film/{{Magnolia}}'' starts off by presenting three urban legends as fact.

* The movie ''Dead Man On Campus'' has a plot dealing with the urban legend that you get straight A's in your college classes if your roommate commits suicide...

* The film ''GrownUps'' includes [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uqN43qX8-M a scene]] based on the [[http://www.snopes.com/science/poolpiss.asp urine-detecting dye myth]].

* An urban legend is that one scene in the movie ''Three Men and a Baby'' has a ghost of a little boy standing by the window in Ted Danson's apartment. Legend says that the film was shot in an apartment where this boy got killed. It's actually just a cardboard cut-out of Danson (intended for a DeletedScene), and the apartment was actually a movie studio set.

* The cause of the ''{{Hindenburg}}'' fire is still unknown today. As such, it is positively drenched in Urban Legends, in varying degrees of ridiculousness. One of the most common is that the ''Hindenburg'' was [[MadeOfExplodium painted in "Rocket Fuel" or "Thermite",]] which is [[BlatantLies completely false,]] but a surprisingly pervaisive myth. It may have such wide acceptance because the fabric of the airship ''was'' in fact combustible, albeit very weakly. Furthermore, some go as far as to say that the ''Hindenburg's'' hydrogen had nothing to do with the fire ''[[InsaneTrollLogic at all,]]'' which is absolutely untrue. They usually cite the fact that pure hydrogen burns a pale blue color, but they neglect to mention that the 250 tons of airship and diesel fuel is what colored the flames orange. A less popular, but still widely believed myth is that the ''Hindenburg'' was deliberately sabotaged, and that bits of a gun or a bomb were found in the wreck. The Nazis themselves liked to propagate this myth because they didn't want to admit their safety failure.

* ''{{Persona 2}}'', both parts, are about urban legends that start to mysteriously come true. ''Innocent Sin'' has this more as a central theme, although it is not absent from ''Eternal Punishment''.
** And {{Persona4}}'s plot is kicked off because of a urban legend of the Midnight Channel, where you see your soulmate if you look into an empty TV at midnight on a rainy day. Turns out, there's a bit more than that.

** And of course, most notably, the Music/PinkFloyd ''Music/TheDarkSideOfTheMoon'' soundtrack synching legend. Vigorously denied by the band, who have pointed out that the audio technology, necessary to make the film soundtrack and rock album synch this precisely with each other, didn't exist in 1973.

* Many DarwinAwards are the stuff of urban legend, both true (e.g. Lawn Chair Larry) and false (e.g. the Rocket Car).

* Episode 4 of ''Manga/ToAruKagakuNoRailgun'' features two Urban Legends. One of them is the undressing woman and the other one is a guy who can nullify anything. You get to see the first one, and the second one is obviously the hero of the whole series itself: Touma.

* In film, the movies ''Film/UrbanLegend'' and ''UrbanLegendsFinalCut'' deal with serial killers who take inspiration from these.
** The third film, ''UrbanLegendsBloodyMary'', actually has the urban legend committing the murders.

* In ''SuicideKings'', one of the yuppie kidnappers tells one about the RetiredMonster they're holding hostage, to stave off LimaSyndrome. It turns out to be true, except not as gruesome as the reality.
* PaulThomasAnderson's ''{{Magnolia}}'' starts off by presenting three urban legends as fact.

* An urban legend is that one scene in the movie ''Three Men and a Baby'' has a ghost of a little boy standing by the window in Ted Danson's apartment. Legend says that the film was shot in an apartment where this boy got killed. It's actually just a cardboard cut-out of Danson, and the apartment was actually a movie studio set.

* [[Music/TheBeatles Paul is Dead!]]

* ''Paul is Dead!''

Often used to ScareEmStraight, for the sake of a little bit of humour (The CabbagePatchKids one, for example, was a joke) or just because they make good stories.

** Later in the same episode, he is nearly killed by a chupacabra. Brock explains: "Chupacabras. Mexico's full of 'emh ."

** ''BeyondBeliefFactOrFiction'' followed a similar format. The only catch was that some of the supposedly true stories were so unbelievable that one couldn't help but wonder just how thoroughly they had researched them.

** Later in the same episode, he is nearly killed by a chupacabra. Brock explains: "Chupacabras. Mexico's full of 'em."