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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about the world of photography and whether they are true or false.

PHOTOGRAPHY URBAN LEGEND: A famous photograph of Abraham Lincoln is actually a picture of Lincoln’s head superimposed on another man’s body!

To put the following into context, do note that photographs as we now know them today basically only started around the 1820s.

So to see “photoshopping” like the following images in 1860 is pretty remarkable!

In 1860, a photograph of the Republican Presidential candidate Abaraham Lincoln were circulated (photographer unknown). It’s a dynamic, statesman-esque piece.

However, it’s also not actually Abraham Lincoln’s body!
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about the world of photography and whether they are true or false.

PHOTOGRAPHY URBAN LEGEND: A variety of Ivy Leagues took nude photos of most of their incoming freshmen for decades.

While the topic had been come up here and there over the years, it was not until Ron Rosenbaum’s feature piece in the New York Times Magazine in 1995 that the truth was widely known about the bizarre series of nude photos taken of Ivy League freshmen from 1940 to 1960 (or thereabouts – some schools lasted until the early 1970s).
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about movies and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the movie urban legends featured so far.

MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: Mandy Patinkin’s character in Alien Nation was going to be named George Jetson but a rights issue spoiled the opportunity.

The 1988 film Alien Nation starred James Caan and Mandy Patinkin as human and alien police partners in 1991 Los Angeles.

One of the running gags in the film is the fact that the aliens (who crashlanded on Earth awhile back) all had to be given Earth names before the attempted to assimilate into Earth culture, and since there were over a quarter of a million of them, immigration officials eventually got a bit fast and loose with their names.

Patinkin’s character (seen here with Caan) was given the comical name Sam Francisco.

In the film, though, he’s given the nickname “George.”

This is a reference to his ORIGINAL name in the original screenplay, which was George Jetson!
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about movies and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the movie urban legends featured so far.

MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was essentially a film-length commercial for a new line of candy from Quaker Oats.

1971’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is a much-beloved film musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The film tells the story of a young, good-hearted (but very poor) boy named Charlie who is given the chance (by discovering one of five “Golden Tickets” in a chocolate Wonka Bar) to take a tour of the famous candy factory owned and operated by the mysterious Willy Wonka.

As it turns out, Wonka is using this tour as a way to determine if any of the five children on the tour have the moral fiber to be his successor as owner of the candy factory when Wonka retires. He ends up choosing Charlie. While the film was not a significant hit when it was first released, it has since become a major success on video, DVD and re-airings on television. The film’s songs, in particular, are very memorable, from “The Candy Man Can” (which was a #1 hit for Sammy Davis Jr.) to “Oompa Loompa” to “Pure Imagination.” However, amazingly enough, when the film was originally produced, it was as part of a promotional tie-in for a new candy company! Read on for the strange tale!
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about movies and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the movie urban legends featured so far.

MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: A John Wayne anti-Communism film was dubbed in Europe and other places as an anti-drug film.

Only John Wayne could portray a heroic investigator for the House Un-American Activities Committee, busting up Communists trying to “interfere” in labor unions in Hawaii.

And that’s just what he did in Big Jim McLain in 1952.

James Arness co-starred as Wayne’s HUAC partner in the film.

Well, as you might imagine, such a topic would not be as popular in other countries as it would be in the 1950s United States, so in OTHER countries, Big Jim McClain was released instead as…
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about movies and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the movie urban legends featured so far.

MOVIE URBAN LEGEND: A Hard Day’s Night was filmed in black and white to save on costs.

As I mentioned in a recent edition of Music Urban Legends Revealed, United Artists signed the Beatles to a movie deal mostly so that they could put out a soundtrack, figuring that they’d recoup the costs of the film with sales of the record album based on the movie alone (an ingenious plan, really), and there was always a chance that the film could be a hit, too!

Of course, the movie ended up becoming a massive hit and United Artists made oodles of cash from both the film AND the soundtrack.

However, before they knew that, United Artists felt that the film was almost an afterthought and the budget reflected this – the entire film was shot on a $500,000 budget, which was small even for 1964.

Based on this fact, many fans have over the years then extrapolated the “fact” that the movie was filmed in black and white was because of this cost-saving approach (as black and white film is significantly cheaper than color film).

Is that true?
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about TV and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the TV urban legends featured so far.

TV URBAN LEGEND: Are There Really Aliens Hidden In Every Episode of South Park?

The very first episode of Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s television series, South Park, debuted on August 13, 1997 (this series followed two short films by Parker and Stone, both titled “The Spirit of Christmas,” that they made in 1992 and 1995. The latter one was made into a Christmas video card, of sorts, that was passed around so much that it got the attention of Comedy Central, leading to Parker and Stone getting a chance to make a pilot for the network, which led to them getting their own series). This first episode was titled “Cartman Gets an Anal Probe” (Parker and Stone were definitely trying to push the boundaries of good taste right off the bat) and it told the story of how a group of alien “visitors” were visiting the small town of South Park, Colorado and performing anal probes on the citizens, including young foul-mouthed fourth grader Eric Cartman. The visitors abduct the younger brother of one of Cartman’s classmates, Kyle Broflovski, and Kyle, Cartman and their two other friends and classmates, Stan and Kenny, must rescue Kyle’s brother, Ike. Eventually, the boys use the anal probe that the visitors left in Cartman’s ass to lure them back to Earth in time to rescue Ike.

The visitors then leave…or DO they?

You see, while the aliens left, they did not leave for good, as they began appearing in the backgrounds of episodes of South Park, leading to the very popular claim that aliens have appeared hidden in every episode of South Park since. A quick Google check will bring you many references to this fact, like here from OMG Facts. Have they really appeared in every episode of South Park since, though?
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about music and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the music urban legends featured so far.

MUSIC URBAN LEGEND: The lyrics to “Every Breath You Take” are taken from an actual stalker’s letters.

If The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” is not the world’s most misinterpreted song, it’s certainly pretty high up their on the list of songs that people tend to misinterpret.

The song has become a paragon of romance, while really, the song is not about romance at all, but about unhealthy obession.

Just look at the lyrics:

Since youve gone I been lost without a trace
I dream at night I can only see your face
I look around but its you I cant replace
I feel so cold and I long for your embrace
I keep crying baby, baby, please…

Oh, cant you see
You belong to me
How my poor heart aches
With every breath you take

Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake
Every claim you stake
Ill be watching you

Sting, who wrote the song, has a great line regarding it:

One couple told me ‘Oh we love that song; it was the main song played at our wedding!’ I thought, Well, good luck.

In any event, though, the song has brought rise to a number of legends about its origin, with the most prominent being that Sting supposedly used an actual letter from a stalker (either written to him or just a random stalker letter he somehow got his hands on) and adapted said letter into this song.
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about music and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the music urban legends featured so far.

MUSIC URBAN LEGEND: The film A Hard Day’s Night originally was made just so United Artists’ music company could get around Capitol Records’ exclusive rights to put out Beatles music in the United States.

In October of 1963, the Beatles were still largely unknown in the United States, but there were clear indications that the group was gaining some significant momentum in their home of the United Kingdom, and that soon they would becoming more popular in the States (heck, you could argue that Beatlemania had already begun in England by this point in time).

But in October of 1963, Capitol Records, who had the exclusive rights to release new Beatles music in the United States, seemed totally disinterested in the group. Capitol Records actually decided to pass on releasing two singles by the Beatles offered to them.

While Capitol Records was not paying attention to the buzz in England, United Artists was. They had a bit more of a presence in England, so they were picking up on the early stages of Beatlemania. Therefore, the music division of United Artists discovered a bit of a loophole in Capitol Records’ exclusivity in the United States – there was an exemption for film scores!
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Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about music and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the music urban legends featured so far.

MUSIC URBAN LEGEND: The violinist for Bob Dylan’s album, Desire (as well as the accompanying tour), was hired off of the street.

Folks tend to love stories of people being plucked from the streets from obscurity and made a “star,” but they’re almost all made-up stories, the inventions of PR flacks.

The story of Scarlet Rivera, though, is as odd as it is true.
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