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Here are quick descriptions of each of the previous editions of Poetry Urban Legends Revealed.

To see if they are true or false, you have to click on the link!

1. Oliver St. John Gogarty wrote a poem dedicated to the returning Irish soldiers from the Boer War that contained a hidden, less celebratory, meaning within.

2. The first winner of an Olympic Gold medal for Literature went to a poem written by the creator of the modern Olympics.

3. The famed poet T.S. Eliot came up with the name for Djuna Barnes’ classic novel, Nightwood.

4. Marianne Moore was asked to come up with a name for the brand of car that eventually became known as the Edsel.

5. Some of Shel Silverstein’s poems for Where the Sidewalk Ends and A Light in the Attic originally appeared in the pages of Playboy.

6. Poet Wallace Stevens converted to Catholicism before he died.

7. Thomas Bowdler “bowdlerized” Longfellow’s “Wreck of the Hesperus” by editing “bull” to “gentleman cow.”

8. Dorothy Parker’s ashes sat in a filing cabinet for nearly two decades.

9. Robert Lowell famously responded literally to a joking suggestion by famed poetry professor Allen Tate that Lowell could live in a tent on Tate’s yard.

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Here are quick descriptions of each of the previous editions of Board Game Urban Legends Revealed.

To see if they are true or false, you have to click on the link!

1. Milton Bradley got into board games because Abraham Lincoln grew a beard.

2. Harry Nelson Pillsbury died due to the ill effects of playing chess blindfolded.

3. For lack of a Scrabble tile, Trivial Pursuit was born.

4. Monopoly was created by Charles Darrow.

5. The predecessor to Monopoly was created to demonstrate the teachings of Georgism.

6. Monopoly was once ruled a generic term and un-trademarkable.

7. Candyland had to sue to get the rights to candyland.com away from a porn company.

8. The Milton Bradley board game for the Pyramid television show was different from the game on the show because the show was worried that the gave would help potential contestants too much.

9. Milton Bradley invented the paper cutter.

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Here are quick descriptions of each of the previous editions of Toy Urban Legends Revealed.

To see if they are true or false, you have to click on the link!

1. Play-Doh was created as and originally produced as wallpaper cleaner!

2. John Tyler was playing marbles when he was informed that President Harrison had died and Tyler was now President.

3. Mr. Potato Head quite nearly was “doomed” to simply being a cereal giveaway.

4. G.I. Joe‘s Snake Eyes cannot be depicted as being a fan of the New York Yankees.

5. The original line of G.I. Joe toys ended because of the 1970s gas crisis.

6. Lincoln Logs were named after the middle name of the father of the inventor of Lincoln Logs.

7. The United States military purchased millions of View Master reels for training purposes during World War II.

8. Barbie was once sold with a diet book that simply read “don’t eat”?

9. The original G.I. Joe had a scar on his face so that Hasbro could trademark the figure’s design.

10. The National Security Agency banned furbies from their offices for fear of the toys recording confidential information.

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This is the first in a series of examinations of movie legends and whether they are true or false.

Click here to view an archive of all the movie urban legends featured so far.

Let’s begin! Read the rest of this entry »

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With the release in two weeks of my new book, Was Superman a Spy? and Other Comic Book Legends Revealed (see the sidebar to pre-order a copy!), I thought it would be neat to have a site here (and at Sports Legends Revealed) where I can discuss other legends revealed!

The way this will work is that each week day I will feature three legends from a different part of the world of entertainment.

On Mondays, it is a grab bag. You might have Legends about Musicals, Legends about Board Games, Legends about Video Games, Legends about Plays, Legends about Toys, Legends about Novels, Legends about Wrestling, basically any area of entertainment that is not covered on the other four days of the week.

On Tuesdays, TV Legends are featured.

On Wednesdays, Music Legends are featured.

On Thursdays, Comic Book Legends are featured (through a link to my comic blog, Comics Should Be Good, where the comic book legends are hosted).

On Fridays, Movie Legends are featured.

The web site, Snopes.com, is a great reference site for legends. Be sure to check out their various entertainment legends, because I won’t be featuring any legends that were featured there first (as that would be pretty lame, wouldn’t it?).

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy the site!

You can always reach me at bcronin@legendsrevealed.com to suggest legends to be featured or for any other reason, really.