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The text discussed a nationally recognized organization that created the 'Standards Relating to the Urban Police Functions. What organization was it? American Bar Association. The decision by a police officer to make an arrest initiates most criminal cases. This factor makes police the of the criminal justice system. Traffic Ticket Urban Legends Busting Myths That Mislead New Drivers. Maine, police department, your speeding and parking tickets will not be torn up the instant you turn that magical age.
Mostly True Stories?: Urban Legends Revealed | |
---|---|
Genre | Docudrama |
Created by | Burrud Prods. |
Written by | Thomas Quinn |
Directed by | Mike Levine Thomas Quinn Valerie W. Chow Joe Dea |
Presented by | Natasha Henstridge |
Starring | Christine Sherwood Peter Lownds Kristin Quin Jennifer Ingrum Jeff Hatch Phillip Hersh Kevin J. Goff Bob Harris |
Composer(s) | Jesse Rhodes Craig Dobbin Brian Mann |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 4 |
No. of episodes | 22 |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Valerie Chow |
Producer(s) | Thomas Quinn Sean P. O'Malley Suzanne Ali Michael Brockhoff |
Running time | 45 minutes |
Release | |
Original network | TLC |
Original release | March 19, 2002 – 2004 |
External links | |
Website |
Mostly True Stories?: Urban Legends Revealed is an American documentary television series about urban legends. It aired on TLC from 2002 to 2004, running for four seasons. Early episodes were hosted by Natasha Henstridge. The program features reenactments of various urban legends and research into their credibility.
Unscheduled edited versions of the show, with new narration and without Henstridge as a hostess, were aired on TLC until 2008. The Discovery Channel had been airing regular re-runs, but now only does so on rare occasions. In the UK it has been shown on Men & Motors and CBS Reality.
Show structure[edit]
An episode will begin with an introduction by Henstridge whilst a short montage of scenes from re-enactments to be featured in the program is shown. An opening sequence follows with more such clips, accompanied by theme music.
In a dark, desolate cemetery or junkyard, the hostess introduces the first legend, and the scene changes to a re-enactment. The narrator introduces the legend, its setting, and tells it as it is shown, so most of the characters' dialogue is drowned out by his voice.
After the re-enactment, the narrator questions if the legend is true or false. The legend is then tested by folklorist expertise, historical and logical evidence, people who work in a field the legend is based around, and, occasionally, by the show's reality checker, Bob Harris. When the legend's credibility is determined, the narrator gives us a glimpse at the next legend and we are given a hint as to what it could be about (In this legend ..., but in our next legend, ...).
Before the commercial break, a true or false question is given to the viewers, such as 'In his youth, did George Washington cut down a cherry tree and then confess to it?' and 'Can the Great Wall of China be seen from space?' amongst other such rumors. The answer is given 'when we continue.'
After the commercial break, the cycle continues for four more legends. Then Henstridge gives her closing monologue and the credits roll to the program's theme music.
Production[edit]
The series was developed by Burrud Prods. and the pilot episode was produced, directed and written by Thomas Quinn, who went on to become the Supervising Producer and writer for the 22-episode series. Dramatic recreations were mostly directed by Mike Levine, and several episodes were produced by Valerie W. Chow. Joe Dea was a director and producer for the show, too. Peter Lownds was the show's narrator. Though Natasha Henstridge has hosted the majority of the show's episodes, the first episode was hosted by Michael Shermer. The show is produced by Burrud Productions.
Relatively unknown actors were hired to play the characters in the legends. Some cast members play several different characters. For example, Kristin Quinn, no relation to Thomas Quinn, has played multiple female characters, including a bride's sister and a rape victim. Jennifer Ingrum appeared as a bridesmaid and a roommate. Brian Harp was a ghost on an airplane, only to assume the more down-to-earth role of a guest at a party. Jeff Hatch has been a husband to a young woman and a son to older parents. The moderately known actor, Philip Hersh, was a hotel clerk and a poisoning victim. Kevin J. Goff was a jealous husband and an elementary school maintenance man. The actors' playing of various characters is subtle. Few viewers pick it up, as was the intention.
Blackbeard error[edit]
The show once made an error concerning a legend's credibility (Blackbeard). On the episode that originally aired on March 13, 2003, there was a true or false question before a commercial break that gave an incorrect answer when the program resumed. The question was 'Was the nursery rhyme 'Sing a Song of Sixpence' used as a code to recruit pirates?' The answer was given as 'TRUE: The notorious pirate, Blackbeard used this code to recruit hands, whom he paid sixpence a day.' This is untrue, and was in fact a red herring created by Snopes.com to test people's common sense. Snopes found it rather humorous that the show could fall for such a silly story and created a page on the website about it. Without realising their folly, and failing to recognise Snopes, subsequent airings 'fixed' the mistake ('FALSE: Though attributed to the notorious Blackbeard, the rhyme was not used by pirates'). The song was never attributed to Blackbeard, and the whole myth was perpetrated by Snopes. However, this led to the (yet unanswered) question of whether the show was stealing data from Snopes.com. The show was not the first medium to make this mistake, as an urban myth boardgame also gave the question's answer as 'true.'
Episodes[edit]
Season 1[edit]
- episode 1
- Birthday suit
- Topcoat
- episode 2
- Death car
- Suicide cancer cure
- 911 call drug bust
- Maiden plants
- episode 3
- Kentucky fried rat
- Hammered hamster
- Babysitter's upstairs caller
- episode 4
- Dead girl pinned to bumper
- Swallowed cell phone
- Mugged by a snake
- Special reserve beer
- episode 5
- Ghost plane
- Tech support sniper
- Killer cactus
- Killer costume
- Grandma's ashes
Season 2[edit]
- episode 6
![Police Police](/uploads/1/2/5/7/125731266/392139220.png)
- College student mental patient
- Room disservice
- Coffee table corpse
- Scorpion head-dress
- House thief heart attack
- episode 7
- College killer
- Stuck Santa
- Cursed Hawaiian volcanic rock
- Con-artist granny
- Speed radar air strike
- episode 8
- Fake cop rapist
- Tapeworm Diet pill
- Killer boot
- Drug test pregnancy
- Rabbit resurrection
- episode 9
- Backseat killer
- Main meal pet
- Dead grandma
- Dress of death
- episode 10
- Room-mate murder
- Mexican hairless rat
- Klingerman virus
Season 3[edit]
- episode 11
- Janitor unplugs life support
- Body under the bed
- Brain eating bug
![Examples Examples](https://cdn1.alphr.com/sites/alphr/files/styles/16x9_480/public/images/dir_30/it_photo_15461.jpg?itok=FAn9cHH3×tamp=1415850943)
- episode 12
- Forest fire scuba diver
- Hidden camera honeymoon
- Spider nest hairdo
- episode 13
- Campus scream
- Photo copier lie detector
- Stolen car returned
- Mini water elephants
- A call from the grave
- episode 14
- Cat-astrophe
- Dead wedding guest
- Haunted house
- Gun toting granny
- episode 15
- Dead employee
- High-caliber fuse
- Rooftop baby
- Accidental inheritance
- Den of death
- episode 16
- Ghostly protector
- Lotto loser suicide
- Kitty slingshot
- Airport lodger
- Scared to madness
Season 4[edit]
- episode 17
- Knockout perfume
- Killer statue
- Soda machine of death
- Disguised lover
- episode 18
- Killer envelope
- Bride and go seek
- Tipped by lotto
- Cement Cadillac
- episode 19
- Severed fingers
- Death pass
- Celebrity snub
- Price of independence
- Holiday hooker
- episode 20
- Killer deck
- Cactus critters
- 200 miles per gallon car
- On the wrong tracks
- Tan bed of death
- episode 21
- Homemade liposuction machine
- Old lady killer?
- Pee detecting dye
- Stranded
- episode 22
- Gopher be gone
- Haunted hotel
- Cheating by mail
- Cop car joyride
- Accidental cremation
Rating[edit]
The show is rated TV-14 in the U.S. for sometimes gruesome or horrific dramatizations, occasional drug references, and suggestive themes.
See also[edit]
- Snopes.com (also called the Urban Legends Reference Pages)
References[edit]
External links[edit]
- Official website at FilmRise.com (program distributor)
- Urban Legends (complete series) playlist on YouTube
- Mostly True Stories at epguides.com
- Mostly True Stories on IMDb
- Mostly True Stories at TVGuide.com
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mostly_True_Stories%3F:_Urban_Legends_Revealed&oldid=938672285'
updated 2/4/2008 11:09:03 AM ET2008-02-04T16:09:03
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Business travelers are a secretive, clannish lot, and we take perverse pride in knowing the picayune details of how life works on the road. If there’s an airline rule, we claim to know and maybe even understand it. A strange hotel policy? We feign indifference and insist we heard about it years ago.
- Lords of the gourd compete for Punkin Chunkin honors With teams using more than 100 unique apparatuses to launch globular projectiles a half-mile or more, the 27th annual World Championship Punkin Chunkin event is our pick as November’s Weird Festival of the Month.
- Lords of the gourd compete for Punkin Chunkin honors
Then there are those persistent factoids that can only be classified as Urban Travel Legends. They’re usually not true — or at least they haven’t been true for quite some time — yet they continue to clutter our database of travel knowledge. Here are several of the most enduring legends, along with some clear-eyed facts.
The airline secret code
The hardest-to-kill legend is the claim that you’ll receive special treatment from an airline only if you utter the secret code “Rule 240.” Whenever your flight is canceled or seriously delayed, the story goes, simply ask the gate agent to Rule 240 you, and the airline will magically place you, at no additional cost, on the next available flight of any other carrier flying the route.
The hardest-to-kill legend is the claim that you’ll receive special treatment from an airline only if you utter the secret code “Rule 240.” Whenever your flight is canceled or seriously delayed, the story goes, simply ask the gate agent to Rule 240 you, and the airline will magically place you, at no additional cost, on the next available flight of any other carrier flying the route.
The problem? There is no Rule 240, at least not anymore. Rule 240 was shorthand for an old Civil Aeronautics Board regulation that required airlines to immediately place you on another flight, regardless of the fare you originally paid or the carrier you originally booked. But the C.A.B. and its rules disappeared after the airlines were deregulated in 1978.
Today, carriers set their own rules, and they’re laid out in the “contract of carriage” buried in the fine print on airline Web sites. You agree to the contract when you buy a ticket, and most carriers have terms similar to the jargon imposed by Delta Air Lines. Delta’s contract promises nothing; it even specifically disavows its responsibly to place you on the flight with the date, time, and destination printed on your ticket. As for getting help if your flight is grounded, lots of luck. According to Delta, any assistance is “at our sole discretion.”
Why does the myth of Rule 240 — and the chimera of mandated federal travel assistance — persist? Airline legerdemain. At least three carriers — Delta, United and Northwest — call their proprietary contract terms Rule 240. This must be some sort of inside joke that amuses airline-contract lawyers.
Dress up and get upgraded
Dressing for success, at least for business travelers, is about snaring that elusive upgrade to first or business class. Far too many flyers cling to the belief that airlines give free upgrades to the folks who will look cool in a premium-class seat.
Dressing for success, at least for business travelers, is about snaring that elusive upgrade to first or business class. Far too many flyers cling to the belief that airlines give free upgrades to the folks who will look cool in a premium-class seat.
The truth, of course, is altogether different. For starters, airlines don’t give out free upgrades anymore. Thanks to frequent-flyer-program databases, carriers can easily identify their best, most profitable customers, and upgrades are awarded in fairly rigid compliance with the perks promised to that elite group. Plus, airlines have learned that upgrades to remaining premium-class seats can be sold at the gate moments before departure. (Depending on the route, upgrade fees range from $15 to $500 per flight.) So there’s no need for carriers to give seats away to anyone, let alone award them to flossy-looking budget flyers.
That being said, my friend Leonora was bumped up to business class last year because she had the right shoes. Leonora has a bad right hip and needs to fly in a coach seat with an aisle on her right. When she booked a flight to visit family in London, I called a friend at the airline and asked him to flag her request. He did — and also apparently marked her as a V.I.P. When Leonora appeared at the gate, the agent looked at her comfortable shoes and asked, “Do you have a pair of high heels?” Leonora produced a pair from her carry-on, slipped into them, and the gate agent proceeded to put her in the last available seat up front.
The hacked key card
Hotels have switched from traditional metal room keys to computerized plastic key cards, giving rise to a weird urban-travel legend. Paranoid travelers are concerned that hotels encrypt credit-card details on the magnetic stripe of the key cards; then, once a guest checks out and returns the key card to the front desk, unscrupulous hotel clerks hack the credit-card number and go on spending sprees.
Hotels have switched from traditional metal room keys to computerized plastic key cards, giving rise to a weird urban-travel legend. Paranoid travelers are concerned that hotels encrypt credit-card details on the magnetic stripe of the key cards; then, once a guest checks out and returns the key card to the front desk, unscrupulous hotel clerks hack the credit-card number and go on spending sprees.
Pure fantasy. Although hotels can encrypt your key card with credit-card information, they almost never do. And despite an endless series of “tips” in the last year, I’ve never seen a police report or legal documents that prove a person’s financial details were lifted from a hotel key card.
Not convinced? Then do what I do: Take the key card with you when you leave. No hotel in the world requires you to turn it in when you check out. I’ve never even been asked to do so. If you really want to worry about hotel key cards, consider this: If there’s a power failure, and the hotel doesn’t have back-up power, those electronic locks won’t always work, and you may be locked out of your room for the duration of the blackout. Unlike the key-card scam, this has actually been known to happen over the years.
The despicably dirty hotel
Of course, not every tale is a myth. Sadly, the one that claims hotel maids do terrible things while “cleaning” your room can be all too true. Hygiene standards at hotels are, frankly, in the toilet.
Of course, not every tale is a myth. Sadly, the one that claims hotel maids do terrible things while “cleaning” your room can be all too true. Hygiene standards at hotels are, frankly, in the toilet.
The exact shape of this rumor changes from time to time. One year, horrified guests whisper that maids are using water from the toilet to clean the mugs next to your in-room coffeemaker. Another year, someone will claim that black-light inspections of hotel duvets and bedspreads reveal colonies of germs and parasites. Travelers routinely swap tales of hotels plagued by bedbugs. Eventually some local television station, usually during a ratings period, will send its intrepid “investigative” team to uncover the despicable sanitary conditions at area hotels. (An Atlanta station’s recent exposé of how maids clean glassware is on YouTube.
Hotels in every price range underpay and overwork their housecleaning staff, who then take appalling, unsanitary shortcuts in order to get their work done. And that’s no surprise: Noted lodging consultant Michael Matthews once estimated that the average hotel maid “has just four seconds per square foot to clean a guest room and is paid half a cent per square foot for her labors.”
Makes you long for the days when hotels put cheap, disposable plastic glasses in your room, doesn’t it?
The fine print ...
A followup to my column about the hidden fees on overseas ATM transactions: Effective January 26, Citibank will now charge a 1 or 2 percent fee for using any overseas ATM, even those located in Citibank branches ... The British government has lifted the one-carry-on rule that hobbled travelers using London’s Heathrow Airport. The ban has also been lifted at London’s Stansted Airport and many other British airports. However, the one-bag rule remains in force at Gatwick and Luton, two other London-area airports.
A followup to my column about the hidden fees on overseas ATM transactions: Effective January 26, Citibank will now charge a 1 or 2 percent fee for using any overseas ATM, even those located in Citibank branches ... The British government has lifted the one-carry-on rule that hobbled travelers using London’s Heathrow Airport. The ban has also been lifted at London’s Stansted Airport and many other British airports. However, the one-bag rule remains in force at Gatwick and Luton, two other London-area airports.
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