Rumours about any media that were wrong

I have one more to add. Anyone remember those handheld game concoles that had a bunch of "Block" games? Those consoles that had something like 100 games like frogger, Tetris, racing car game and snake? Well back in the late 90s I had a few of these different consoles and I heard a rumour somewhere that if you completed all the games, it would unlock the hidden game, which was Pacman. This was false of course as Pacman wasn't included with those consoles.

I remember being fooled about the fake Super Mario Galaxy DS video when I was younger. I thought it was real for a few minutes and got all excited. But, I figured out at the time that most games being released would usually come out all at once. Like, if Mario Galaxy was already on DS, it would've released alongside the wii. I was very disappointed, lmao.

Then again, I feel like in hindsight, Galaxy on the DS wouldn't work very well.

I remember the rumor that Sonic and Tails were playable characters in Super Smash Bros Melee. Maybe it was just among my friends but I recall kids on the playground saying that Smash 64 had a secret skateboarding character.

Now here's one that you probably never heard of: some people have said that there was a PB&J Otter movie about them finding a lochness monster. There's no evidence surrounding this alleged claim other than people saying that, so it's more than likely not true, though I guess one would be kind of intrigued to wonder what that would've been like.

Also Polybius, which derived from people misremembering the Berzerk high score deaths that happened, which someone did a full video on sometime ago(not sure if it's still up, but I've watched a bit of it for myself). Or heck, how about that one time I thought freakin' Manny Rivera from El Tigre of all things was a girl because I only knew of the DS game for some strange reason(never even played it, I just heard of its existence), which isn't even a rumor more so me being an idiot who wasn't even remotely interested in such a show that looked like a crappy flash cartoon from 2003.

Not only that, but I also remember rumors of what was apparently a bootleg Sonic 4 on the Sega Genesis, which was essentially the SNES bootleg ported to the Genesis. Of course, that never happened actually. Or maybe that was just my stupid imagination.

Just before Deus Ex Invisible War came out, many were sure it would come with or an editor would be released so you could mod the game like you could with the first Deus Ex games Unreal Editor, but that never happened. I don't know if it was a rumour or had been planned but never made it into the games but I remember hearing a rumour that London would be a place you would go to in Invisible War.

I remembered a few more rumours about Pokemon games that were false:

1. To catch Jirachi in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, you'd have to get 100 launches of the rocket at Mossdeep space center then you could get on the next one to catch Jirachi on the moon

2. In Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, if you got the Wish Tag, you could use it on the white rock beside Mossdeep City and awaken Jirachi to catch it as the rock was Jirachi in its sleeping form. Not only does the White Rock not do anything in the games, there wasn't a Wish Tag in the games.

3. You could increase your chances of catching a pokemon in the games by pressing B repeatedly after throwing a Pokeball. While that isn't true, I still did it for years out of habit in various main series Pokemon games.

4. There was a rumour that after the time Black and White came out of the next games to be released after them.

This rumour that went around mentioned that here was going to be remakes or sorts to Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald except these new games took place in Hoenn, 3 years after the events of Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald so they were in the same timeline as Gold/Silver/Crystal.  I remember at the time a Pokemon game name had been registered by GameFreak/Nintendo but I don't remember what it was, possibly Sun and Moon (which we did get years later but as a different game and new region).

Gen III Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald/FireRed/LeafGreen were set 3 years in the past from Gen II Gold/Silver/Crystal and the rumour I heard was that, between the events of Gen III and Gen II, a dark event was to have taken place in Hoenn which was to play a part in these new games. However, this never happened and while there was remakes of Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald as Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, these were just remakes of the original games not set in a different timeline. I think this rumor was partly due to so many people wanting Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald remakes for so long.

Good lord, there are just so many. The "Fire Temple chant in Ocarina of Time being removed over back-lash from Muslim gamers" spiel comes to mind. But for this I have to go with the one that fooled me for the longest time: the Justin Bailey code in Metroid. According to the rumor this was put in the game on purpose because "bailey" is slang for "swimsuit" in some parts of the world. So the code would be Just-in-bailey. Because it made Samus wear what looked like a one-piece swimsuit. I also remember a variation of the story were people would say it was put in there on purpose as a reference to someone the developers knew personally, or even as a reference to a contest winner. These ideas have generally been accepted by the community to be false. It's generally considered nothing more than a simple coincidence.

Here's a rumor related to lost media: For a long time, the HeartBeat Personal Trainer, a very obscure Sega Genesis variant, was thought to be required in order for the HeartBeat Catalyst to work. However though, recent studies from 2020-2021 actually revealed that the Personal Trainer wasn't required & the Catalyst was in fact even sold separately, still with Outback Joey.