LoC 65: Top 50 Urban Legends

[Compound]

Okay, Day 9 is about to get scared by a video game, there's a new South Park, and it's time to get this list started.

[Compound]

# 50: Bite the Wax Tadpole

20 Points (On 1 of 9 lists)
Highest Vote: (#6 by Tripe )

The Story:
Dude, can you get me a soda?
 
No, not a pop. Where the hell are you from? Look, just get me the tadpole.
 
What's a tadpole? You don't know?
 
You know how when you take a product and introduce it to a foreign market, they sometimes change the name to make it more acceptable to them?
 
...
 
No, not like a Royale with Cheese. Geez.
 
Well, sometimes they don't do this and just stick with the normal name. Well, there's this big company who normally does that and most of the time it works out okay. But when they expanded to China, they screwed up. See, when you say "Coca Cola" in Mandarin, well, it's translates to "Bite the Wax Tadpole."  Oddly enough the Chinese weren't interested in consuming paraffin amphibians, so it bombed there. gotta do the research there, man.
 
Well, Is It True?
Well, no.
 
While those sounds can be interpreted as "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse fastened with wax", there are roughly 200 different characters that make that sound. So they can also mean "furble fabble fibble foo." Or something like that.
 
Plus, Coke was aware of the name issue before they started exporting to China (in 1928) and the characters used for the name actually mean something close to "to allow the mouth to be able to rejoice." And that would be the real thing.
 
Random Notes
A frightening number of bands have songs titled "Bite the Wax tadpole" including L7, tub ring and Super 8 Bit Brothers. None of them are particularly good.
 
And the Nova?  No, that's not a real story either.
 
Up Next
This was either the fault of Bender or the Ferengi.

[Tripe]

Awesome, someone should make cola flavoured opaque gummies in the shape of tadpoles.

[Johnny Unusual]

They've done just about everything else.  I recommend the big rats for sheer volume but the best by far are Cola Gummis.  But don't get off-brand cola gummis.  They suck.

[Darth Geek]

Awesome, someone should make cola flavoured opaque gummies in the shape of tadpoles.

Wouldn't that just look like sperm?

[Johnny Unusual]

Awesome, someone should make cola flavoured opaque gummies in the shape of tadpoles.

Wouldn't that just look like sperm?

Now I think that they should do that.  It would be an exciting new product for our struggling sex shops!

[Smoky]

Cool. I forgot about Bite The Wax Tadpole!

[Tripe]

This one was the second one I added to my list when putting it together.

[Darth Geek]

Awesome, someone should make cola flavoured opaque gummies in the shape of tadpoles.

Wouldn't that just look like sperm?

Now I think that they should do that.  It would be an exciting new product for our struggling sex shops!

Oyster flavored?

[Johnny Unusual]

Actually, I think Bite the White Tadpole was a Wycked Sceptre album

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/MeBNKCBZCcA" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/MeBNKCBZCcA</a>

[Compound]

Move along.

[Johnny Unusual]

Um... something just occurred to me.  Unless Pak and Tripe's list only had 24 items, then their #5s should be worth 21 points.  Might not effect anything but maybe it does...

1. 25 points
2. 24 points
3. 23 points
4. 22 points
5. 21 points
etc.

EDIT: It's been corrected.  Cool.

[Compound]

# 49: Grandma on the Rooftop
 

21 Points (On 1 of 9 lists)
Highest Vote: (#5 by BBQ Platypus )

The Story:
Man, I hate taking trips with my family...
 
...no, not because my dad keeps playing Ace of Base CDs.  I'm always afraid that something will happen. Let me tell you what happened to a buddy of mine back in school.
 
See, a cousin of his went on a trip with his mom, dad, sister and his grandmom. Now, she was getting on in years and somewhere between Salina and Wichita she died...
 
No, it normally just feels like dying to drive through Kansas. She really did die though. Well, no one wanted to ride in the car with a dead person, so they put her in a tarp and, well, they tied her to the roof. They figured they'd take her back home and bury her then. The thing is though, at the next stop, they all wanted to take some time to get away from the corpse, so they went inside the truck stop and got a long lunch. But when they got back to the car, it wasn't there. No, not the grandma. the whole car. Someone stole it. To make matters worse, since they didn't have a body, they had to wait seven years to declare her legally dead.
 
Bet the car thief got a nice shock though when he started looking through their stuff though.
 
 
Well, Is It True?
Nah. It's a legitimate legend. It's shown up in the US and Europe at various time over the past 50 years. A variation of it showed up in National Lampoon's Vacaation as well. (Although without the car theft.) Other variations have poor old Granny stuffed in the car trunk or back seat as well. Folklorists will note that in these legends is that poor Old Granny is seldom portrayed as anyone that the family knew and loved, just a nuisance who remained being one even after she left this mortal coil.
 
Random Notes
I'll note that the submission didn't have granny on the roof, but that's the most common version.
 
Up Next
No, they don't belong to the Hulkster.

[Compound]

JU, right number of points. Wrong number typed in.

[Johnny Unusual]

# 48: Grandma on the Rooftop
 

20 Points (On 1 of 9 lists)
Highest Vote: (#5 by BBQ Platypus )

Jed Clampett only WANTS you to think it' a legend.

(Oh, and keep your eyes on the numbers)