Mostly True Stories: Urban Legends Revealed is a docudrama

Docudrama

In film, television programming and staged theatre, docudrama is a documentary-style genre that features dramatized re-enactments of actual historical events. As a neologism, the term is often confused with docufiction....

 about urban legends and re-enacting them and researching their credibility. It aired on The Learning Channel from 2002 until 2004. It ran for four seasons. Early episodes were hosted by Natasha Henstridge

Natasha Henstridge

Natasha T. Henstridge is a Canadian fashion model turned actress. Her most notable on-screen roles include Species, The Whole Nine Yards, It Had To Be You, Ghosts of Mars, She Spies, the TV series Eli Stone, and the Canadian TV mini-series Would Be Kings, for which she won the Gemini Award for...

. Unscheduled edited versions of the show, with new narration and without Henstridge as a hostess, were aired on The Learning Channel until 2008. The Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...

 had been airing regular re-runs, but now only does so on rare occasions. In the UK it has been shown on Men & Motors

Men & Motors

Men & Motors was a men's lifestyle television channel in the UK. It was the last remaining station operated by the former Granada Sky Broadcasting joint venture, set up by Granada Television and satellite broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting in 1996...

 and CBS Reality

CBS Reality

CBS Reality is a television channel which broadcasts to the United Kingdom and Ireland.On 14 September 2009, it was revealed that the international arm of CBS, CBS Studios International, struck a joint venture deal with Chellomedia to launch six CBS-branded channels in the UK during 2009...

.

Show structure

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

Bob Harris (writer)

Bob Harris is an American radio commentator, writer, stand-up comedian, and thirteen-time Jeopardy! contestant.From 1998–2002, his daily political commentaries aired on an average of 75 radio stations across the U.S., winning awards from the and the Associated Press...

. 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 role to the program's theme music.

Production

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

The show once made an error concerning a legend's credibility (Blackbeard

Blackbeard

Edward Teach , better known as Blackbeard, was a notorious English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of the American colonies....

). 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

Red herring

A red herring is a deliberate attempt to divert attention.Red herring may refer to:* Red herring , the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but does not address the issue in question....

 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 (see external links). 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."

Rating

The show is rated TV-14 in the U.S. for sometimes gruesome or horrific dramatizations, occasional drug references, and suggestive themes.

See also

• Mythbusters
  MythBusters
  MythBusters is a science entertainment TV program created and produced by Beyond Television Productions for the Discovery Channel. The series is screened by numerous international broadcasters, including Discovery Channel Australia, Discovery Channel Latin America, Discovery Channel Canada, Quest...
  
  
• Urban Legends
  Urban Legends (television)
  Urban Legends is a 30 minute 2007 television documentary-style series hosted by Michael Allcock. In each episode, three urban legends are dramatized and presented to the television audience; the audience is then to speculate which one or two of the three is true. Each legend has witnesses to tell...
  
  
• Snopes, the Urban Legends Reference Pages

External links

• Mostly True Stories at epguides.com
• Mostly True Stories at TVGuide.com
• Snopes.com page about the error in the true or false question