Want to be a part of our newsletter? You’re welcome to submit content including (but not limited to) questions, fanart, short stories, memories, photographs of your collection, or even Pokémon tattoos! We will happily publish them in our mailbag and share them in future issues of our newsletter. This week’s question comes from one of our readers: Altair.

Altair:

Back in the day, when playing Pokémon (or video games in general), there was no internet to really use to get updates or news about the games, and a lot of the time, we had to rely on printed guides and magazines to get some neat side information, or, in some cases, help complete the game, which allowed myths to pass on and fool a lot of players.

Did you ever come across any such myths or rumors back in the day, like the infamous Mew beneath the truck back in Red and Blue, and did you fall for it?

Thank you very much for your question, Altair! I didn’t have access to the internet at home until I was fifteen, but I would go online at school to discover the latest Pokémon news and rumours. The myths and rumours you refer to were pretty common in the late 90s and early 2000s, and while I don’t remember falling for any of them in particular, I absolutely did fall for Mew under the truck, with the rumour claiming it required the Pokémon to use strength to move it. I actually touched on this in Part 2 of my Legacy of Pokémon feature, and encourage you to give it a read, if you haven’t already.

Most rumours would commonly have the player complete convoluted tasks in order to obtain a fake Pokémon (known as Pokégods), and it was usually pretty obvious which ones were misleading. But the Mew rumour was far more believable due to the presence of the truck being in the game data and Mew being officially confirmed as the 151st Pokémon. I purchased a cheat cartridge to give my Pokémon the HM moves Surf and Strength, but discovered quickly that it wasn’t possible to move the truck and Mew wasn’t underneath it.

The SS Anne from Pokémon Red and Blue, featuring the truck that supposedly had a Mew underneath it...

While it was disappointing at the time, I look back fondly at the creativity of Pokémon fans from those days, who even went as far as creating screenshots and Pokédex data to try and trick people into believing them. It was harmless fun, and I hope to write a feature for Johto Times on the topic in the future!