# Stupid stuff I thought when I was a kid **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 14, 2021, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317 "2021-11-14T03:12:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2021, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/207 "2021-12-30T05:12:49Z")
> [@Wallaby](#): > > I used to think my Dad could control the traffic lights. We would stop at a red, and my Dad would say “Lights changing in 5,4,3,2,1”, snap his fingers and ‘Wow!’ Every time. > > What he was doing, of course was watching the lights of the cross traffic and knew the time gap between the cross traffic turning red and the through traffic (us) getting a green. My father’s car would sound the horn every time the odometer read something significant like 11,111 or 20,000, he said it was a feature. It took us kids years to catch him actually hitting the horn! ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2021, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/208 "2021-12-31T21:39:44Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > The first time I saw someone speaking a language other than English (I forget which) on a telephone, I wondered how they’d trained the phone system to be able to cope with it. Heck, I wondered how you were trained to see on a phone. 😉 > [@Procrustus](#): > > I recall in fifth grade or so, I was also confused about sex. The mechanics of it. For some reason I thought the vagina was at at a 90 degree angle (you’d put the penis straight in) but my penis when erect was more upward. I wasn’t clear at all about how I’d ever be able to insert it into a woman. Indeed, Robyn Hitchcock empathizes. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/FX8LXZSOsgg/maxresdefault.jpg "How Do You Work This Thing") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX8LXZSOsgg) I could have already been nine or ten (sure, too late in the game) to realise that an egg does not come already soft- or hard-boiled. Alas, in a friend’s kitchen, one time, I helped myself to an egg and promptly tapped it on the edge of the table to start removing bits of shell, when, lo and behold, to my exasperated horror, the slimy contents of the egg made a mess all over my lap and down my leg and on to the floor. I said, “What in the hell is wrong with this fucking egg?” Dave, meanwhile, just looked back at me, at a loss for words, before finally setting me straight, (“uuuuuhhhhhh what in the hell are YOU doing?!”) as his mom came in to the kitchen, looking at my situation, and just shaking her head. I probably shouldnt have taken comic book ads seriously. You know - [that page, often at the end of a comic book?](https://www.ranker.com/list/vintage-comic-book-ads/ranker-comics) One of them had some smiling dude holding a dollar bill under the bromide: “MAKE YOURSELF REAL MONEY!”. I wanted to be that dude. And making money just like - poof! - that. The ensuing argument I had with mom to convince her: How on earth could she possibly pass up such an outlandishly awesome opportunity to just print free money, was going nowhere for me, frustrated that I couldn’t get across to her that it was “FREE MONEY!” “It says _right there_ in the ad! They can’t lie like that!”, upon which I learned that advertising doesn’t always tell the truth, and finally resigning to dashing those images from my mind of (somehow) printing those FREE $100 bills. In the basement, grade two, older cousin is taking hockey shots on me, being a whiny, snooty little goalie. Seeing by the unsure way he holds the stick (as well as winding up way, way, WAY too high for an ultimately feeble slap-shot, from not even ten feet out) I disappointingly surmise he’s never really played the game, and start whining to him how I don’t like how he’s shooting. “_Well,_ that _last_ shot was legitimate, no?” “What does legitimate mean?” “That it was fast, accurate…” And from that, I deduced that “legitmate” meant “fast”, thus, my mom cocking an eyebrow, when I commented, later, driving along with her, “WWWWWWOOOW! Didja see how le-_git_-imate that car was, back there?!” Hamburgers used to be “hangabars”. Learned too late in the game what a dildo was (after calling everybody that). This idiotic friend once tried to put past me that if you arrange your fingertips around your eyeballs as evenly-spaced as possible, and then press down hard _while sneezing_, they’ll both pop out. 😬 ---
**Author:** ![themapleleaf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/themapleleaf/32/14349_2.png) [@themapleleaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/themapleleaf)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2022, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/209 "2022-01-01T15:21:57Z")
> [@whitetho](#): > > Not me, but at camp there was a guy, about 12, who was convinced that his UFO-visitor comic books were telling actual true stories. I had to point out the “fictional stories” notation at the front of the comic. Until about the age of 13, I thought that GI Joe was a real outfit of the US military and not just an after-school cartoon. This was caused by once watching the news and seeing a report in which, as I recall, there was a UH-1 Huey or other military helicopter and I thought I heard the speaker say “GI Joe” (either I misheard what they said, or I didn’t get the context). My impression was buttressed by the fact that there was a real-life Sergeant Slaughter (the GI Joes’ drill instructor - in real life, actually a wrestler) who introduced a five-parter of the cartoon, and that in the closing credits to the cartoon, the different characters’ voice actors were credited, while Sgt. Slaughter was credited as Sgt. Slaughter. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2022, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/210 "2022-01-01T15:50:28Z")
> [@themapleleaf](#): > > Until about the age of 13, I thought that GI Joe was a real outfit of the US military and not just an after-school cartoon. Before “G. I. Joe” was a cartoon, he was an action figure. And before that, “G. I. Joe” referred to a generic U.S. soldier. > **[G.I. Joe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Joe)** > > G.I. Joe is an American media franchise and a line of action figures owned and produced by the toy company Hasbro. The initial product offering represented four of the branches of the U.S. armed forces with the Action Soldier (U.S. Army), Action Sailor (U.S. Navy), Action Pilot (U.S. Air Force), Action Marine (U.S. Marine Corps) and later on, the Action Nurse. The name is derived from the usage of "G.I. Joe" for the generic U.S. soldier, itself derived from the more general term "G.I.".\[ The G.I.... ---
**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2022, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/211 "2022-01-01T20:17:33Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > I used to think that Germans were bad people. Not so hard to imagine, with all the stories about atrocities during WWII. For me, I knew my grandfather had fought against them. However, my stupid idea was that Germans were somehow “Germ-mans,” somehow related to germs. Perhaps a good reason to fight them. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2022, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/212 "2022-01-03T22:19:56Z")
I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before during the time I’ve been here, but when I was very young, like five or six years of age, I thought if you were watching TV and needed to turn it off, you could turn it on later and continue watching the same program right where you left off. This is embarrassing, but at around the same age I thought TV commercials were like public service announcements, because how else would we ever learn about these great new products? It’s not entirely nonsense from the perspective of a little kid, though. When you asked for specific toys around Christmastime, TV commercials were the new Sears Catalog! ---
**Author:** ![Mortimus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Mortimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mortimus)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2022, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/213 "2022-01-03T22:27:26Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I thought if you were watching TV and needed to turn it off, you could turn it on later and continue watching the same program right where you left off. Now you can actually do that if you have Roku or some other streaming service. Ain’t technology great? ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2022, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/214 "2022-01-03T22:34:28Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I thought if you were watching TV and needed to turn it off, you could turn it on later and continue watching the same program right where you left off. I remember thinking that about radio. ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2022, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/215 "2022-01-04T00:16:14Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I thought if you were watching TV and needed to turn it off, you could turn it on later and continue watching the same program right where you left off. > [@GuanoLad](#): > > I remember thinking that about radio. Well, it seemed radios ( and TV news ) seemed to have intuitive properties in movies and TV whereby characters will turn on a TV set or radio eagerly anticipating some very specific news ( that usually involved them in some way ) and said TV or radio would broadcast that info _excactly_ just as they turned it on. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2022, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/216 "2022-01-04T00:26:48Z")
I remember thinking that a TV commercial was an endorsement of that product by the station. I couldn’t figure out how a station could air commercials for competing products. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2022, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/217 "2022-01-04T00:33:26Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > I recall in fifth grade or so, I was also confused about sex. The mechanics of it. When I was around that same age and had just figured out that sex involved the penis going inside the vagina, but I hadn’t quite figured out that both urine and semen come out the urethra, and how ejaculation works and all that, I kind of wondered if you were supposed to urinate inside the woman’s vagina in order to deliver your sperm. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2022, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/218 "2022-01-04T00:41:01Z")
That reminds me. Back when I was a kid, it was convenient that networks only advertised their own programs, so if you were watching the Rockford Files, and saw an ad for The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, you didn’t have to note what channel it would be on - it would be on the same channel that Rockford was on. These days, it seems like every cable network has ads for programs on random other channels. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2022, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/219 "2022-01-04T01:44:56Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I thought if you were watching TV and needed to turn it off, you could turn it on later and continue watching the same program right where you left off. Well, if it was a soap opera, you could! ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2022, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/220 "2022-01-04T03:16:21Z")
Two years later, even. > [@WildaBeast](#): > > I hadn’t quite figured out that both urine and semen come out the urethra, and how ejaculation works and all that, I kind of wondered if you were supposed to urinate inside the woman’s vagina in order to deliver your sperm. I didn’t think that _but_ I worried I might get excited and accidentally pee in her ---
**Author:** ![mmmiiikkkeee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/edb3f5/32.png) [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/221 "2022-01-05T19:22:04Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Before “G. I. Joe” was a cartoon, he was an action figure. Hence Eddie Murphy’s delightful story of him and his brother playing with a G.I. Joe action figure in the bathtub as kids in the late 60’s. ---
**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/222 "2022-01-05T19:38:16Z")
> [@mmmiiikkkeee](#): > > G.I. Joe action figure Since we’re on the topic of toys, TV commercials from long ago, and action figures, I remember from the mid 1970’s an ad for…maybe it was G.I. Joe…boasting the doll had “con-fold grip” so the hands could grasp little toy guns or other G.I. Joe equipment. A mini-scene from my childhood memory that helped lock this in: The big sister of a friend of mine was examining a Lone Ranger action figure, and exclaimed “hey, this one has con-fold grip too!” Yeah, semi-hard rubber can be both bendy and stiff enough to resist a force, so it’s just not a big deal. But to our little-kid minds (7 for me and friend, 10 for the sister) it _was_ a big deal. Does anyone else remember this? I did a web search for this, but since it was before about Y2K, the current internet servers seemed to not know about it. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/223 "2022-01-05T19:40:27Z")
> [@Limmin](#): > > Does anyone else remember this? I did a web search for this, but since it was before about Y2K, the current internet servers seemed to not know about it. it’s not con-fold. It’s kung fu > **[Kung Fu Grip](https://gijoe.fandom.com/wiki/Kung_Fu_Grip)** > > The Kung Fu Grip was a mechanism used in G.I. Joe action figures starting from the Adventure Team series. The idea behind the Kung Fu Grip is that the soft rubber hands on the figures would allow them to hold their weapons better. For added fun, it... ---
**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/224 "2022-01-05T20:01:20Z")
Thanks! That explains why I couldn’t find it. 😉 I guess none of us kids were culturally aware enough to properly hear the correct term. We were ignorant of the existence of Kung Fu apparently. So…did you also have a G.I. Joe? ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/225 "2022-01-05T20:06:24Z")
> [@Limmin](#): > > So…did you also have a G.I. Joe? I don’t think I did, but I apparently remembered the commercials. Obviously, I haven’t thought about GI Joe’s grip for many decades, but your post brought it right up in the memory banks. I was more into Match Box and Hot Wheels cars. Speaking of stupid stuff, I don’t think I ever connected Match Box cars to the boxes matches came in. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2022, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/226 "2022-01-05T21:53:25Z")
The Kung Fu grip was actually invented for the UK adaptation of GI Joe, a largely identical mould known as Action Man. > **[Action Man | Gripping Hands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_Man#Gripping_Hands)** > > The initial releases had hands that were virtually identical to those of G.I. Joe. The hands were always an element of frustration, as observed by (Bill) William A.G. Pugh during setups for the annual toy fairs; he found it was hard to get them to really hold any of the accessories securely. Being of hard vinyl construction, glue had to be used to secure the accessories. As a result, gripping hands were the next feature to be introduced in 1973; the hard moulded hands of the original were repl [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317.md?page=12)