My mother swears by the fact that the original superman cartoon was canceled because dozen of kids thought that gravity would have no effect on them if they put on a cape and jumped out the window. “I have a hard time believing that” comments were replied to with “It’s true. Guarantied.”
I tried looking it up on snopes but I can’t find any reference to this. I assume it’s bogus, but without any info either way, I can’t go back to my mother and show her something.
I can’t provide any cite for this, but I do know of an incident of this type that happened when I was in kindergarden. This was in Germany, just outside Frankfort, in 1977. A kid who lived in our building tied a red towel around his neck and jumped off of the the top floor. It was too long ago for me to remember any more details than that, but I know that it wasn’t just an urban legend.
Did it lead to the cancellation of the Superman cartoon? No idea. But the kid really jumped.
I can tell you first-hand of a couple kids jumping of garage roofs with their capes (or red towel in one case) and breaking a bone or two. About the show being cancelled because of that, I don not know.
I can add to the discussion but not definitively answer. In an Article on another subject SNOPES notes the stories about kids deaths and calls them “apocryphal” and says they were cirulating for several years in the late 50’s - but although it throws the stink-eye at them, it doesn’t discount them - making no mention of the Cartoon makes me lean towrad Not true - but I can’t cite …
did your kid die** Kizarvexius ** ? You could let SNOPES know …
I jumped off the high end of the porch and sprained my ankle in my Batman cape. I don’t recall anyone blaming TV for the incident.
That’s because Batman can’t fly.
Which “cartoon” are you talking about? Are you referring to the 1950’s TV show (not a cartoon)? I watched that when I was a kid, and yes, there were apocryphal stories about kids killing/injuring themselves by thinking they could fly, but the series was cancelled because George Reeves, the actor who played Superman, committed suicide.
I don’t know if your mother is correct, but in 1972 my 6 year-old brother did, in fact, use a towel as a cape when he jumped off the second-floor of some motel we were staying in at Daytona Beach. Fortunately for him he just spained his ankle. And it was after he saw some Superman thing on TV.
I remember because I egged him on. 
I remember people saying the same thing about The Six-Million Dollar Man in the 1970s.
I remember when the incident happened, and I remember my older sister talking about it for years afterwards – she used it as a real-life example in a speech she delivered many times on the speech & debate circuit. And I’m pretty sure that the kid died, at least according to her speech. But without any evidence to back it up, I think it belongs strictly in the realm of unprovable anecdote.
I had a teacher in high school who told a story while teaching a lesson on genetics. He said that some people have ‘loose’ ear lobes, and some people’s ear lobes are ‘attached’. He said he has one of each, and showed us.
The actual story was that he was playing Superman when he was a kid. He’d knotted a towel around his neck to serve as a cape. Naturally, Superman had to have a camp fire. The ‘cape’ caught fire and he couldn’t undo his knot, and one of his ear lobes was burned off.
In Batman Returns , he falls with style…
That is because he was prepared
True story - there is an epsode of $6 MDM where Steve Austin rescues someone from a prison by bending some bars. (IIRC it was a man being held as a POW by a Japanese man who didn’t believe the war was over.) The prisoner asks how Steve did it and he responded “I take my vitamins” (or something to that effect.) I immediately went and ate half a jar of Flintstones vitamins. Mom found me and made me throw up by feeding me a raw egg and forcing her finger down my throat.
And I seem so bright. 
It had been renewed and this may have contributed to Reeves’ suicidal depression; going back to a job he’d come to have a serious love/hate thing for and which had typecast him out of other acting jobs.
I jumped off the top bunk with a towel around my throat. (just for the record kiddies I did not fly, dropped like a rock I did) When you add in what went on in the 60’s and 70’s it surprises me that anyone born in the 50’s survived to reproduce, let alone tell the tale.
I’m curious about the fact that we hear stories of kids emulating Superman, but not Peter Pan. Instead of being superhuman, they just had to “think lovely thoughts.”
I used to jump off the shed roof, not with a towel around my neck, but holding a sheet as a parachute. I was fine. I realised the parachute wasn’t doing anything and later on jumped without it.
It would only harm the stupid,thus improving the gene pool…