The reason those old films are in black and white is because that's what the world looked like before 1920. Then Pablo Picasso painted everything the colours they are now. There was a time in the early 1920s when all the grass was blue. But then he changed it because planes started crashing into football ovals.

My film history tutor told us that he still subconsciously believed that World War I was fought in black and white.

You remember my friend Danny who gave you that little Dalek toy? He's really Doctor Who. But you're not allowed to tell anyone.

Awwwww... Tell me you've said this one and you'll have made my day! lol

Your plush toys do come to life at night. Last night they at the neighbour's cat.

Nice twist. Adds to terror to their cutesy fantasies.

We had our 3 kids convinced they had an older sister called Nikki that we sent to England because we got bored with her.

One day back in 1998(?) we had a random advertising postcard turn up in our mail box.
It had a red double decker bus driving around Trafalgar Square and said something like "Dear Mum and Dad, Having a ball here in England. Blah blah. The only thing is everything is SO expensive here because of the VAT, that's like the GST and if Mr Howard wins the election...More blah blah Love Nikki

So the kids wanted to know who Nikki was - it was too easy a hit to leave alone :)

It took years to convince them she wasn't real.

Rowan, similarly, was told that he had an older brother named Henry, who was buried in the backyard because he was too naughty. I don't think he believed this for long, though.

I remember my mother telling me that some forms she was filling out were to have my sister and I sent to an orphanage. I would have been 5 or 6, my sister 3 years younger. We recently found out that she'd long ago forgotten that this ever happened, and had never told my father.

Kate's dad told them that the "Alarm" button in the lift would make it explode. And then he reached for it...

Great! I remember a story about Tiki's father, driving a big group of kids down steep windy roads to the beach, suddenly starting to pump his foot on the clutch and saying that the brakes had failed.

Not so much a lie, but a homily to confuse kids: one of my aunts used to respond when we asked for anything, "Them that ask don't get. Them that don't ask, don't want."

There's no way around that logic for a little kid.

So cruel!

The stuff inside fire extinguishers is made out of people the police catch lighting fires.

Fish often mistake childrens fingers for worms and will eat them.

If you don't wear socks the friction caused from your bare feet rubbing against your sneakers when you walk will make your feet explode.

Horror movies are re-enactments of actual events.

If a news reader cries on TV, they are taken out the back after the show and shot.

I wish the first one was true :D

I like the one where you tell them that the ad breaks on TV are so the presenters can go to the toilet. But if you change the channel while they're talking, they get shot by their bosses.

Or the one that Roald Dahl told, about how liquorice candy is made from cooked rats' blood.

And my favourite one is that if you rub enough red headed children together you can start a fire.
:P

Mental pictures of some manic getting hundreds of red-headed kids together in a locked room and telling them all to jump up and down.

Oh you are all evil. The worst I ever saw was a parent telling a child that they were only allowed to have somethign when it was on 'special'. When asked why, the parent responded, "Because you're special darling."
I don't think i could ever do that to my child ... but you never know.

That's the worst you've ever seen? Man, you don't get out much! :)

As one friend of mine said when I was visiting her and her daughter was being stubborn over food, "You pick your battles." Given that most kids well into their teens don't seem to get the concept that money doesn't simply appear in the bank account, telling a small child that may save a lot of repeated "Buy why can't I have it?" conversations.

I think that with parents there's a lot of fibs that just come out without thinking. I don't really like the idea of lying to my kids, but if I don't then they miss out on the little things that make the world that bit more magical - the tooth fairy, Easter bunny... and the complexity of the fib for explaining Father Christmas, and why I dress as St. Nick is going to be interesting in itself.

"Every year, when Santa is very busy, I'm one of the people he calls to help him out, but I have to look the part..."

And of course, I talk a lot of nonsense anyway, and make a lot of silly jokes, and kids can't tell which of that is true.

I was at a party once and a little boy came up and showed me his space gun. It had lights and speakers so I asked him what they all did and he said "Oh, it used to flash and make pew pew noises, but the batteries ran out and my dad says they don't make that kind of battery anymore". (Bog standard AAs).

That's one of my favs.

I had a raygun that I used to use to wake dad up. It vanished. I found out years later that it got buried when we had the sewerage pipes put in.

My brother told me there was a little person in the boom gates at railway crossings. There were also ones in the traffic lights who saw our car coming and changed them to red...

There was a thread on b3ta.com that had a whole great list of these - apparently the ice cream van one is used around the world.

I personally loved the one, though, where the parents told their son that every time he lied, a red light that only adults could see would flash 'lie' from his forehead. So every time he lied, he would put his hand over his forehead so they couldn't see the light...

That's fantastic about the red light!

I lie to my kids (usually for my own sanity) and they lie to me. I know it and sometimes (when it won't hurt anyone) I let them get away with it because I think it's good for their self-esteem.

My biggest lie to my kids: With the older three (but not the younger two) I used to employ the 'trolley sheriff' to help me when I was out shopping/in public/out Witnessing. I had three children under three and a half and needed to find ways to cope with toddlers. So the trolley sheriff was created. He would appear in the distance whenever a tantrum/ whining/ misbehaviour started. One mention of the trolley sheriff was enough to gain me long stretches of peace.
One day, when I was out shopping, Cassie, then 3 1/2, threw herself on the ground and threw a screaming fit, to the point where several spectators formed a circle around her. I was heavily pregnant with Blake (about 8 months)and too big and tired to deal with this. I knew that if I smacked her I'd have half the crowd against me and if I ignored it I'd have the other half against me.
So, I went down onto my knees and whispered "Cassandra, the trolley sheriff is coming."
Cassie shut her mouth mid scream, jumped to my feet and held my hand tight.
And the crowd applauded me.
I never told the children what the trolley sheriff would do if he caught them. It was enough to know that such a being existed and the tone was obviously threat enough.
The trolley sheriff disappeared in time because their behaviour settled down. There was no explanation, just a letting go. I don't use him with the younger two because they aren't so close together in age so they don't present quite the same problems.