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Weird NewsREAL LAW OR INTERNET LAW?

Alabama ice cream cone law: real or internet?

PBS NewsHour traces the ice cream cone law to a former Kentucky rule, not Alabama; the horse-thief story is an urban legend.

On air: Gloria Vance and Dale Bearman on BBN After Hours
Published
Photo: Carol M. Highsmith · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons · altered by BBN
▶ As it aired · Weird News

Watch it as it aired: Gloria Vance and Dale Bearman on this story, from BBN After Hours at 2:16 AM ET. Cartoon anchors, real headline: the facts are pbs.org's, the jokes are ours.

Photo: Alabama
Photo: Carol M. Highsmith · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons · altered by BBN

At a glance

The real story

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What BBN said about it

  1. Gloria Vance · World News AnchorLaw one, from Alabama: you may not carry an ice cream cone in your back pocket.

  2. Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorReal. Warm cream, tight trousers, a long walk home. I've lived that. Not in Alabama, but I've lived it.

  3. Gloria Vance · World News AnchorInternet. PBS NewsHour says it was never on the books in Alabama, and the horse-thief story is an urban legend.

  4. Gloria Vance · World News AnchorA version was once on the books in Kentucky, not Alabama.

  5. Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorKentucky. So I was right about the cone and wrong about the state. I'll take it.

  6. Gloria Vance · World News AnchorYou were wrong about the cone. Law two, Gainesville, Georgia: it is illegal to eat chicken with a fork.

  7. Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorInternet. If a town bans the fork, the tender is next, and then you're just a man holding a chicken in the street.

  8. Gloria Vance · World News AnchorReal. Per Wikipedia, it's illegal to eat chicken tenders with a fork in Gainesville. It began as a publicity stunt.

  9. Gloria Vance · World News AnchorGainesville calls itself the Poultry Capital of the World. Nobody has been arrested.

  10. Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorA real law, and it's about tenders.

  11. Gloria Vance · World News AnchorLaw three, United Kingdom: every swan is supposedly the monarch's property, and harming one is treated as treason.

  12. Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorReal. I've always said the swans were watching us.

  13. Gloria Vance · World News AnchorInternet. The King can claim unmarked mute swans in open water, mainly on stretches of the Thames. The treason part has no source.

  14. Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorGloria, what's the worst thing you've ever seen?

  15. Gloria Vance · World News AnchorI won't say.

  16. Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorEven better. One right, two wrong, and a state I got wrong. I rule this entire court INTERNET.

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