Back in the day before the internet, gamefaqs, and the other gaming sites, all of my information came from word of mouth and gaming magazines. In order to find glitches and codes, my friends and I would sit around for hours playing games and reading mags. The biggest gaming legend at the time was the mysterious "4th whistle" in SMB3.
I remember some kid at elementry school saying that he had it. We asked him to prove it and in typical elementry school fashion, he made up some bullshit story. We all went home trying to duplicate it but alas, it was all for naught. We eventually called him out on his bluff but we were all convinced that there was a 4th whistle.
Every fucking day after school, we would all try to find it. And we did everything. Glitched the game, used the P-Wing in every level, used the hammer suit every chance we got, used the hammer on the map at random areas. Nothing. Eventually we gave up but damn, trying to find that 4th whistle owned my soul.
Of course, being an avid SF gamer, the Shen Long trick pissed me off as well. It was impossible to do. When I found out it was fake...