Collected privately in an empty hallway while his friends played a horror game in the other room, which he returned to after the interview. The informant mentioned this myth while I was interviewing him about another video game myth.
The informant, as a child around 7 to 9, had unlimited Internet access, and spent much of his time on forums looking for cheat codes. He was the one who introduced his peers to Pokemon, as well as the supposed “cheat codes” within it.
Informant: “Yeah so I know the 99 master ball thing under the, um, under the truck. So the idea was that… like, you know this was back in, like, the age when everyone had all the cheat code websites and, you know, people were talking on the playground and sharing, like, ‘Oh if you do this then you get this, you can unlock, you know, Sonic in… in, you know, you know, Super Smash Bros Melee if you beat the game 500 times and don’t die’ and so on. So like, you know, I can see how they spread. But yeah, like, there was this rumor spread that you could, you could unlock, you could get 100 master balls in which – There was only one in the game; you couldn’t find them any other way unless you won. I don’t know if they had the, the ticket thing, like the lottery, um, if you – I forget what you exactly have to do, I think you use, like, Strength on the truck in a certain circumstance or something. And then you unlock, you know, you get the master balls.”
Interviewer: “Was it real?”
Informant: “Not, it’s not real.”
Interviewer: “Who’d you hear that from?”
Informant: “I… I think… I don’t know where, I think it was, like, I read it on Cheat Code Central when I was looking through the cheat list. And of course Pokemon doesn’t have any cheats, so there’s nothing on the list. Though obviously someone had put that in there, cause they were like, ‘Oh yeah you can do it.’ I was like, I think if you got all three red G’s and you went to this special spot, then you would unlock something in, like, Pokemon Ruby, I forgot what it was.”
Interviewer: “How old were you?”
Informant: “My first Pokemon game was Pokemon Ruby, and that came out in, like, 2006? I don’t know when it came out. No, it was 2003, I think. So I got it around then, so I would’ve been… I was born in ‘96, so that would’ve been, I would’ve been, like, 7, 8? 9?”
Interviewer: “Anything else to add?”
Informant: “I mean, I re- I remember, um, trying a bunch of those. I think, [sighs], I think it was the red G’s. I’m not sure if I’m confusing it with the actual method to unlock them, cause that was weird enough as it was; It was, like, you had to read, like, the braille and then you had to, like, go through all these stages and find these specific Pokemon and stuff. And I remember, I think there was something in those cheat codes I actually did try, cause I was a kid. And it didn’t work, so me and my sister were very disappointed, cause we played it together.”
This informant has some beliefs that differ from other accounts of the truck in Pokemon. First of all, he claims that the truck has to do with master balls, not Mew. Secondly, he does not name Pokemon Red, but only describes a different secret in Pokemon Ruby.