The promise: You could impose your will on anyone you pleased and get them to do whatever you wanted -- perfect when your parents or your little brothers and sisters get on your nerves. What they gave you was the ultimate guide to mastering hypnotism, complete with 24 photographs to show you how it's done. Plus, so you could practice on your friends and family, you'd also receive a bonus hypno-coin with a hypnotic swirl that was bound to put anyone in a trance.

The Truth: You'd try to hypnotize your friends with the hypno-coin and either nothing would happen or your friends would fake being hypnotized for the laughs and try to prove that your being a sucker doesn't stop with sending away for that cheap plastic disc with a swirl on it.