Why would Growl and Tail Whip fail in Gen 2?

I’m playing Gold on Virtual Console for my first time, and I notice that for some reason Growl and Tail Whip fail a lot when the opposing Pokemon uses it. Not miss, just fail. One time it happened when I was switching in, but the others were just normal turns.

Edit:A similar thing also happened where a Poliwag used Hypnosis on my Hoothoot immediately after it switched in. The move said it didn’t affect Hoothoot, then the next turn Poliwag used Hypnosis again on the same Pokemon and it hit. I’m starting to think it might just be using different text boxes to represent the move missing. Hypnosis has 60% accuracy and according to many semi-reliable sources, there is a 1/4 chance for a status move used by an opponent in Gen 1 and 2 to miss.

Furthermore, this question is not a dupe, as the question that this may be a duplicate of has a questionable answer. Read comments below if you are confused.

Edit 2

Just in a battle Onix vs. Lickitung. Onix is my Pokemon. Onix attempted to use Screech twice. It failed both times. Third turn it works. There was nothing that would have prevented me from using Screech other than accuracy.

Becoming more convinced of the accuracy thing.

Pleaselog inorregisterto add a comment.

In Gen 2, moves selected by an AI have a 25% (64/256) chance to miss.

Source: Several websites like Twitter, gameFAQs which are normally unreliable sources but the answer seems to be the same each time

this, andthishave the same answer as well