Mysql 5.0.3 acepta varchars de mas de 255 caracteres

Para los que seguían pensando lo contrario:

Values in VARCHAR columns are variable-length strings. The length can be specified as a value from 0 to 255 before MySQL 5.0.3, and 0 to 65,535 in 5.0.3 and later versions.

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/char.html