Ripley's Believe It or Not!

Ripley's Believe It or Not! is an American franchise founded by Robert Ripley, which deals with bizarre events and items so strange and unusual that readers might question the claims. Originally a newspaper panel, the Believe It or Not feature proved popular and was later adapted into a wide variety of formats, including radio, film, television, comic books, a chain of museums, and a book-series.

The Ripley collection includes 20,000 photographs, 30,000 artifacts and more than 100,000 cartoon panels. With 80-plus attractions, the Orlando, Florida-based Ripley Entertainment, Inc. (a division of the Jim Pattison Group) hosts more than 12 million guests annually. Ripley Entertainment's publishing and broadcast divisions oversee a number of projects, including the syndicated TV series, the newspaper cartoon panel, books, posters, and games.

Syndicated feature panel

Ripley called his cartoon feature (originally involving sports feats) Champs and Chumps when it premiered on December 19, 1918 in The New York Globe. He began adding items unrelated to sports and in October 1919, he changed the title to Believe It or Not. When the Globe folded in 1923, he moved to the New York Evening Post. In 1924, the panel began being syndicated by Associated Newspapers[2] (formed as part of a cooperative that had included the Globe). That same year, Ripley hired Norbert Pearlroth as his researcher, and Pearlroth spent the next 52 years of his life in the New York Public Library, working ten hours a day and six days a week in order to find unusual facts for Ripley.[3]

Other writers and researchers included Lester Byck. In 1930, Ripley moved to the New York American and was picked up by the King Features Syndicate, being quickly syndicated on an international basis.[4]

Ripley died in 1949; those working on the syndicated newspaper panel after his death included Paul Frehm (1938–1978; he became the full-time artist in 1949), and his brother Walter Frehm (1948–1989); Walter worked part-time with his brother Paul and became a full-time Ripley artist from 1978 to 1989. Others who assisted included Clem Gretter (1941–1949), Bob Clarke (1943–1944), Joe Campbell (1946–1956), Art Sloggatt (1971–1975), Carl Dorese, and Stan Randall. Paul Frehm won the National Cartoonists Society's Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award for 1976 for his work on the series. Clarke later created parodies of Believe It or Not! for Mad, as did Wally Wood and Ernie Kovacs, who also did a recurring satire called "Strangely Believe It!" on his TV programs. Other strips and books borrowed the Ripley design and format, such as Ralph Graczak's Our Own Oddities, John Hix's Strange as It Seems, and Gordon Johnston's It Happened in Canada. Don Wimmer took up the panel from 1989 to 2004.[5] John Graziano from 2005 to 2021.[6] The current artist is Kieran Castaño, who is supported by the Ripley's Research Team.[7]

At the peak of its popularity, the syndicated feature was read daily by about 80 million readers; during the first three weeks of May 1932 alone, Ripley received over two million pieces of fan mail. Dozens of paperback editions reprinting the newspaper panels have been published over the decades. Recent Ripley's Believe It or Not! books containing new material have supplemented illustrations with photographs.

Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz's first publication of artwork was published by Ripley. It was a cartoon claiming his dog Spike was "a hunting dog who eats pins, tacks, screws, nails and razor blades".[8] The dog would later became the model for Snoopy.[9]

Books

Some notable books include:

A series of paperback books containing annotated sketches from the newspaper feature:

Ripley Entertainment produces a range of books featuring unusual facts, news stories and photographs. In 2004, Ripley Entertainment founded Ripley Publishing Ltd, based in the United Kingdom, to publish new Believe It or Not titles.[10] The company produces the New York Times bestselling Ripley's Believe It or Not! Annuals, the children's fiction series Ripley's RBI, an educational series called the Ripley's Twists, the Ripley's Believe It or Not! Special Edition in conjunction with Scholastic USA and a number of other titles.[11][12][13] At the height of his popularity, Robert Ripley

Comic books

In 1953, Harvey Comics published the first Ripley's Believe It or Not! comic book, titled ''Ripley's Believe It or Not! Magazine'' and lasted for four issues until March 1954.[17]

From June 1965 until February 1980, Gold Key Comics published the second Ripley's Believe It or Not! comic book, which lasted for 94 issues.[18][19] George Wilson drew several covers for the comic book series.[20][21]

In 2002, Dark Horse Comics published the third Ripley's Believe It or Not! comic book, written by Haden Blackman, which lasted for three issues and was later collected in a trade paperback published by Dark Horse in May 2003, entitled Ripley's Believe It or Not! (ISBN 1-56971-909-8)[22]

Radio

On April 14, 1930, Ripley brought Believe It or Not to radio, the first of several series heard on NBC, CBS and the Mutual Broadcasting System.[25] As noted by the website Ripley On Radio, Ripley's broadcasts varied in length from 15 minutes to 30 minutes and aired in multiple different formats. When Ripley's 1930 debut on The Collier Hour brought a strong listener reaction, he was given a Monday night NBC series beginning April 14, 1930, followed by a 1931–32 series airing twice a week. After his strange stories were dramatized on NBC's Saturday Party, Ripley was the host of The Baker's Broadcast from 1935 to 1937. He was scheduled in several different 1937–38 NBC timeslots and then took to the road with popular remote broadcasts. See America First with Bob Ripley (1938–40) on CBS expanded geographically into See All the Americas, a 1942 program with Latin music. In 1944, he was heard five nights a week on Mutual in shows with an emphasis on World War II. Romance, Rhythm and Ripley aired on CBS in 1945, followed by Pages from Robert L. Ripley's Radio Scrapbook (1947–48).

Robert Ripley is known for several radio firsts. He was the first to broadcast nationwide on a radio network from mid-ocean and he also participated in the first broadcast from Buenos Aires to New York City. Assisted by a corps of translators, he was the first to broadcast to every nation in the world simultaneously.[26]

Films, television, Internet, and computer game

The newspaper feature has been adapted into more than a few films and TV shows.

Museums ("Odditoriums")

When Ripley first displayed his collection to the public at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933, it was labeled Ripley's Odditorium and attracted over two million visitors during the run of the fair (in an apparent promotional gimmick, beds were provided in the Odditorium for people who "fainted" daily). That successful exhibition led to trailer shows across the country during the 1930s and his collections were exhibited at a number of major fairs and expositions, including San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas, and Cleveland. In New York City, the famed Times Square exhibit opened in 1939 on Broadway. In 1950, a year after Ripley's death, the first permanent Odditorium opened in St. Augustine, Florida.[44] The Odditorium is housed in the Castle Warden, built in 1888 by an associate of Henry Flagler, President of the Florida East Coast Railway.[45]

As of May 2023, there are 28 Ripley's Believe It or Not! Odditoriums around the world. Odditoriums (in the spirit of Believe It or Not!) are often more than simple museums cluttered with curiosities. Some include theaters and arcades, such as the ones in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. Others are constructed oddly, such as the Orlando, Florida, Odditorium which is built off-level as if the building is sinking (a commemoration of a sinkhole that opened on the site while construction was in progress).

Inaccuracies

Authorities at the company insist that they thoroughly investigate everything and ensure their accuracy before they publish their research. This is emphasized on its television show, where they often say "If you see it on Ripley's, you can bet that it's real". However, two claims appearing in their books have been dubbed "myths" by the Discovery Channel television show MythBusters. One claim which had previously appeared in Ripley's books, concerning an "accidental" execution of 1,200 Turkish prisoners when something uttered by Napoleon Bonaparte was misunderstood, has had its accuracy challenged by Snopes.[63]

Ripley's has reported the urban legend of Frank Tower – an individual who was supposed to have survived the sinkings of the RMS Titanic, RMS Empress of Ireland, and RMS Lusitania – as being factual, but this story has been debunked by several sources.[64][65]

In popular culture

Warner Bros. Cartoons parodied the franchise in a 1939 Merrie Melodies cartoon Believe It Or Else.

The 2013 video game Grand Theft Auto V features a business called Bishop's WTF on Vinewood Boulevard, based on the Ripley's located on Hollywood Boulevard.[68] The name is a reference to the Alien franchise, specifically Ellen Ripley's ally Bishop.

In the 1999 movie The Iron Giant there is a scene where the film's protagonist Hogarth is in the woods pondering what to do with the giant robot. At which point, he says "So we can't call Ripley's Believe It or Not, because… they wouldn't believe it."

In Season 35, Episode 12 of Saturday Night Live, an SNL Digital Short called Laser Cats 5 was featured which parodies various James Cameron films, including Aliens. Sigourney Weaver makes an appearance in the short as her character Ellen Ripley and a throwaway line is used which references Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

See also

• Strange as It Seems, a rival publication
• Museum of Jurassic Technology, an oddities museum

External links

• Inventory of the Doug and Hazel Anderson Storer Collection, 1920s–2003, in the Southern Historical Collection, UNC-Chapel Hill
• National Cartoonist Society Award, 1976: Paul Frehm
• Ripley's Believe It or Not! at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on January 19, 2017.
• Ripley On Radio