Ripley's Believe It or Not! is a comic strip featuring unusual, hard-to-believe facts from around the world. The cartoon was conceived and drawn by Robert Ripley. It later became a radio program, a television show, a chain of museums, and the subject of a pinball game.
Robert Ripley
Robert Leroy Ripley (1890-1949) was a cartoonist who created the Believe It or Not! series, and an entrepreneur. He was an aspiring professional baseball player until he was injured in 1913, the same year his first cartoon appeared in a newspaper.
Chronology
- 1890 Born in Santa Rosa, California on Christmas Day
- 1901 Receives his formal education
- 1906 Becomes a semi-pro in baseball, and sold his first artwork
- 1908 Quits baseball briefly to support mother, sells 1st cartoon to Life magazine
- 1909 Moves from San Francisco Bulletin to Chronicle
- 1912 Created his last drawing for Chronicle, he moved to New York that winter
- 1913 January 2, First comic for the globe
- 1913 Tries out for New York Giants but injury ends his baseball hopes
- 1914 Takes his first trip to Europe
- 1918 December 19, publishes Champs and Chumps in New York Globe
- 1919 Marries
- 1920 Takes his first solo trip to Europe, covered Antwerp, Belgium’s Olympics
- 1922 December 3, takes first trip around the world, writes in his travel journal in installments
- 1923 April 7, returns to U.S., hires researcher and linguist Norbert Pearlroth
- 1923 Globe replaced by New York Post
- 1925 Writes travel journal, Handball Guide
- 1926 Becomes New York handball champion, writes book on "Boxing Score"
- 1929 July 9, William Randolph Hearst's King Features Syndicate features Believe It or Not! in 17 papers worldwide
- 1930 Begins a 14 year run on radio and a 19 year association with show producer Doug Storer, Hearst funds Ripley's travel 201 countries by 1940, on location live radio from underwater, the sky, caves, snake pits and foreign countries
- 1931 Releases movie shorts for Vitaphone, second book of Believe it or Not! released
- 1932 Takes trip to the Far East
- 1933 First Odditorium opens in Chicago
- 1934 First radio show broadcast simultaneously around world, purchases 28-room home in Mamaroneck, New York
- 1935 Odditorium in San Diego opens
- 1936 Odditorium in Dallas opens, Ripley voted most popular man in America
- 1937 Odditorium in Cleveland opens, First published Charles Schulz drawing appears in Believe it or Not!
- 1939 Odditoriums open in San Francisco and New York City, receives honorary degree from Dartmouth College
- 1940 Purchases second home, a 13-room Manhattan apartment, receives two more honorary degrees
- 1940-1945 Stops foreign travel and his "Seeing America First" radio shows to do some World War II charity work
- 1946 Purchases a Chinese junk, the Mon Lei
- 1947 Purchases his third home at Hi Mount, Florida
- 1948 TV show pilot airs, 30th anniversary of Believe it or Not! celebrated at a New York costume party
- 1949 First TV show airs, Ripley dies May 27 after collapsing on the set of his 13th weekly show, auction of his estate purchased by John Arthur
Comic strip
Originally involving sports feats, Ripley first called the strip Champs & Chumps, but he retitled it less than a year later as it began to focus less on sports.
It premiered on December 19, 1918 in the New York Globe and continued in other hands after Ripley's death in 1949.
At the peak of its popularity, the cartoon feature was being read by about 80 million readers, and during the first three weeks of May 1932 alone, Ripley received over two million pieces of fan mail.
Dozens of paperback editions reprinting the comic strip have been published over the decades. There have also been strips and books that have borrowed the Ripley format, such as It Happened in Canada. Recent Ripley's Believe or Not books containing new material have mostly done away with comic art in favor of photographs.
Believe It or Not! was the first appearance of the creator of "Peanuts", Charles Schultz. Schultz submitted an entry that claimed his dog "Spike", the inspiration for Snoopy, was "a hunting dog who eats pins, tacks and razor blades.". Schultz drew the image of his dog himself.
Radio program
to be written
Apparently broadcast the world's first radio show worldwide.
TV programs
To date, there have been at least four television series based upon the comic strip.
- The first series, entitled simply Believe it or Not, was hosted by Robert L. Ripley himself and first aired in 1949. Ripley died of a heart attack during the filming of the 13th episode and was replaced as host by Robert St. John. Prior to the TV series, Ripley had hosted a series of Believe it or Not! theatrical short films dating back to the 1930s.
- An animated series, Ripley's Believe it or Not!, was produced in 1999 and followed the adventures of "Michael Ripley", Robert Ripley's nephew.
- The most recent series based upon the comic strip, once again titled Ripley's Believe it or Not! also debuted in 1999 on TBS. Hosted by actor Dean Cain, the series takes a slightly more sensationalistic approach to its subject matter, often finding excuses to show scantily clad women in-between coverage of legitimate oddities from the Ripley archives. It has also been criticized for using subtitles when interviewing British people.
Museums
As of August, 2004, there are 27 Ripley's Believe It or Not! Odditoriums around the world. Odditoriums, in the spirit of Ripley's Believe It or Not!, are often more than simple museums cluttered with curiosities. Some include theatres and arcades, such as the one in Gatlinburg, Tennessee which features a motion theatre. Others are constructed oddly themselves, such as the Orlando, Florida Odditorium which is built off-level. The first one was opened in Chicago in 1933.
Hong Kong
The Hong Kong Odditorium is located in the second and third floor of the Peak Tower. There are eleven different galleries in it.
- Robert Ripley
- Sharks
- Primitive & Jungle
- Chamber of Tortures
- Bathing Beauty
- Make-a-face
- Animal and Human Oddities
- Dangerous Driver
- Ripley's Adventures
- Interactive Fun Zone
- Rotating Tunnel
Apart from the special galleries, it contains a lot of special and valuable exhibits, which make many tourists feel surprised after seeing them.
Pinball game
There is a pinball game based on the various Ripley's Believe It or Not! subject matter.
External links
