Robert L. Ripley
Biography: Robert L. Ripley (December 25, 1890 – May 27, 1949) was an American cartoonist, entrepreneur, and amateur anthropologist who is known for creating the Ripley's Believe It or Not! newspaper panel series, radio show, and television show which feature odd facts from around the world. Subjects covered in Ripley's cartoons and text ranged from sports feats to little-known facts about unusual and exotic sites. But what ensured the concept's popularity may have been that he also included items submitted by readers, who supplied photographs of a wide variety of small-town American trivia ranging from unusually shaped vegetables to oddly marked domestic animals, all documented by photographs and then depicted by his drawings. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Place of Birth: Not available
Birthday: December 25, 1890
Deathday: May 27, 1949
Popularity:
Known For
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #6
1932-02-27
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #6
Overview: Robert Ripley draws and shows movies to train passengers. Vitaphone No. 1346.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-02-27
Popularity:
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #4
1931-12-26
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #4
Overview: Billy falls asleep and dreams Robert L. Ripley takes him on a tour of Believe-It-or-Not land to see many oddities. Vitaphone No. 1320.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-12-26
Popularity:
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #7
1932-03-26
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #7
Overview: Robert Ripley gives a show aboard a luxury liner at sea, starting with drawings discussing the origin of the "fathom" and Christopher Columbus being banished from America. Vitaphone No. 1361.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-03-26
Popularity:
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #8
1932-04-16
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #8
Overview: Robert Ripley presents a well-dressed cocktail party an assortment of drawings and film clips showing the world's youngest parents and the largest bible. Vitaphone No. 1362.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-04-16
Popularity:
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #5
1932-01-30
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #5
Overview: Robert Ripley shows a pretty blond a shrunken head and an iron execution chamber. Vitaphone No. 1336.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-01-30
Popularity:
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #10
1932-05-14
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #10
Overview: This omnibus of film clips include a Savanna golf course made from Civil War trenches, wooden Indians used ourside cigar stores, an American Indian artist from South Dakota who paints upside down, the smallest residence house, a Bronx River statue with mysterious Civil War origins, the Ocean Grove community in New Jersey that closes on Sundays and a futuristic automated parking garage. Vitaphone No. 1364.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-05-14
Popularity:
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #9
1932-04-30
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #9
Overview: In this short film, Robert L. Ripley introduces narrator Leo Donnelly who presents various "Believe It or Not" oddities from around the world as gathered by Ripley. Segments include a NYC clothier that caters to very large men and circus elephant grooming. Vitaphone No. 1363.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-04-30
Popularity:
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #2
1931-10-24
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #2
Overview: Ripley shows an aged Japanese statesman, a strange fish with legs, the 'Rubaiyat' in a finger ring, how a house of cards is torn up, and a giant typewriter in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Vitaphone No. 1294.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-10-24
Popularity:
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #3
1931-11-21
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #3
Overview: This entry in the series criss-crosses America to find various curiosities. Among them are a church in Nebraska made of bales of hay; a duck with four legs that lives with its owner in Flint, Michigan; a 128-year-old former slave who lives in Holly Springs, Mississippi, with her 100-year-old daughter; and, in a cemetery in Mayfield, Kentucky, a family plot wherein the deceased members are memorialized with life-size statues, including the patriarch's horse and other family pets. Vitaphone No. 1304.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-11-21
Popularity:
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #11
1932-06-11
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #11
Overview: This entry of the series does not feature Robert Ripley, who is away gathering material on his tours. Leo Donnelly narrates various odds and ends like a church service held on a river in boats, one of the largest sculptures in the world, sand art in bottles and a man who pulls cars with his hair. This episode also has a greater amount of "critter" material: chickens learn to be aquatic thanks to a training duck, another hen adopts puppies as her own, the Australian platypus is discussed and a motorized blacksmith and we see a horse with double-hoof. Vitaphone No. 1410.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-06-11
Popularity:
Believe It or Not #1
1930-04-30
Believe It or Not #1
Overview: Robert L. Ripley first shows the very first cartoon of his, published in newspapers 8 years earlier. He then proceeds with various oddities, first introducing a woman who can read aloud 8 words a second. He demonstrates this by giving her a 200-word tract she reads in 24 seconds. Next a woman telephones to question his assertion that you can walk through a hole in a cigarette paper, but he demonstrates how when she arrives. Other oddities follow. Vitaphone No. 1005.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1930-04-30
Popularity:
Believe It or Not #4
1930-09-04
Believe It or Not #4
Overview: At the request of a television experimenter who needed items to broadcast, Robert L. Ripley states unsubstantiated oddities including that a Spanish lady had her husband's portrait tattooed on her tongue as penance for nagging him to death. He also shows a house and the blind man who built it by himself in Wayne, New Jersey. The longest word in the world (184 letters, from a work by Aristophanes), is written on a blackboard and pronounced and translated by a professor....
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1930-09-04
Popularity:
Believe It or Not #2
1930-06-11
Believe It or Not #2
Overview: The second entry in the Believe It or Not series of shorts begins with Robert Ripley in his office sorting his mail. At the time he received about one million pieces of mail per year, more than any other individual. He shows the audience several of the more oddly addressed envelopes. These include one addressed in Morse code; one in Hebrew, one using the naval flag code; and one with a small tear to the left of a picture of Robert E. Lee (i.e., "Rip + Lee" = Ripley). A U.S. marshal then enters the office and arrests Ripley. Vitaphone No. 1038.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1930-06-11
Popularity:
Believe It or Not #5
1930-09-11
Believe It or Not #5
Overview: At a charity bazaar, Ripley settles a thousand dollar bet by producing man who has not slept in 75 years.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1930-09-11
Popularity:
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #12
1932-07-09
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #12
Overview: In Robert L. Ripley's absence, Leo Donnelly acts as the guide to the unusual from around the world. A group of people in the Philippines are moving a house, foundation and all, six miles, by carrying it on their backs. A one-armed boat builder demonstrates the water crafts he has devised for his disability. A junk in China propelled by treadmill propeller. Dwarf trees in Japan, some as old as 700 years. Also in Japan, chickens are shown with tail feathers measuring up to twenty-five feet in length. A sun dial in Manila is the world's largest at 30 feet in height and 65 feet in length. A group of church goers in Luxembourg are dancing as a ritual toward good health. Livestock with unusual physical attributes are shown. Tree limbs are displayed in Tacoma, Washington that form an alphabet. The world's largest collection of the smallest books. And celebrity footprints displayed outside of Grauman's Chinese Theater. Vitaphone No. 1427.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1932-07-09
Popularity:
Believe It or Not #10
1931-07-05
Believe It or Not #10
Overview: This entry in the Believe It or Not series finds Mr. Ripley aboard a U.S. naval ship speaking to a group of sailors. The film he shows them includes items on a Mr. Curt Thompson, a blind telephone operator, and John R. Voorhees, who, at age 102, has voted 81 times since his 21st birthday. The finale is a demonstration of skill by Otto Reiselt, the three-cushion billiards champion.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-07-05
Popularity:
Believe It or Not #9
1931-05-02
Believe It or Not #9
Overview: Robert L. Ripley presents various oddities to members of the Believe-It-or-Not Club.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-05-02
Popularity:
Believe It or Not #11
1931-07-12
Believe It or Not #11
Overview: In this entry, passengers enter a mockup of an airplane. During the flight, Robert Ripley shows the "passengers" several oddities across the United States. They include the town with the smallest population (of one) in the 1930 census, a father and son who can rest their shoulders on their chest, and an armless trombone player who uses his foot to move the instrument's slide.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-07-12
Popularity:
Believe It or Not #7
1931-01-05
Believe It or Not #7
Overview: Another entry in Robert L. Ripley's series. This time we also get to see Dan Edwards, the most decorated U.S. Veteran who is also missing a hand. For some reason we are introduced to another man missing a hand and then Ripley gets into the "believe it or not" stories. Included here is a woman married twelve times before her sixteenth birthday, a King who was married to a woman for twenty-eight years and only saw her twice; once when they were married and the other when she died.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-01-05
Popularity:
Believe It or Not #12
1931-09-01
Believe It or Not #12
Overview: Traveling to North Africa, Ripley offers views of The Meeting Place of the Dead in Morocco, a jail for nagging wives, a village with houses made of tin cans, and a sultan with many wives and children.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-09-01
Popularity:
Believe It or Not #3
1930-08-24
Believe It or Not #3
Overview: Reporters interview Ripley about his world travels. Vitaphone No. 1053.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1930-08-24
Popularity:
Believe It or Not #8
1931-02-20
Believe It or Not #8
Overview: Ripley shows a chair of growing trees, the narrowest street in the world, a city of wine cask dwellers and a bungalow of 144 rooms.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-02-20
Popularity:
Believe It or Not #6
1931-01-05
Believe It or Not #6
Overview: Ripley shows unusual athletic feats, a boy born with "clock" eyes, and a blind French monk who invented navigation laws.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-01-05
Popularity:
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #1
1931-09-26
Believe It or Not (Second Series) #1
Overview: This first entry in the "Believe It Or Not" series of shorts visits northern Africa. Included are a look at the Tuareg people of the Sahara Desert, a waterfall whose under-surface builds up because of lime deposits, a clock that strikes 13, and the Tree of Abraham, estimated to be 3500 years old. Vitaphone No. 1282.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-09-26
Popularity:
Acquitted by the Sea
1940-09-27
Acquitted by the Sea
Overview: A Ripley's Believe It or Not short film, it tells the story of a man wrongly imprisoned who goes abroad to find his fortune and ends up getting sent back home on the Titanic.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1940-09-27
Popularity: