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 NewspapersThompson, Neal. A Curious Man: The Strange & Brilliant Life of Robert "Believe It Or Not!" Ripley (Crown/Archetype, 2014), p. 115. (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.
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.Thompson, A Curious Man, pp. 163–165.
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, John Graziano from 2005 to 2021, and Kieran Castaño from 2021 until February 2026.
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". The dog would later became the model for Snoopy.
Books Some notable books include: Ripley's Believe It or Not (1929), reprinted in 2004 Ripley's Mammoth Book of Believe It or Not (1953) Ripley's Giant Book of Believe It or Not (1976) Ripley's 35th Anniversary Believe It or Not (1954) Ripley's 50th Anniversary Believe It or Not (1968) Ripley's Believe It or Not Special Edition 2012 (2011)
A series of paperback books containing annotated sketches from the newspaper feature: Ripley's Believe It or Not 1st Series (1941) Ripley's Believe It or Not 2nd Series (1948) Ripley's Believe It or Not 3rd Series (1954) Ripley's Believe It or Not 4th Series (1982)
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. 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. At the height of his popularity, Robert Ripley received thousands of letters a day from the public and Ripley Entertainment continues to encourage submissions from readers who have strange stories and photographs that could be featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not! books and media.
The people whose items are featured in such books as Strikingly True have what Edward Meyer, Vice President of Exhibits and Archives at Ripley Entertainment Inc., describes as an obsession: "Whatever it is they're after, it is so important to them that all the rest of the world can go on without them. They want to make something that makes them immortal, makes them a little different than you and me". Despite the wide range of true and unbelievable art, sculpture, photographs, interactive devices, animal oddities, and recycled objects contained within the collection, alien or witchcraft-type stories are rarely considered as they are (according to Meyers) difficult to prove. To be included in Ripley's Believe It or Not books, museums or television shows, items must undergo scrutiny from the staff and be 100% authenticated.
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.
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. George Wilson drew several covers for the comic book series.
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! ()
In 2015, Zenescope published a two issue comic edited by Terry Kavanagh.
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. 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.
As the years went on, the show became less about oddities and featured guest-driven entertainment such as comedy routines. Sponsors over the course of the program included Pall Mall cigarettes and General Foods. The program ended its successful run in 1948 as Ripley prepared to convert the show format to television.
Films, television, Internet, and computer game The newspaper feature has been adapted into more than a few films and TV shows.
Film Ripley hosted a series of two dozen Believe It or Not! theatrical short films between 1930 and 1932 for Warner Bros. Pictures and The Vitaphone Corporation. A 2-DVD release featuring 24 of these theatrical shorts is available in the United States beginning March 16, 2010, from Warner Home Video, through their Warner Archive manufacture-on-demand program. Directors on the shorts included Murray Roth (on the first five), Roy Mack and Alfred J. Goulding (latter half of second season). Leo Donnelly assisted later on commentary. He also appeared in a Vitaphone musical short, Seasons Greetings (1931), with Ruth Etting, Joe Penner, Ted Husing, Thelma White, Ray Collins, and others. Ripley's short films were parodied in a 1939 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon titled Believe It or Else. Released on June 25, 1939, directed by Tex Avery and written by Dave Monahan, it featured a running gag in which a prototype Elmer Fudd appeared to declare, "I don't believe it!" On November 5 of the same year, another Avery documentary parody, Fresh Fish, was released. Written by Jack Miller, this cartoon's running gag was a two-headed fish that kept swimming onto the screen to ask, "Pardon me, but can you tell me where I can find Mister Ripley?" 20th Century Fox produced another short film, Acquitted by the Sea, that was produced by Truman Talley and directed by Earl Allvine. It was released on September 27, 1940 and told an unusual story involving the Titanic.
Proposed film In October 2004, Paramount Pictures announced plans for a film that would chronicle the life of Robert Ripley. The film was to be produced by James Jacks and his Alphaville Films company, associated with Paramount. Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski were hired to write the script. Jacks explained: "It's about the exploits of Robert Ripley, one of the most popular newspaper cartoonists in the '30s and '40s, who was well known for going around the world and looking for oddities and getting into adventures while doing so. We want to make a series of movies that, if not quite the truth, are the adventures that should have happened. We want to turn it into an Indiana Jones, a goofy version, as played by Johnny Depp. When they saw we had the writers from Larry Flynt, they thought that we wanted to make the kinky version, but we saw a chance to do a Spielberg-type movie with one of their characters."
In November 2005, Tim Burton was attached to direct the film, with Jim Carrey starring as Robert Ripley. Filming was to begin in October 2006, for a 2007 release. Paramount hinted that the film, if successful, could be the start of a Ripley's film series. In addition to Jacks, Sean Daniel and Richard D. Zanuck were to serve as producers for the film. Zanuck spent six weeks in China to scout filming locations for the project.