Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 300
December 19, 2018
Those Four Small Words Can Be Attributed To A 100-Year-Old Cartoon
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
On December 19, 1918—ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO TODAY—the first “Believe It or Not!” cartoon was published.
On a slow news day, Robert Ripley pondered how to fill the space assigned to him as an illustrator for the New York Globe. He decided to return to an old concept that he’d experimented with back in the winter of 1916. Little did he know, the choice he was about to make would be the start of an amazing adventure that lives on today.
Champs and Chumps
He created a panel featuring nine unbelievable athletic feats culled from Ripley’s personal collection of daring sports and extreme activities, and called it “Champs and Chumps.” The cartoon soon expanded beyond the sports world and was renamed “Believe It or Not!” The second cartoon with similar content didn’t appear until 10 months later—the first with the exact title “Believe It or Not!”
The eventual series launched a household saying, but it has made an impact beyond a simple catchphrase—”Believe It or Not!” changed history.
Changing American History
On November 3, 1929, Ripley made a shameless statement in his first Sunday panel for William Randolph Hearst—“America Has No National Anthem.”
Penned by Robert Ripley in 1918
The public went wild as Ripley asserted that “The Star-Spangled Banner” was nothing more than an unofficial hymn sung to an old English drinking song. It took 16 months for Congress to pass a one sentence bill and for President Herbert Hoover to sign into law “The Star-Spangled Banner” as America’s anthem—all thanks to Ripley.
Penned by John Graziano in 2018
…And Postal Protocol
In 1929, Robert Ripley received more mail than any single person in U.S. history—on average 3,000 letters a day for over 20 years! The deluge can be attributed to fan mail, odd submissions and requests for proof, verifying the unbelievable stories depicted in his ‘Believe It or Not!’ cartoons.
This was some of the strangest mail to pass through the postal system at the time, as the envelopes were as strange as Ripley’s stories! One correspondent taped Ripley’s photograph to an envelope, pasted on a two-cent stamp, and mailed it with no address. Others cleverly coded their parcels for postal workers to decipher!
Rip thanked fans who coded their letters an early Vitaphone film
Overwhelming the U.S. Postal Service, Postmaster General Walter Brown announced that USPS would no longer decode ciphers in 1930. Despite the announcement, fans continued to send uniquely-addressed letters.
Happy Hundo, Believe It or Not!
Ripley’s cartoons were published in more than 360 newspapers around the world, translated into 17 languages, with a daily readership of 80 million people. Today, “Believe It or Not!” is still in print and holds the title of the World’s Longest Running Syndicated Cartoon.
If you listen, you are hard pressed to escape the phrase “Believe It or Not!” on a daily basis—now you know where it all began!
Cheers to Stranger Years
Take a page from Ripley’s life and make your own works of art by entering the 12 Weirds of Christmas contest. Enter every day for a chance to win more prizes. If you win one day, you also win all of the prizes from previous days.
Enter Day 6 to win a 3D Pen and an original piece of art by John Graziano, our official cartoonist. Better yet, you’re always entered for the grand prize, a trip for two to the VIP New Year’s Party at Times Square in New York City!
Good luck, and may your holidays be EERIE and bright!
Source: Those Four Small Words Can Be Attributed To A 100-Year-Old Cartoon
December 18, 2018
The FBI Had It’s Eye On It’s A Wonderful Life, Your Favorite Christmas Movie
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
It’s A Wonderful Life is now regarded as one of the greatest and most beloved Christmas season movies of all time. The tale of George Bailey, who had planned to commit suicide on Christmas Eve before his guardian angel intervenes and shows him all the lives he’s touched, is a classic of American cinema.
As you sit down for your annual holiday season re-watch of the movie, try not to let what you’re about to learn about mar your enjoyment: around the time of its release in 1946, J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI were deeply concerned about the ‘malignant undercurrent’ of Communism that (apparently) ran through It’s A Wonderful Life!
Maybe It’s Not So Wonderful
We’re going to need a little context here, so let’s start from the beginning. The movie is revered as an all-time classic today, there’s no doubt about that, but it had quite the troubled beginning. As Screen Rant reports,
“the movie led a life akin to George Bailey himself: born with great ambition, dealt a series of setbacks, and resigned to obliteration before returning with a renewed lease on life… there was a time when It’s a Wonderful Life bankrupted a movie studio, ended a legendary filmmaker’s career and was totally forgotten by the public at large.”
On the movie’s road to redemption, though, it had to contest with issues much more troubling than simply making enough money to please executives. In the super-distrustful wake of World War II, Hoover had his FBI screen movies to detect Communist propaganda, and It’s A Wonderful Life was found to be rife with it!
That’s right. As Smithsonian reports, “An unnamed FBI agent who watched the film as part of a larger FBI program aimed at detecting and neutralizing Commie influences in Hollywood” enjoyed it—finding it “very entertaining,” the report goes on—but was also alarmed by how subversive it was.
Communism And Hollywood
John Noaks, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Franklin & Marshall College, has delved into the FBI’s files from the 1940s, and looked at how they determined that movies pushed the Communist agenda during the period. According to his findings, a report dubbed ‘Communist Infiltration into the Motion Picture Industry’ reached an unsettling conclusion.
That unnamed agent concluded that “It’s A Wonderful Life had employed two common tricks used by Communists to inject propaganda into the film.” The first of these was portraying typically “American” values and institutions in a negative light. This is seen in the character of Mr. Potter, banker and the most Scrooge-tastic miser since… Scrooge. It’s A Wonderful Life 1, Capitalism 0.
Secondly, the movie was seen to be bringing anti-American and pro-Communist issues to the forefront. George Bailey’s suicidal state and his overall questioning of whether his life had meant anything was an issue that the FBI report characterized as a “subtle attempt to magnify the problems of the so-called ‘common man’ in society.”
Much of the movie’s narrative is underpinned by the competition between two bankers, with polar-opposite attitudes and approaches. When one triumphs over the other and is seen to be right, there’s a clear message about Capitalism and Communism and… well, there is if that’s what you choose to see. Which the FBI certainly did.
…And Now It’s Wonderful Again
With all this political drama in mind, you’re probably wondering how It’s A Wonderful Life managed to come out of all this scot-free, how it rose to become such a cinema icon without being smeared in return. The simple fact is, nothing became of the report. There was no investigation beyond that.
The Daily KOS suggests that perhaps the great popularity of the movie’s star, Jimmy Stewart, saved it from the wrath of the House Un-American Activities Committee, to which it was referred for those troubling undertones. Whatever the case, the movie still inspires and uplifts audiences around the world today, over seventy years after it was initially released. Let’s be thankful for that this holiday season.
Expand you movie-going record by entering the Ripley’s 12 Weirds of Christmas contest. Enter every day for a chance to win more prizes. If you win one day, you also win all of the prizes from previous days.
Enter Day 5 to win a “100 Essential Movies” Scratch-Off Poster. Better yet, you’re always entered for the grand prize, a trip for two to the VIP New Year’s Party at Times Square in New York City!
Good luck, and may your holidays be EERIE and bright!
By Chris Littlechild, contributor for Ripleys.com
Source: The FBI Had It’s Eye On It’s A Wonderful Life, Your Favorite Christmas Movie
December 17, 2018
Up Close With A Jivaro Shrunken Head
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
With over 100 shrunken heads in the Ripley’s collection, they’re known as one of our most iconic exhibits. Robert Ripley collected his first shrunken head from a trader in Panama City in 1923, kickstarting the young adventurer’s curio of strange and unusual objects from around the world.
The process of taking human heads and shrinking them down to about the size of a fist dates back to the Ancient Incans about 1,000 years ago. Though the practice may have once been common across the reaches of the Ancient South American empire, by the time 19th-century explorers reached the region, only a few tribes practiced the tradition. The Jivaro are known as the most modern culture to continue the practice. The tribe is located in the mountainous jungle spanning Ecuador and Peru. Inhabiting such a remote part of the world, few people outside the Jivaro have ever seen a shrunken head, and even fewer have witnessed the process of making one. The process has been long kept a secret by native practitioners, though fakes can be found all over the world.
Genuine shrunken heads are called tsantsa natively and were valuable symbols of bravery or accomplishment for tribal warriors. A tsantsa was prepared by slitting the back of the victim’s neck and peeling the skin away from the skull. Once the bones were out of the way, the eyes and mouth were sewn shut. The Jivaro believed that the mouth must be bound together, in order to keep the head’s avenging spirit from coming out. Once the fresh head was prepared, it was stuffed full of hot stones, then boiled in a broth of special herbs. Finally, the skin was cured over an open fire.
Once discovered by western explorers, shrunken heads became highly desirable by collectors around the world, so much so that natives began making “souvenir heads,” which were made as quickly and easily as possible and had no cultural value to the Jivaro themselves.
You can get your own shrunken head by entering the Ripley’s 12 Weirds of Christmas contest. Enter every day for a chance to win more prizes. If you win one day, you also win all of the prizes from previous days.
Enter Day 4 to win your own Shrunken Head along with Ripley’s illustrated directions for making one of your own. Better yet, you’re always entered for the grand prize, a trip for two to the VIP New Year’s Party at Times Square in New York City!
Good luck, and may your holidays be EERIE and bright!
December 16, 2018
Listen To The First-Ever Radio Broadcast LIVE From A Snake Pit
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Never satisfied with the ordinary, Robert Ripley had to make his radio broadcasts unique. He spoke from all over the globe, with transmission towers carrying his stories from the hearts of Chinese cities and remote islands back to America. Soon, however, just being far away wasn’t enough for Ripley.
Back in the United States, he decided to show people the kinds of odd things lurking right next door. He broadcasted from underground at Carlsbad Caverns, from underwater among a school of sharks, and from a pit filled with hundreds of venomous snakes!
Rattlesnake Roundup
Venturing into the sweltering swamps of Florida, Ripley discovered the perfect place to host this latest radio show: Ross Allen’s Reptile Institute in Silver Springs. Though few people may have heard of Silver Springs, most people in the country had seen them on TV and in movies. Renowned for its crystal clear waters, Ripley remarked that it looked as if fish were swimming through the air.
Ross Allen, the proprietor of the Reptile Institute, handled reptiles for movies and milked snakes of their venom for scientific study and medical use. Allen invited Ripley into the pit of 500 slithering, venomous snakes.
While Ripley wore protective boots and pants, Allen entered the pit barefoot and shirtless. Among the serpents were rattlesnakes, water moccasins, and coral snakes. A bite from any of them would be dangerous. Allen lifted up a diamond-back rattler after giving it a few playful pets, then proceeded to harvest the venom. In a bit of showboating, he even took a couple swigs of the venom, telling Ripley he could do so safely without the toxin entering his bloodstream.
Listen For Yourself:
https://www.ripleys.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/RipleyRadioSnakePit.mp3
You can have your own snake encounter like Robert Ripley by entering the Ripley’s 12 Weirds of Christmas contest. Enter every day for a chance to win more prizes. If you win one day, you also win all of the prizes from previous days.
Enter Day 3 to win “Rattlesnake Eggs” and “Snake In A Can” Potato Crisps (just crisps…nothing suspicious here!). Better yet, you’re always entered for the grand prize, a trip for two to the VIP New Year’s Party at Times Square in New York City!
Good luck, and may your holidays be EERIE and bright!
Source: Listen To The First-Ever Radio Broadcast LIVE From A Snake Pit
December 15, 2018
The Modern-Day Marco Polo’s Preferred Passport Stamp: China
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Though Robert Ripley sought as many Believe It or Not! stories as he could by researching in the library and fan submissions, he also spent a great deal of his career scouring the world for amazing things to share with people back home.
Ripley adored travel, exploring over 200 countries in his lifetime. Visiting every continent but Antarctica, he became known as the Modern-Day Marco Polo for his unwavering commitment to seeking out the odd.
His most prolific trips took place from 1932 to 1934, when he took back-to-back tours of Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. During these expeditions, Ripley kept journals detailing his daily adventures and sent cartoons of his discoveries to his publisher.
With experience visiting almost any country he could want in the world, Robert Ripley had a definite favorite. He absolutely adored China. From the Chinatown of his childhood in Santa Rosa, California, to the genuine thing in his travels, Ripley went on to model his New York apartment after Chinese temples.
“The light green water approaching Hong Kong was dotted with the bat-winged boats of the fishermen—the most characteristic landmark of China.”—Robert Ripley
Robert Ripley eventually became so infatuated with Chinese junks that he bought one to sail up and down the Hudson.
Never one to suffer the established path or tourist-filled cities, Ripley liked to find the more authentic parts of the countries he visited. He would walk, take rickshaws, and suffer for hour sin bouncing taxis to go somewhere unbelievable.
Much of what Ripley saw on his way to Canton stood in a war-torn landscape, devoid of all life. Stone statues stood in barren, rocky plains interrupted only by centuries-old grave mounds.
Ripley visited the great cities of China, soaking in their history and relishing their wonders. At the Temple of Heaven in modern-day Beijing, he discovered the “echo stone” a stone placed in a spot where one’s voice echoes from underneath them when they speak.
You can travel like Robert Ripley by entering the Ripley’s 12 Weirds of Christmas contest. Enter every day for a chance to win more prizes. If you win one day, you also win all of the prizes from previous days.
Enter Day 2 to win a Ripley’s 100th-anniversary travel mug and a passport holder ready for adventure. Better yet, you’re always entered for the grand prize, a trip for two to the VIP New Year’s Party at Times Square in New York City!
Good luck, and may your holidays be EERIE and bright!
Source: The Modern-Day Marco Polo’s Preferred Passport Stamp: China
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