Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 376
November 22, 2017
November 21, 2017
Black Lit Black Friday Fun
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
In 2016, flower crowns, floppy hats and other festival fashions got some competition! Created by Brad Lawrence of Detroit, Michigan, Black Light Visuals introduced body marbling to the festival scene—transforming concert goers into glowing works of art!
A swirling kaleidoscope of colors is transferred onto the skin by dipping body parts into a tub full of skin-safe acrylic paint and water. With motion, the mixture creates a beautiful marbled effect that glows in the dark!
Black Friday
Festival season is over, but the holidays are just beginning and Black Light Visuals just reminded us that Black Friday, the biggest shopping day in the US, is upon us! Stressed, don’t be—let Ripley’s pay for your holiday. Enter to win $2,500!
Toys for Tots
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Did You Know?
Black Friday alone attracts more people than Disney on an annual basis!
In the 1800s “Black Friday” referred to stock market crashes, not becoming a popularized shopping term until the 1990s.
The first Macy’s parade took place in 1924 and featured animals from the Central Park Zoo!
Thanksgiving Parades
For many, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has become part of the holiday ritual, but did you know that it was Canadian department store Eaton’s that inspired a float-filled shopping season kick-off? Eaton’s held the first “Santa Claus Parade” on December 2, 1905. Santa appearing at the end of the parade signaled that the holiday season—and holiday shopping at Eaton’s, of course—had begun.
Santa Claus hoisting a ladder in the 1918 Eaton Parade.
Speaking of parades, Ripley’s will be featured in the Hollywood Christmas Parade on November 26th. Not in Hollyweird for the holidays? You can watch the parade at home!
The 85th Annual Hollywood Christmas Parade will broadcast its national two-hour special premier Friday, December 15th at 8:00 p.m. ET. You can also catch it throughout the holiday season on the Hallmark Channel and American Forces Network.
Sensing You Want More?
More information on Black Light Visuals can be found in Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Shatter Your Senses! Filled with remarkable photos and over 1,500 all new—all true—stories to immerse yourself in, Shatter Your Senses! is the newest book in the bestselling series from Ripley Publishing—so incredible you won’t believe your eyes…or ears…or nose!
Spark your senses here, on the blog, weekly for a feature from the 2018 annual, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Shatter Your Senses! and follow us on social media for a chance to win a copy, among other unbelievable prizes (HELLO, like $2,500 – see above)!
Source: Black Lit Black Friday Fun
November 20, 2017
Believe It or Nots and Toys for Tots
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Toys for Tots is truly an unbelievable organization. To date, the program has collected and distributed more than 512 million toys!
The original Toys for Tots poster designed by Walt Disney.
Believe It or Not!
Walt Disney created Toys for Tots’ train logo—still in use today—in 1948!
First Lady Michelle Obama was the first to place a Toys for Tots donation box in the White House.
Now a sporting staple, the New York Yankees sponsored the first major sports event to benefit Toys for Tots in 1962.
How It All Began
Toys for Tots started with Diane Hendricks, wife of a Marine Major. In 1947, she handmade a doll and asked her husband to deliver it to an organization that could pair it with a child at Christmas. Upon discovering that no such organization existed, she suggested that Major Hendricks establish one—he did just that!
Hendricks, who in civilian life was Warner Brothers’ Director of Public Relations, launched a campaign and collected nearly 5,000 toys for Los Angeles children in need. This campaign was so successful that, it expanded nationwide.
Oh, Christmas Tree! Oh, Christmas Tree!
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! is proud to be a Toys for Tots donation drop-off yet again, but this year we’ve decked the halls and really tree-topped ourselves!
In the shape of a Christmas tree, Ripley’s will be donating a variety of books by Ripley Publishing to Toys for Tots, a $100,000 value. Featured on Ripley’s book tree is Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Shatter Your Senses!, the newest book in the bestselling series from Ripley Publishing. Filled with remarkable photos and over 1,500 all new—all true—stories to immerse yourself in, it is so incredible you won’t believe your eyes…or ears…or nose!
Ripley’s will proudly present this donation to Toys for Tots at the Hollywood Christmas Parade on November 26th. Not in Hollyweird for the holidays? You can watch the parade at home!
The 86th Annual Hollywood Christmas Parade will broadcast its national two-hour special premier Friday, December 15th at 8:00 p.m. ET. You can also catch it throughout the holiday season on the Hallmark Channel and American Forces Network.
Inspired to Donate?
You can donate a new toy to Toys for Tots at the following Ripley’s locations:
Baltimore, MD
Branson, MI
Gatlinburg, TN
Grand Prarie, TX
Myrtle Beach, SC
Ocean City, MD
Orlando, FL
Panama City Beach, FL
St. Augustine, FL
San Antonio, TX
San Francisco, CA
Hollywood, CA
Williamsburg, VA
Atlantic City, NJ
Not near one of our participating Odditoriums? To find a toy drop-off in your area, click here.
Give a Little. Get a Little.
In the spirit of giving this holiday season, let Ripley’s pay for Christmas. Enter to win $2,500!
Fill out below for your chance to win $2,500!
Toys for Tots
Name
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Email Address
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Term and Conditions
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Believe It or Nots and Toys for Tots
November 19, 2017
November 18, 2017
November 17, 2017
The Most Expensive Painting and Billy the Kid
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
[November 12-18, 2017] A man forgets where he parked for twenty years, a surfer punches a shark and a Leonardo da Vinci painting sells for an astonishing $450 million.
5. Amateur Surfer Punches Shark
Still trying to get a hang of the basics, Charlie Fry, a British doctor, was practicing in the surf of Canberra, Australia, when he was rammed by a shark. Shaking off the massive thud, he immediately punched the shark in the nose and rode a wave to escape to the shore. Fry recalled hearing pro surfer Mick Fanning describe escaping a shark using the same tactic. Lifeguards were able to spot the shark using drones and estimate it was 10 feet long.
4. Man Reunited with Lost Car after 20 Years
After reporting his car stolen to police in 1997, a German man in Frankfurt has been reunited with his long-lost car. Turns out he had just forgotten where he parked! After sitting in the garage of an old industrial building for 20 long years, the building was set to be demolished, and the mystery owner of the old car had to be found. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t start and had to be scrapped.
3. Man Rides Disneyland’s Cars Ride 10,000 Times
John Hale committed to riding Pixar’s Cars ride at Disneyland 10,000 times. He used it as a tool to lose weight, believing walking the park would help keep it off. After undergoing gastric bypass surgery earlier this year, it took him 760 visits to the park to accomplish his goal, riding about 13 times per visit and keeping track of his car’s color each time!
2. $10 Flea Market Photo Worth Millions
Frank Abrams bought an old photograph at a flea market in North Carolina for just $10. Little did he know experts would determine it was actually a photo of wild west outlaws Billy the kid and William Bonney with the sheriff that would later shoot Kid in 1881, Pat Garret. This incredibly rare find is expected to sell for millions of dollars.
1. Da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” Sells for $450 million
Marketed by Christie auctions as the “Last da Vinci,” the Renaissance painting thought to be the work of Leonardo da Vinci just sold for $450.3 million dollars, more than any other painting in history. The runner-up, Willem de Kooning’s “Interchange,” lags almost $150 million behind. The winning bidder has not been disclosed.
The Weird, but true, History of Presidential Turkey Pardons
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
The annual practice of pardoning a turkey at Thanksgiving has become something of a tradition at the White House, but do you know how it got started and why? Or why the president pardoned the first turkey? Here are just a few odd details surrounding presidential turkey pardons.
How it all got started…
Turkeys were presented to American presidents starting in the 1870s when poultry dealer Horace Vose began supplying the birds to the White House. However, Vose’s turkeys—described as “well-fed”—were meant for the menu.
Tracing presidential turkey pardons:
Abraham Lincoln
President Lincoln seems to have unofficially started the tradition in 1863 when he “pardoned” a turkey that was meant to be a part of that year’s Christmas dinner. Lincoln’s son had grown fond of their bird, even naming it Jack. Now, what parent could ignore a request from their child to spare a beloved animal? Honest Abe certainly couldn’t. Although a tradition now, this offer of clemency wasn’t an official act.
Harry S. Truman
Now here’s a case of getting the story wrong. Some claim that Harry Truman was the first president to pardon a turkey on Thanksgiving. The Truman Library & Museum disputes this notion. The truth is Truman had run into some political trouble with the Poultry and Egg National Board and the National Turkey Federation. You might say he ran afowl of the powerful poultry lobby. As the story goes, from September to November 1947, the government had encouraged “poultryless Thursdays”.
Naturally, the farmers and dealers who sold poultry vehemently objected to this. You can’t really blame them for getting their feathers ruffled, especially considering that Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day—the three holidays when most turkey sales coincidentally occur—all happened to fall on a Thursday that year.
In protest, the Turkey Federation sent crates of live turkeys to the White House. The act ended up promoting the poultry industry and it soon became an annual tradition for the president to be photographed receiving the “gift”.
Simply photographed…there is no indication of a presidential pardon for any of these turkeys. Most probably became main course.
President Truman accepted two turkeys at Christmas, quipping that they would “come in handy” for dinner.
Dwight Eisenhower
The turkey lobby continued to send birds to the White House, but this time, during Eisenhower’s term, instructions were given that they be “dressed for dinner.”
John F. Kennedy
In 1963, The Washington Post published an article that mentioned a “pardon” and “reprieve” for President Kennedy’s turkey. JFK apparently declared, “Let’s keep him going.” Tragically, JFK was assassinated in Dallas just three days later.
Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter
In 1973, President Nixon’s wife, Patricia, accepted the turkeys and then sent them to a children’s farm. Rosalynn Carter made a similar decision, sending the birds to a mini zoo nearby.
Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush
By Reagan’s era, turning over the donated turkeys to a farm to live out their days had become standard practice. It was President Bush who first officially mentioned the word “pardon”.
“But let me assure you, and this fine tom turkey, that he will not end up on anyone’s dinner table…he’s granted a Presidential pardon as of right now…” -George H.W. Bush
The act may have had something to do with animal rights protesters picketing nearby, but whatever the reason, the act of an official presidential pardon endures to this day, with Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barak Obama all holding pardoning ceremonies every November.
Some clever pardoned turkey names:
1987: Charlie
1994: Tom
2000: Jerry
2001: Liberty & Freedom
2003: Stars & Stripes
2004: Biscuits & Gravy
2007: May & Flower (…Mayflower)
2010: Apple & Cider
2012: Cobbler & Gobbler
2014: Mac & Cheese
2016: Tater & Tot
By Kristin Wallace, guest writer for Ripleys.com
Source: The Weird, but true, History of Presidential Turkey Pardons
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