Robert Ripley
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert Ripley
Born: Robert LeRoy Ripley on December 25, 1890 in Santa Rosa, California
Died: May 27, 1949 (aged 58) in New York City, New York
Cause of death: Heart attack
Resting place: Oddfellows Lawn Cemetery, Santa Rosa, California
Residence: New York City, New York, Los Angeles, California, Miami, Florida, Bedford, Iowa, Chicago, Illinois
Nationality: American
Occupation: Cartoonist, Entrepreneur, Curator, Anthropologist
Years active: 1930s - 1949
Known for: Creator of Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Home town: Santa Rosa, California
Board member: Ripley Entertainment
Religion: Christian
Spouse: Beatrice Roberts (1919 - 1926; Divorced)
Parents: Issac Davis Ripley & Lillie (née Bell) Ripley
Family: Douglas Ripley (brother), Ethel Ripley (sister)

Robert LeRoy Ripley (December 25, 1890 - May 27, 1949) was an American Cartoonist, Entrepreneur and amateur Anthropologist, who created 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 Ripley 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 Ripley's drawings.

Career
Throughout the 1920s, Mr. Ripley continued to broaden the scope of his work and his popularity increased greatly. He published both a travel journal and a guide to the game of handball in 1925. In 1926, Ripley became the New York state handball champion and also wrote a book on boxing. With a proven track record as a versatile writer and artist, he attracted the attention of publishing mogul William Randolph Hearst, who managed the King Features Syndicate. In 1929, Hearst was responsible for Believe It or Not! making its syndicated debut in seventeen papers worldwide. With the success of this series assured, Ripley capitalized on his fame by getting the first book collection of his newspaper panel series published.

On November 3, 1929, he drew a panel in his syndicated cartoon saying ''Believe It or Not, America has no national anthem''. Despite the widespread belief that ''The Star-Spangled Banner'', with its lyrics by Francis Scott Key set to the music of the English drinking song ''To Anacreon in Heaven'', was the United States national anthem, Congress had never officially made it so. In 1931, John Philip Sousa published his opinion in favor of giving the song official status, stating that ''it is the spirit of the music that inspires'' as much as it is Key's ''soul stirring'' words. By a law signed on March 3, 1931, by President Herbert Hoover, ''The Star Spangled Banner'' was adopted as the national anthem of the United States.

The 1930s saw Ripley expand his presence into other media. In 1930, he began a fourteen year run on radio and a nineteen year association with the show's producer, Doug Storer. Funding for his celebrated travels around the world were provided by the Hearst organization, and Ripley recorded live radio shows from underwater, the sky, caves, snake pits, and foreign countries. The next year he hosted the first of a series of two dozen Believe It or Not! theatrical short films for Warner Brothers Vitaphone, and King Features published a second collected volume of Believe it or Not! panels. He also appeared in a Vitaphone musical short, Seasons Greetings (1931), with Ruth Etting, Joe Penner, Ted Husing, Thelma White, Ray Collins, and others. After a trip to Asia in 1932, Ripley opened his first museum, the Odditorium, in Chicago. The concept was a success, and by the end of the decade, there were Odditoriums in San Diego, Dallas, Cleveland, San Francisco, and New York City. By this point in his life, Ripley had been voted the most popular man in America by the New York Times, received an honorary degree from Dartmouth College, and visited 201 foreign countries.

Personal life
In 1919 Ripley married Beatrice Roberts. He made his first trip around the world in 1922, delineating a travel journal in installments. This ushered in a new topic for his cartoons: unusual and exotic foreign locales and cultures. Because he took the veracity of his work quite seriously, in 1923, Ripley hired a researcher and polyglot named Norbert Pearlroth as a full time assistant. That same year, his feature moved from the New York Globe to the New York Post.

Death
During World War II, Ripley concentrated on charity pursuits rather than world travel, but after the war, he re-expanded his media efforts. In 1948, the year of the 20th anniversary of the Believe it or Not! cartoon series, the Believe it or Not! radio show drew to a close and was replaced with a Believe it or Not! television series. This was a rather bold move on Ripley's part because of the small number of Americans with access to television at this early time in the medium's development. Ripley completed only thirteen episodes of the series before he became incapacitated by severe health problems. He reportedly passed out during the filming of his final show. His health worsened, and on May 27, 1949, at age 58, he succumbed to a heart attack in New York City. He was buried in his home town of Santa Rosa, in the Oddfellows Lawn Cemetery, which is adjacent to the Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery.

The comic strip
Ripley's cartoon series was estimated to have 80 million readers worldwide, and it was said that he received more mail than the President of the United States. He became a wealthy man, with homes in New York and Florida, but he always retained close ties to his home town of Santa Rosa, California, and he made a point of bringing attention to The Church of the One Tree, a church built entirely from the wood of a single 300 foot tall redwood tree, which stands on the north side of Juilliard Park in downtown Santa Rosa.

Ripley claimed to be able to ''prove every statement he made'', because he worked with professional fact researcher Norbert Pearlroth, who assembled Believe it or Not!'s array of odd facts and also verified the small town claims submitted by readers. Pearlroth spent 52 years as the feature's researcher, finding and verifying unusual facts for Ripley and, after Ripley's death, for the King Features syndicate editors who took over management of the Believe it or Not! panel. Other employees who researched the newspaper cartoon series over the years were Lester Byck and Don Wimmer. Others who drew the series after Ripley's death include Joe Campbell (1946 to 1956), Art Slogg, Clem Gretter (1941 to 1949), Carl Dorese, Bob Clarke (1943 and 1944), Stan Randall, Paul Frehm (1938 - 1978), who became the panel's full time artist in 1949; and his brother Walter Frehm (1948 - 1989).

Legacy
Ripley's ideas and legacy live on in Ripley Entertainment, a company bearing his name and owned since 1985 by the Jim Pattison Group, Canada's 3rd largest privately held company. Ripley Entertainment airs national television shows, features publications of oddities, and has holdings in a variety of public attractions, including Ripley's Aquarium, Ripley's Believe it or Not! Museums, Ripley's Haunted Adventure, Ripley's Mini Golf and Arcade, Ripley's Moving Theater, Ripley's Sightseeing Trains, Great Wolf Lodge overlooking Niagara Falls, Guinness World Records Attractions, and Louis Tussaud's wax Museums.

Chronology
1890 Born in Santa Rosa, California.
1901 Receives his formal education.
1906 Becomes a semi-pro in baseball and sells first cartoon to Life.
1908 Quits baseball briefly to support mother.
1909 Moves from the San Francisco Bulletin to the San Francisco Chronicle.
1912 Creates his last drawing for the San Francisco Chronicle and moves to New York that winter.
1913 On January 2, writes his first comic for the New York Globe and tries out for the New York Giants, but an injury ends his baseball hopes.
1914 Takes his first trip to Europe.
1918 On December 19, publishes Champs and Chumps in the New York Globe.
1919 Marries Beatrice Roberts.
1920 Takes his first solo trip to Europe to cover the Olympics, held in Antwerp, Belgium.
1922 On December 3, takes first trip around the world; writes in installments in his travel journal.
1923 On April 7, returns to the United States and hires researcher and linguist Norbert Pearlroth; the Globe ceases publication and the series moves to the New York Evening News.
1925 Writes travel journal, handball guide.
1926 Becomes New York handball champion and writes book on boxing score; divorces Beatrice Roberts after being separated for some time.
1929 On July 9, William Randolph Hearst's King Features Syndicate features Believe It or Not! in seventeen papers worldwide.
1930 Begins an eighteen year run on radio and a nineteen year association with show producer Doug Storer; Hearst funds Ripley's travels around the world, where Ripley records live radio shows from underwater, the sky, caves, snake pits and foreign countries.
1931 Releases movie shorts for Vitaphone, second book of Believe it or Not!.
1932 Takes trip to the Far East.
1933 First Odditorium opens in Chicago.
1934 Does the first radio show broadcast simultaneously around the world and purchases 28-room home in Mamaroneck, New York.
1935 Odditorium opens in San Diego.
1936 Odditorium opens in Dallas.
1937 Odditorium opens in Cleveland; Peanuts creator Charles Schulz's first published drawing appears in Believe it or Not!.
1939 Odditoriums open in San Francisco and New York City; Ripley receives honorary degree from Dartmouth College.
1940 Purchases a 13 room Manhattan apartment; receives two more honorary degrees; number of foreign countries visited through funding by Hearst reaches 201.
1945 Stops foreign travel to do World War II charity work.
1946 Purchases a Chinese junk, the Mon Lei (万里).
1947 Purchases third home, at High Mount, Florida.
1948 Radio program ends; the 30th anniversary of Believe it or Not! is celebrated at a New York costume party.
1949 Ripley dies of a heart attack on May 27 in New York City, New York, shortly after thirteenth telecast of first television show and is buried in Santa Rosa; auction of his estate is held; estate is purchased by John Arthur.

Ripley's Believe It or Not!
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ripley's Believe It or Not! is a franchise, founded by Robert L. Ripley, which deals in bizarre events and items so strange and unusual that readers might question the claims. The Believe It or Not panel proved popular and was later adapted into a wide variety of formats, including radio, television, comic books, a chain of museums and a book series.

Syndicated feature panel
Ripley first called his cartoon feature, originally involving sports feats, Champs and Chumps, and it premiered on December 19, 1918, in the New York Globe. Ripley 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, Ripley moved to the New York Evening Post. 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 picked up by the King Features Syndicate, being quickly syndicated in an international basis.

Those working on the syndicated newspaper panel after Ripley included Joe Campbell (1946 - 1956), Art Sloggatt (1917 - 1975), Clem Gretter (1941 - 1949), Carl Dorese, Bob Clarke (1943 - 1944), Stan Randall, 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 - 1989. 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. The current artist is John Graziano.

At the peak of its popularity, the syndicated feature was read daily 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 newspaper panels have been published over the decades. 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. 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 was ''a hunting dog who eats pins, tacks and razor blades''. Schulz's dog Spike later became the model for Peanuts' Snoopy.

Museums
When Ripley first displayed his collection to the public at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933, it was labeled Ripley's Odditorium and attracted over two million visitors during the run of the fair. (In an apparent promotional gimmick, beds were provided in the Odditorium for people who ''fainted'' daily.) That successful exhibition led to trailer shows across the country during the 1930s, and Ripley's collections were exhibited at many major fairs and expositions, including San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas and Cleveland. In New York, the famed Times Square exhibit opened in 1939 on Broadway. In 1950, a year after Ripley's death, the first permanent Odditorium opened in St. Augustine, Florida.

As of December 2010, there are 32 Ripley's Believe It or Not! Odditoriums around the world. Odditoriums, in the spirit of Believe It or Not!, are often more than simple museums cluttered with curiosities. Some include theaters and arcades, such as the ones in Gatlinburg, Tennessee and Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. Others are constructed oddly, such as the Orlando, Florida Odditorium which is built off level as if the building is sinking.