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It's too bad they don't have shows like this anymore. I know there's a Ripley's show on today, but that seems to focus more on the strange human stunts like contortion-ism and pulling cinder blocks with your ear lobes. The original Ripley's talked more about History and traditions of other cultures. To me it seemed much more educational.

When this show first came on (I was about 10 years old), it kind of scared me because they showed scenes from "The Elephant Man" and "The Howling", which were brand new movies back then. I was a little squeamish with the effects from those movies, but now I love them and own those movies today. Wish I could own episodes of Ripley's, because after I got over my squeamishness, I really grew to love that show.

Jack Palance made the show. He put a real flare on his presentations that only he could pull off. I liked how he would end a sequence with "Believe it........... Or Not!". He would always put that breathless type of enthusiasm behind his narratives, so that you felt he really loved the subject matter. The female co-hosts did great jobs too. I liked his daughter Holly the best.

I can still see and hear the opening credits in my mind. This was just a quality show that you don't see too much of these days. Forget "reality TV" today, we should go back to these showcase shows like Ripley's, That's Incredible and Real People.

I wish they would bring this version of Ripley's to DVD. Not just a "Best of", but the entire series. Like I said, it was more educational and family oriented and I think we need to bring that back.

Believe it...... Or Not!

I loved this show! I really did. It was on Sunday nights from 1982- 86 from 8-9 PM. I watched it all the time. For example, there was one episode about the B-19, which was the largest plane built, but it never made it to combat. That was in the first season. At the beginning of another episode, he talked about the death of Rasputin. Holly Palance, in one episode, talked about the tomato, and why people in the 19th century thought it was poisonous. It was an education. Over the four-year run of the show, there were three co-hosts, Holly Palance, Catherine Schirrif, and country singer Marie Osmond. Marie Osmond was on in the last season. My rating: *****.

This was one of the finest show's of the early 1980's. Jack Palance was always one of the scariest actors to grace the motion picture and television screens and this show only added to this mystique. Not only was it educational, but it was fun as well and it showed what a gift Palance had for storytelling. The one segment that really showed that talent was when he related the murder of Rasputin. Not only did he tell the story, but he almost seemed to act it out and made it come alive. Of course balancing things out were his female co-hosts and the best of them was his daughter Holly. She brought a sense of normalcy to the show and really made the show informative as well as bizarre. Too bad the new version couldn't take lessons from this version. While that one seems to delight in shocking people, this version was very enjoyable to watch.

Ripley's Believe It or Not with Jack Palance was a quality show. Jack Palance would travel all over the world for his on-site introductions to show segments. It is another of the missing TV shows that belong on DVD. The first season was the best. In season two, when Holly Palance came in as co-host, the writing and production staff was cut, from the credits I saw on the shows I taped from the series. Jimmy Sangster, of Hammer Film Studio fame, was one member of the writing team in season one and part of season two, before the apparent budget cutbacks. The closing credits show the effort that went into this show, credits crammed with the names of professionals who worked on this documentary series. I have read that the budget for this show was $1.5 million per episode, a lot of money in the early 80s. All that money bought a lot of photographers, negative cutters and support staff then. The segments on the shows varied from the serious (the WW2 man who wasn't there) to the goofy (supposedly Jack Palance, in an ape suit, riding around Las Vegas in an open air convertible prior to introducing the Marquis performing chimps). ABC should reissue season one of this show on DVD.

This is one of the best, and most interesting shows I've ever seen. It's amazing what some people do. Their book, "Ripley's Believe It or Not! Encyclopedia of the Bizarre: Amazing, Strange, Inexplicable, Weird and All True!" is also incredibly interesting.

I just wish they'd get rid of Kelly Packard, I don't understand why they even added her. I guess to attract idiots who just watch the show because they like to look at the hosts. Because she is so incredibly annoying! Thankfully she's usually only shown once durring an episode.