Ripley's Believe It or Not!

This program was never number 1 in the ratings which means either the ratings are more political than real, or a whole lot of folks missed an excellent program.

Jack Palance is tour DE force doing this show. A lot of his opening sequences were classic. The show had lots of material to draw from as Robert L Ripley never seems to run out of facts that are astonishing. What is even better is how they were assembled by Palance & Crew. The Mancini theme & storytelling has rarely been done better than it was here.

Holly Palance was excellent support on these shows too. The shows were never boring as a lot of major work in production of sequences show quality in every part. A fine program that was better than a lot of them when it aired. If you look at the syndicated attempt made since & compare it with this show, you will see the quality of production difference immediately.

Because I was so young, half the bits never made sense to me. I remember this one story on an artist who made very life-like sculptures of people. They showed him doing the lifecasts, and my young mind thought this was about people who voluntarily allowed themselves to be encased in plaster and die and become mannequins. I was scared of this show and of mannequins for quite awhile after that.

Believe it...or not!

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.

I absolutely love this show! Jack Palance was excellent as the host! I loved it on ABC in the eighties. I last saw this show in 1997 on the SCI-FI Channel and I miss it terribly! I was able to tape many of the episodes off of TV, but I have watched them so much that they are getting worn out. Some tapes from 1984 and 1985 are literally on their last legs! I wish this 1982-1986 version of Ripley's Believe it or Not would get a release on DVD as Season Box Sets. So far, there is only the Dean Cain 2000-2004 version on DVD and it was only released in a BEST OF-style DVD. I did write to Columbia Pictures a while ago, but there has been no response. I urge Ripley's fans to write and beg for this excellent show to be released on DVD! That's my rant! Bodger1.

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.