Believe It or Not (Second Series) #9

In this episode of Warner Brothers' series of BELIEVE IT OR NOT shorts, Robert Ripley only shows up to introduce Leo Donnelly, who proceeds to narrate the usual collection of oddities -- a fat man's clothing store in New York, lady elephant washers, and a salt pyramid in Spain among them -- in a fair imitation of Ripley's halting, dull style of talking. It's a bit odd, since Donnelly was an actor and writer. He died in 1935, aged 56.

Ripley himself lived to be 55, and his newspaper feature is still going strong, as well as a series of museums called 'Odditoriums', with several locations throughout the world.

Believe It or Not (Second Series) #9 (1932)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

One of the weakest entries in the series has Robert L. Ripley standing in front of a globe as he introduces Leo Donnelly as the narrator of this episode. We then see some rather boring clips including three girls who bath elephants, one of the first stores for fat men, a part of land caught between Spain and Europe where only goats can live and a man in NYC who collects cigarette and cigar butts. This is an extremely weak episode for a number of reasons but the biggest has to be the actual clips shown. Perhaps that's why Ripley didn't stick around to introduce them as none of them are overly impressive in terms of their "believe it or not" factor. The only stuff that keeps this short going and worth seeing is for the early stuff showing off NYC during the early 30s.