03/06/2024
A Parisian music teacher, Alphonse Durand, named seven of his children Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, and Si. His eighth and last child, he named Octave. Believe it or not.
And with that, we introduce the creator of Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, Robert Ripley, cartoonist, explorer, reporter, adventurer, and collector who, in the course of 35 years, traveled to 201 countries seeking the bizarre, the odd, and the unexplained. The information and artifacts he collected were often so outlandish that one can almost picture Ripley shrugging his shoulders and saying, “Believe it or not.” His collection of unbelievable stories lead to a franchise that could be experienced through radio, TV, books and museums, and at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1933, over 2 million people visited his first “Odditorium.”
Nicknamed “The Modern Marco Polo,” Robert Ripley was very much ahead of his time. He was the first to broadcast from underground, underwater, from the sky while in a falling parachute, from mid-ocean to America, from Australia and South America to America, and from London, England to every country in the world while simultaneously using a team of translators. It’s said that Ripley even lead the way for America to have an official national anthem. How? On November 3, 1929, he drew a panel in his syndicated cartoon saying, “Believe It or Not, America has no national anthem.” This surprised everyone who believed that the “The Star-Spangled Banner” was the United States’ national anthem, but technically, Congress had never made it official. In 1931, John Philip Sousa endorsed the idea of giving the song official status, and shortly thereafter, President Herbert Hoover signed the proclamation making “The Star-Spangled Banner” the official national anthem of the United States.
Ripley’s show on TV was easily was the first “reality” show, but while discussing the military funeral hymn, “Taps,” Ripley reportedly passed out (some say he had a heart attack). He never fully recovered his health, and Ripley died on May 27, 1949.
What does a man like this have as his pet? A one eyed dog named, “Cyclops,” described by all the sources we found as an Old English Sheepdog – believe it or not. Legit? Still looking!
Photo of Robert Ripley with “Cyclops”
