Ripley's Believe It Or Not!

In 1939,Broadway raised it's curtains to a new kind of showstopper, a newspaper strip,Believe it or not,to shocking 3D life.

Brainchild of this spectacular show was Robert Ripley, a shy bucktooth sports cartoonist from a humble family in California.

Ripley travelled the world bringing in peculiarities.Humans have a appetite for the strange, the odd and the unusual, none exploited this attribute in the 20th century than Robert Ripley.

Ripley in his initial career days, was a sports cartoonist who ran out of ideas in the winter of 1918,and started doodling strange fleets in sports under his strip, the Champs and Chumps. 11 months later, he started his to be famed Believe it or not column, a quirky coverage which only appeared sporadically.

His major breakthrough was his voyage of a lifetime on a cruise.He was signed by the authorities to sketch and write cartoons from his 4 month voyage,around the world. His Ramble around the world caused much sensation among the Americans. Ripley was particularly fascinated by Hinduism as he landed on Indian shores and all the oddities had him mesmerised.

His controversial work was in 1927,when Charles Lindbergh was the first to fly solo across the Atlantic.It was big news. However, Ripley's cartoon featured the voyage to be the 67th instead of the first. He was labelled anti American.Ripley let the fury accumulate before providing proof.

Thus, slowly the Americans embraced a steady diet of the weird and wonderful.

He is credited to travel 201 countries at a time when 235 were recognised countries known, he was the most travelled man of his time.

His fact finding expedition took him from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, Fiji to Finland and Mozambique to Brunei. He took America around the world. Curiosity mixed with education.

His work was adapted in films, television, live radio broadcasting. He had become a national celebrity,idolised by kids over Baseball players and even the President.

The advent of the second World War, grounded the modern Marco Polo, unable to travel he focused on exceptional war stories.post the war, he made his trip to the orient, his most loved lands but what he encountered was a different world, altered by global war.

He witnessed the destruction of his beloved China, bombed to death and this, left a lasting impact on his spirits.

On his return, he launched his brand on television. On the 13th episode, he suffered a stroke live. He left this world to explore another, a few weeks later.

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And yet for all his world travels, he would be surprisingly small minded too. Generally, when you think of someone as Ripley who is bringing in the world, is seen to be educated, well travelled and highbrow but as odd as it may occur, one minute he would be someone travelling to raise his consciousness and the next minute, was the ugly American tourist.

He refused to learn even few phrases of the local language and prided himself on being from "the civilized end of the world"

But this globe trottler had one safe secret.
His travels were guided by an unseen hand, researcher NORBERT PERLROTH who directed his adventures from an unlikely position, the New York Public Library,Perlroth was also the one who factfinded the 67th solo travel across the Atlantic among million others.

Norbert Perlroth was the man behind the king. BELIEVE IT OR NOT!

Ripley did genuinely had a child like curiosity of this incredible world which he sought to share with the readers.

In many ways, what he did is still happening all over the place,today.if you wanna get into the soul of Robert Ripley, you simply go to YouTube and knock yourself out because that's where the spirit of believe it or not lives.