Did you know Archivist George Redmonds of Great Britain discovered that a girl born in 1379 in Yorkshire, England was named “Diot Coke”? How about the software engineer Jon Blake Cusak and his wife who named their baby boy Jon Blake Cusak 2.0 or the 60-inch 121-pound catfish caught by Jason Holbrook and Cody Mullenix at Lake Texoma, Texas.
These are obscure facts that transcend the bizarre and unusual, began by a man named Robert Ripley who in his travels documented these strange facts with cartoons. Ripley, a fact hound, was born on Christmas Day in 1893 and originally began his career as a sports cartoonist.
In 1918 Robert Ripley created what is regarded as the first “Believe it Or Not” cartoon (Champs and Chumps) but did not publish the initial BION cartoon until a year later in 1919. Ripley’s Believe it Or Not was an agglomeration of facts collected from his travels to over 198 countries, a way of documenting and sharing his odd and extraordinary cultural findings. This included his most prized possesion; a sculpture of Japanese artist Hananuma Masakichi.
Masakichi incorporated his own fingernails, toenails and hair to make the statue appear more life-like. The statue makes it’s rounds today to the various Ripley museum locations but at one time was kept in a special curtained section of Ripley’s bedroom. This and many other items as mentioned are displayed at the several Ripley’s Believe it Or Not Museums around the globe in addition to a prime-time television show starring Dean “Superman” Cain. All for a man who made it his hobby to log his travels with bizarre findings and creating a successful comic strip to display them.
The official web site for the Ripley’s television show refers to a man named Wayne Harbour who made it his lifelong mission to debunk Ripley’s claims and prove that he was in fact a liar. The site explains “For 26 years, this postmaster wrote a letter a day challenging at least one of the claims in the daily cartoon. As of 1970, he had written 22,708 letters to people highlighted in the cartoon. He never received a single contradiction to the claims Ripley made. His letters are now part of the Ripley’s collection.”
Despite Wayne Harbour’s claims, Ripley received 3,500 letters per day resulting in over one million letters per year from fans from around the world.
Believe it or not!
I’m searching for a baseball related Ripley article from the nineteen teens. Curious if someone could help with location of archives and potential leads?
email pwgortonmb@hotmail.com