Believe It or Not: A weird, dusty collection of curiosities

Is it worth your time?

Honestly, only if you have a massive soft spot for grainy, old-timey newsreels and people obsessed with weird hobbies. If you hate slow pacing or don't care about a 1930s motorized parking garage, skip it. It’s definitely not for anyone who needs a plot.

Robert Ripley starts the whole thing by basically saying, "Here's a guy who will do the actual talking." It feels a bit like a bait-and-switch, but you get used to it. The energy is very stiff, like everyone is reading from a teleprompter that doesn't exist yet.

The golf course bit is actually kind of wild. Imagine playing through on a course built out of Civil War trenches. It feels so wrong, but also weirdly American.

The Highlights (and the weird stuff)

• The Sioux artist painting upside down. Why? I don't know, but he does it with such focus it's hypnotic.
• The paralyzed dog with wheels. It’s actually surprisingly sweet, even if the film quality makes the dog look like a ghost.
• The matchstick violin. I stared at the screen for way too long trying to see if it was actually playable.

There's a stretch where they talk about a cemetery for dogs, and the tone gets so strangely serious. It’s funny how they treat it like a major news event. It makes me think of The Poor Fish, just because of that same weird, dated perspective on what people find interesting enough to film.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Believe It or Not (Second Series) #10 (1932) through its definitive frames.

That motorized parking garage? It’s arguably the most exciting thing in the episode. It looks like a giant toaster for cars. You’ll probably want to see how that worked, even though it looks like an absolute nightmare to maintain.

The whole thing feels disjointed, like a YouTube playlist curated by someone's grandfather. It doesn't have the narrative drive of something like Wonderful London: Barging Through London, but it’s got its own charm. Or maybe it's just the sound of the narrator’s voice—very mid-Atlantic and super confident about things that don't matter.

I found myself wondering if anyone ever actually visited that mansion on the Atlantic City pier. It looks like it’s about to fall into the ocean in every shot. 🌊

Anyway, it’s not life-changing. It’s just... stuff. Weird, old, dusty stuff. Watch it if you’re bored and want to see how people in the 30s occupied their brains.