Monday, April 04, 2011

That's Incredible! versus Ripley's Believe It Or Not!

If you were a boy growing up in the 1980s in America, then you must have owned a dog eared copy of the Guinness Book of World Records.  And to accompany that compendium of radical and gnarly trivia, you also religiously watched these two shows.

That's Incredible!  I definitely preferred this show.  I had no idea who Davidson and Crosby were.  I vaguely knew that Fran was a football player.  But the upbeat music and oh-so-'80s set sealed the deal for me.


Content-wise, I think Ripley's Believe It Or Not! was superior.  But Jack Palance was so friggin' creepy.


You just know that if they had a re-make of That's Incredible!, it would be hosted by tools like Mario Lopez, that Sugar Ray guy, and Shannon Doherty.

2 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 5, 2011 at 8:49 AM

    I remember watching "Aunque ud. no lo crea" (Believe it or not) as a kid in the early 90's. Which means it was an 80's program dubbed in Spanish.

    It should have been another season, though, because the format was with animators in a studio, like That's incredible.

    I also remember the stuff shown was more interesting than shocking... maybe it was edited for kids as I remember watching it on the morning.

    Things like how swiss cookoo clocks were made, how the production of a US postal stamp worked and playing football with cars in Brazil (with an enormous ball and, I think, VW Brasilia).

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  2. MaxichampApril 5, 2011 at 9:26 AM

    @Viva: I highly recommend going to a Believe It Or Not museum:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripley's_Believe_It_or_Not!#Museums

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