Ripley's Believe It or Not! (1982 TV series)
Ripley's Believe It or Not!, an American documentary television series which was hosted by Jack Palance and aired on ABC from 1982 to 1986 and is the second television version of Ripley's Believe It or Not!. Based on the travels and discoveries of oddity-hunter Ripley, this show looked at the people, places and events that made up the stranger side of human history. Subjects have included Nikola Tesla, The Bermuda Triangle, The Elephant Man, and Mad King Ludwig. The series featured Palance or a co-host showcasing strange events, places of odd significance, trivia, and a commercial bumper of original art from Ripley's comics. Henry Mancini and His Orchestra provided the theme song.
The series was predated as a pilot documentary film also hosted by Palance on May 3, 1981 directed by Ronald Lyon.
Co-hosts included actress Catherine Shirriff in season 1, Palance's daughter Holly Palance in seasons 2 & 3 and singer Marie Osmond, in season 4.
Episodes
Pilot
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Season 1
Total number of episodes: 20.Season 2
Total number of episodes: 23.| Director | Original Airdate | Writers | Segment Summaries | Bumpers | NOTES |
| Mel Stuart | David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs, Mel Stuart, Draper Lewis | The second season begins with a look at the legendary Ninja at the Iga-ryū Ninja Museum, Onagadori; Onagadori cocks, hunting practices of lions, bats, Amazon river "Big Noise" ; Mojave desert Creosote bush and King Clone; CMI ; Laser harp; George Landry's LYRA; Blacksmiths forging contest Malibu, South African snake sit-in; tobacco spitting, Talico, Ca; freshwater salamander eating contest; Hubble telescope; Wilson and Penzias radio telescope and the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation; the sun; Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich. | Tongue of giant Brazilian pirarucu fish is so rough it is used as sandpaper by fishermen; Flute named after Sicilian eel; Israel Weintraub consumed 146 clams in 20 mins | ||
| Mel Stuart | William Kronick, Thomas Fuchs, David H. Vowell, Jack Haley Jr. | Rasputin assassination; Japanese tattoos; Sudanese ; Brazil ; Indian man with the longest fingernails; Asaro Mudmen in ; Ede & Ravenscroft limited wigs; birds of prey ; operating rooms; surgical techs; Dragon's Breath in China; Movieland Wax Museum; Rare photos and outtakes of The Jitterbug scene in The Wizard of Oz ; the curse of the Elgin Marbles British Museum. | Cheeks and eyebrows makeup; The official name of an Australian bird that mimics other creatures including a barking dog is appropriately the male lyrebird; To protect themselves during a plague, doctors in 16th-century France wore leather noses in which they burned incense. | NOTE: Series Executive Producer, Jack Haley, Jr. was the son of Wizard of Oz star Jack Haley who played the Tin Man. | |
| "" | A segment on ritual celebrations includes the "naked festivals" of Japan; boat burning in the Shetland Islands; and the "trooping of the colors" in England. Also: reptiles, including the Komodo dragon, alligators and snakes; ancient sports; puzzle solving; water birthing. | ||||
| Jack Haley Jr. | Nicolas Noxon, David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs | Segments include the legend of Jesse James; a school where frogs are trained to jump; a man who teaches Italian gestures to the Swiss; hand fan and romance; insect mating rituals; the origin of the match; ritual fire dancing in Suriname; a high-rise fire that killed 179 people in Sao Paulo, Brazil; exotic foods; Chinese imperial banquet; Rum-running; Horatio Nelson's body shipped in brandy. | In the great Baltimore disaster of 1904, fire destroyed 84 city blocks without the loss of a single life; By appointment of her majesty, Queen Victoria of Great Britain, Englishman Jack Black was employed as a royal rat catcher; Typically German dish of sauerkraut, pickled cabbage, originated in ancient China. | NOTE: Featured footage of Jesse James. | |
| Jack Haley, Jr. | Irwin Rosten, David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs, Draper Lewis, Jack Haley, Jr. | Segments on an ax murderer who publicly announced he wouldn't kill people while they listened to jazz; an art masterpiece hanging in a variety store in Pasadena, Texas; rituals to appease volcano gods; a man who sculpts with lava. | The eruption of Mount St. Helens created enough ashes of dust to cover Manhattan Island to a depth of 28 stories; Disabled Irish writer, Christy Brown, wrote six books by typing with a little toe of his left foot; In Long View, Washington, squirrels have their own man made suspension bridge to cross a busy thoroughfare. | ||
| "" | Segments include the longest automobile in the world; apartments that rent for 66 cents a year; an autopsy performed on an Arctic explorer 100 years after he died; land shaping; neon art; video art; a giant-tree carving; Japanese tosa dogs; African wild dogs. | ||||
| Mel Stuart | William Kronick, Thomas Fuchs, Draper Lewis, Jack Haley, Jr., David H. Vowell | Segments include the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain; the Place of Refuge, a Hawaiian island sanctuary for criminals; a spy who operated undetected out of the British Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, during World War II; rituals to ensure a bountiful harvest; unusual horses, including the Lippizaners and bucking broncos. | Men of the Be---- tribe of India, believe being suspended from a hook while wearing women's clothing is a cure for infertility; Sherpas, the professional porters of Nepal, use needle & thread to patch the flesh on soles of their feet; Veteran jockey, Bill Shoemaker has raced over 25,000 miles, a distance equal to the circumference of the earth. | ||
| Mel Stuart | Nicolas Noxon, David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs, Paul Boorstin | Segments on the Heike crabs of Japan; which are believed to be the spirits of dead samurai; accident research at the National Bureau of Standards; an Irish monk who sailed to America 900 years before Columbus; the origin of Sid Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. | Because so many drivers in Amsterdam accidentally plunge into canals motorists are given special underwater escape courses; In 1916, in Tennessee, a rogue elephant that killed 3 people was sentenced to death and hanged; For 60 years, mysterious fireballs have appeared above Brown Mountain in North Carolina. No one has yet offered a proveable explanation.÷ | ||
| Nicholas Webster | Thomas Fuchs, David H. Vowell, William Kronick, Draper Lewis, Mel Stuart | Segments on Black Bart, a desperado with a penchant for penning pathetic poetry; revolutionary crime-fighting techniques and devices; airships including the LZ 129 Hindenburg; the monasteries atop the Meteora in Northeastern Greece; insects; David Rice Atchison. | The police box; chinch bugs; Charles Green had hot-air balloon flight with horse. | ||
| "" | Segments on a mountain climber who uses no equipment; Japanese "onsen" spas; a grueling run across Death Valley and back. Also a feature commemorating the attack on Pearl Harbor includes Doolittle's raid, Japanese balloon bombs. | ||||
| Mel Stuart | Paul Boorstin, David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs, Draper Lewis | Segments include a 17-year-old who forged a Shakespearean play in the 18th century; Adolf Hitler's toy cannon; a walking robot. Also: a feature on death rites includes the Tung Wah Coffin Home in Hong Kong; a Buddhist sect that weds the soul of the dead dolls. | Upon the death of a Japanese General, his 20 inch long mustache was buried with full honors, in a separate casket; Eccentric Scotsman, Robert Ferry, saved money on his wardrobe by sometimes stealing clothes from his neighbors scarecrows. | NOTE: Postponed from an earlier date. Featured footage of The Son of the Sheik. | |
| "" | Segments on the octopus, garden eel, shark and sea urchin; a South Pacific ritual in which men dive toward the ground held only by a vine that breaks their fall at the last moment; modern artists who craft their works using bubbles, rocks, automobiles, and TV sets; and a Chinese ritual involving papers stained with blood from a human tongue. | ||||
| John Peyser | William Kronick, David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs, Draper Lewis, Paul Boorstin | Segments on the Mon Lei, a Chinese junk built for a warlord; the capture of a Nazi U-boat during World War II; explorer Thor Heyerdahl's Atlantic voyage in a reed boat. | In Australia, ten dollar bills bare the portrait of Francis Greenway, who was deported from England for forgery; Americans spend over a billion dollars a year to buy a million tons of cat food; In 1860, a young drummer boy survived a shipwreck on Lake Michigan by using his drum as a life preserver. | ||
| Roger Spottiswoode | Nicolas Noxon, Thomas Fuchs, David H. Vowell, Paul Boorstin, Draper Lewis | The story of the Hatfield–McCoy feud; China Camp State Park, San Rafael, CA ; Canterbury Shaker Village; Truganini in Tasmania; last of the Shakers; Shoichi Yokoi in Guam; Christopher Janney "Soundstair" in Cambridge, MA ; Suzuki method music; Levi Celerio Filipino violinist; Kangaroo babies; Bulldog ants and larvae; Bison calves; John Milburn Davis Memorial gravesite; Dali people mourning; Chinese graves; a Manila cemetery suburb; Raymond Tse Mercedes Benz tombstone; Toraja graveyard; non-linear thinking. | In detainee region of Sahara Desert, a single tree is the last vegetation for 600 miles; Every album ever made by the Beatles sold over a million copies; In India, husbands & wives who want children whisper their wishes in the ear of a sacred cow. | ||
| John Peyser | David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs | Operation Valkyrie; The century cactus; South Koreans celebrate the Moses Miracle at Jindo Island; The echidna; diving bell spider; African Vadoma tribe of two-toes people; World Eskimo-Indian Olympic Games; Wushu ; Landfills and garbage collection; University of Arizona garbologists; Sewage treatment in San Diego using hyacinths; Lufkin, Texas, sewage treatment using worms; Los Angeles sculptor makes sculptures from garbage; Man juggles bowling balls, flaming swords, and a chainsaw with two apples; Fire-breather street performer in Mexico City; Juggler balances a person in a chair on his chin; Artist recreates Michaelangelo paintings on Paris sidewalks; Benjamin Banneker's involvement in Washington, DC. | The glass snake is so fragile that if it is touched its tail falls off; To celebrate his victories a Mongolian conqueror played polo with the heads of the conquered generals; In Bangkok, the Wat Arun temple is covered with broken dishes. | ||
| Mel Stuart | Nicolas Noxon, David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs, Paul Boorstin | Segments include Edgar Allen Poe's fear of being buried alive; traditions for exorcising evil spirits in Spain, Switzerland, and Hong Kong ; a fighting-spider tournament; new technologies that aid the handicapped; the Dickin Medal, awarded to animal war heroes; New York's Hurley's saloon, built in 1870; hoarders Collyer brothers in 1947; dilapidated South Bronx John Fekner designs; 1691 8th NYC governor Edward Hyde, 3rd Earl of Clarendon and painting of Queen Anne. | Tradition sometimes requires women of the Multalunas tribe of Columbia to dance while carrying the bones of deceased relatives; In the 1740s, a blind English policeman was credited with identifying thousands of thieves by their voices alone; Because of the pull of the moon, the Empire State Building rises and falls about 18 inches everyday. | ||
| "" | Segments on the unusual odyssey of Eva Peron's corpse; giant vegetables; an experiment with plants hooked up to a polygraph to determine if they feel pain. Also: a feature on earthquakes. | ||||
| "" | Segments include dining in the Space Shuttle's galley; researching dinosaurs; the Spruce Goose, Howard Hughes' wooden plane; performing animals. A report on unusual foods features such delicacies as deep-dried rat, beetle sausage. | ||||
| John Peyser | David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs, Paul Boorstin, Mel Stuart | El Cid of Portugal; Inuit diet and hunting; Modern English living as the ancient English; The Washington memorial and Monument; the Treasury Department; President Monroe's house; The United States Capitol; Mount Rushmore; Hananuma Masakichi in Yokohama in Japan; Festival of Bachelors in Lisdoonvarna Ireland; Shashti Poorthi rituals in India; Meoto Iwa in Japan; Wind farm; Inventor James L. Amick's wind-powered car; a solar-powered car ; Solar 1 generator; solar-powered devices; paper loop trick. | To survive a shipwreck in 1974, a determined woman clung to the backs of two seagoing turtles; In the United States, one city has more psychiatrists per capita than any other, Washington, DC ; At weddings in Borneo, a human skull was once part of the ceremony to symbolize love outlasted death. | NOTE: Featured footage of El Cid. | |
| "" | Segments include Hetty Green, who was known as the "Witch of Wall Street" because of her financial acumen; the Tiger Balm Gardens, a sprawling park in Hong Kong; the migration of the monarch butterfly; a lottery for burial plots; a floating city of the future. | In India, a holy man attracts pilgrims who come to the Ganges river, by burying his head in the sand; To navigate over long distances, homing pigeons have a built-in compass. Magnetic material embedded in nerve tissue; In Mexico, skulls made of hard candy bearing the initials of the deceased are kept as sentimental souvenirs. | |||
| Nick Webster | David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs, Draper Lewis, Mel Stuart | Segments on King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Juana of Spain, who was driven mad by love; the development and use of the atomic bomb; Hiroshima; surgical implants that relieve arthritis pain; video-game therapy; early brain scanning; hypnotism with treatment. A feature on construction feats includes Washington Roebling and the origin of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Great Wall of China. Asmat people and unique totems and carvings; fingernail artist; ritual pilgrimage with head shaving in India; the Pony Express. | As an aid in the treatment of sore backs, an 18th-century inventor developed an elaborate back rubbing machine; In Australia, a fence built to protect sheep is over 4,500 miles longer than the Great Wall of China. | NOTE: Featured footage of Col. Paul Tibbets and the Enola Gay. | |
| John Peyser | Irwin Rosten, David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs, Paul Boorstin, Draper Lewis | Segments include the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre; sleep research; facial surgery; man-made natural oddities; an artificial hand; a circular car; and a vending machine that pays out money. Also: rarebirds and the Salem witch trials. | In Medieval Europe, medical practitioners created a potent nostrum by grinding up fragments of mummies; To crossover the Himalaya mountains from India into Nepal, automobiles once were carried by porters; Inventors have piled plans of the U.S. Patent Office for over 300 devices designed to stop snoring. | ||
| Mel Stuart | Nicolas Noxon, David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs | Church of St Joan of Arc in Orléans, France; George Washington and Adolf Hitler's teeth; Pygmies human teeth sharpening; artist of teeth; daredevil museum in Niagara Falls, Ny; Japanese elimination contest; the fortress at Masada; the lost temple of Akhenaten; underwater ship graveyard in Chuuk Lagoon; insects used in Maceration for museums; Hell money rituals in Hong Kong; man grinds beef oil and predicts tornadoes; candle wicks. | Sheep teeth; Edward H. Gibson pins in face and chest; roads on dunes | NOTE: Featured footage of Joan of Arc. |
Season 3
Total number of episodes: 21.| Director | Original Airdate | Writers | Segment Summaries | Bumpers | NOTES |
| Segments in the third-season opener include a horned toad that survived 31 years in a time capsule; training procedures at the Los Angeles Police Academy; advances in medical technology providing new treatments for kidney stones and tumors; recordings attached to the Voyager space vehicles; mushrooms. | |||||
| Mel Stuart | David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs, Don Hall | Getting an egg in a bottle out trick; Virginia City; Nevada Delta Saloon slot machines; gambling surveillance systems; Murph Stewart Dice inspector; Card Mechanic Richard Turner ; a Faro suicide table; Maurice Ravel and the left-handed ; armless Andy Detwiler; cerebral palsy songwriter Wayne Pronger; Mount of Olives; Monastery in Sicily catacombs; shrine 431 steps temple of 10 thousand Buddha's; morticians restorative art; poisonous frogs; water walker spider; the mating ritual of the bird of paradise; frill-necked lizard inspired Japanese dance; Walter Raleigh's severed head and legend of laying down his cloak for Elizabeth I of England. | In his will, a dedicated gambler specified burial in a special coffin, sitting up at a card table w/ a deck of cards close at hand; A blind man sailed from San Francisco to Hawaii; English eccentric Richard Howell specified in his will he be buried on horseback upside down. | NOTE: Postponed from an earlier date | |
| Mel Stuart | Don Hall, Thomas Fuchs, David H. Vowell, Mel Stuart | Animal group names; museum of man in Paris; Paul Bairoch; Study on brains; Electronic brain for blind; training center for hearing ear dog; sea turtles who are ill; Bird Street in Hong Kong; protection of golden eagles; Employee Mural Art in Vernon, California Paper Bag Factory; Chan painting in China; jet engine artist; desert majesty art; the Le Bateau Matisse painting upside down at MOMA; Mount Moriah; Shinbyu at the Shwedagon Pagoda; the pilgrimage to The Cristo Negro of Esquipulas; the death of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey because of William Kingston's name. | The brain is the most complex of human organs, but almost 75% of it is water; To predict earthquakes, the U.S. government science study behavior of mice & kangaroo rats; In China, artist Huang Ernan; created masterpieces by painting on silk with his tongue. | ||
| Mel Stuart | Thomas Fuchs, Don Hall, David H. Vowell, Draper Lewis | Judge Roy Bean; Roman food tasters, Snake fang tester and venom collector, Belgium bomb disposal squad, English Steeplejack, Fred Dibnah;, Japanese pullulan food sheets, Dabbawala in Bombaby, India, Jumiles in Taxco, Mexico, CZimmer's Game and Seafood in Lockport, Ill; potato powered clock; blue whales; curious dolphins in Monkey Mia; Killer whales; Imperial Easter Egg of 1893; Fabergé eggs; diamond jubilee March 1946; Gem mining in Columbia; oyster farming; and Imperial Crown duplicate; PT Barnum's egress sign. | To assist an attorney in accident cases, Stuntman Alan Gibbs, duplicates the details of dangerous crashes; In 1977 Texan Steve Weldon consumed under 100 yards of spaghetti in 29 seconds; An Arctic whale called a Narwhal has a spiral tusk that can be as long as 8 feet long. | ||
| Mel Stuart | David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs, Don Hall, Mel Stuart | A curse of Aztec Sea god, Quetzalcoatl that led to Hernán Cortés; Penicillin discovery; tongue surgery on Down Syndrome; Dr. Han Schemedal neuro-electrical hand; blood transfusion; Dr. Charles R. Drew and blood plasma discovery; Hanover, N.H. snow and ice lab; Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival in Northern China; Swiss Alps avalanches; Nenana Ice Classic lottery in Alaska; liquid nitrogen; a three-bedroom house built in less than seven hours; beer can house; architect of Eiffel Tower apartment on the 4th floor; a laundry that washes money in San Francisco's Westin St. Francis hotel; Hallstat painted skulls ossuary; SC Johnson insecticide laboratory; match-tester Burt Wilkinson; Victor Hugo short letter writing. | In England in 1652 ordinary coffee was once advertised as a cure for gout and scurvy; If the snow & ice melted at the South Pole, it could flood every coastal city on earth; The Slovak Radio Building. | NOTE: Featured footage of Italian Front in Alpines. | |
| Mel Stuart | David H. Vowell, Don Hall, Thomas Fuchs | Included: a paperclip trick; whale artist John Perry; fishing with a kite; a house of jigsaw puzzles; torture tests for household appliances ; military experts setting off a large conventional explosion ; hunting for spider webs; Fillmore fish hatchery; salmon struggling to reach their spawning ground; the top-secret preparations for the D-day invasion; books made of wood pulp. | Frank Butland, an obsessive British school maid, tasted just about anything, including marinated mice on buttered toast; To test safes, a laboratory freezes them, bakes them, and drops them from the height of a three-story building; The password used by U.S. armed forces during the invasion of Normandy on D-Day was Mickey Mouse. | ||
| John Peyser | Thomas Fuchs, David H. Vowell, Don Hall | Typhoid Mary; Explosives Marcelo Ramos; Controlled Demolition, Inc.; Double Dutch at Lincoln Center; thoroughbreds; cheetah w/ tiger stripes; Walking catfish; Dougal Dixon; Johann Ludwig Burckhardt rediscovered Petra; the Anasazi; a vacuum & cork trick. | For 300 years after they invented it, the Chinese used gunpowder not to make weapons, but to make firecrackers; An annual race is conducted in Deming, New Mexico to determine the fleetest of foot among domesticated ducks; The leaping two inch Jerboas of Australia can jump as high as six feet in a single bound. | ||
| David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs, Don Hall | Balloon puncture trick; U.S. Navy survival training; British Royal Tournament; baseball for blind National Beep Baseball Association; handicapped man competes in Paralympic Games; Stephen Hawking; soil samples from Mars; a volcanic eruption on a moon of Jupiter; the Moon landing; astronauts training for zero gravity; Space Flight Operations Facility; a rooftop garden in New York City; a machine that picks apples; using corn smut in Mexico; how a grammatical error cost $2 million. | During World War II, a pinup photograph of actress Betty Grable was used to teach flyers how to read aerial maps; A Chinese scientist attempted to ride a rocket-powered chair to the moon, over a hundred years ago. | NOTE: Featured footage of Apollo 14 mission. | ||
| Included: D.H. Lawrence's final resting place; a painless way to gather wool from sheep in Australia; Jerusalem's sacred Western Wall; milking cows by computer in Holland; how to make fertilizer; a valuable garbage dump; how to make a bulletproof window; luring rats to their deaths. | |||||
| Included: how America was named; a fire that burned for eight months; living recreations of famous paintings; an artist who paints with cobwebs; the mechanical art of Survival Research Laboratories; triskaidekaphobia, the fear of the number 13; a high-stakes poker game pitting a man against a computer; a tower built as a home for bats; why $500 million is gathering dust in storage; how Leonardo kept his ideas secret. | |||||
| John Peyser | Nicolas Noxon, David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs, Don Hall | Included: the friendship of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison; the Fourth of July; how the New Year is celebrated in Japan; 10 days in history that have been lost forever; art of camouflage; how skiers keep in shape during the summer; sky divers performing at 14,000 feet. | To devout followers of the Shinto religion in Japan, Thomas Edison is worshipped as the god of electricity; In the 1920s, sportsmen attached themselves to balloons to leap almost a quarter of a mile in a single bound; To protect itself, the horned toad squirts blood as far as five feet, from its eyes. | ||
| Jack Haley, Jr. | David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs, Jack Haley, Jr., Draper Lewis | Segments include crime-prevention techniques; reconstructing faces from skulls; how a slave won freedom with a snake bite; controlling the weather; how to make sea water drinkable; a customized Mercedes-Benz with a TV and fireplace; milk-carton boats; water that can cut through steel. | In 1982, government agents discovered that counterfeit $100 bills were being printed in a prison; In Paris in 1910, a painting won praise until the artist was revealed to be a donkey; Fire completely destroyed an ice house in Colorado without melting the mountain of ice it contained. | ||
| Segments include a computer that helps create speech for the disabled; a scheme to sell the Eiffel Tower for scrap iron; F-15 pilots in mock aerial combat; how America saved the French wine industry; a pumpkin that weighs some 550 pounds. | As a training exercise, swimmers once suspended themselves on special racks to practice the proper moves; In China, soup made from steaks is considered to be a meal and a medicine. | ||||
| Mel Stuart | David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs | The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls; armor for an elephant; a 13-year-old test pilot; James Joyce and the longest passage in English literature; solar -powered planes; endangered turtles; CPR; arthroscopic knee surgery. | British eccentric, Henry Cope, was so obsessed with green that he would eat nothing but green fruits and vegetables; In England, in the 18th century, snails were boiled in tea water as a remedy for chest congestion; In Brazil, a rhinoceros was nominated for public office and won more votes than any other candidate. | ||
| Segments on sleep research; Einstein's brain; a wedding performed in a tub; how visual brain waves can assist the handicapped; a Japanese ritual battle to ensure a bountiful harvest; a mountain village where people dress up as wild bears; a fish that lives in the desert. | . | ||||
| Mel Stuart | David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs, Mel Stuart, Don Hall | Pulling a dollar bill between two bottles trick; Segments on sacred sites and rituals in Jerusalem; Absalom's tomb, water baptism in the river Jordan, 7 martyrs church of Saint Saba, via dolorosa; ruins of Herod's second temple; words pronunciation; Missouri auction school; a Japanese rite dedicated to the sound of laughter; Vivian Fisher, a man who can imitate the sounds of musical instruments; devices for seeing in the dark ; wildlife in darkness ; AMKUS pump; how firefighters rescue victims trapped in car wrecks; Pascal's calculator. | One ornithologist, Horatio Q. Birdbath can mimic the sounds of 300 different bird calls; In Waitomo, New Zealand, a cave is illuminated by millions of glow worms. | ||
| John Peyser | Thomas Fuchs, David H. Vowell, Mel Stuart | Water optical trick; E.E. Cummings 1922 French Poem "CHANSONS INNOCENTES"; A transcontinental humming exercise w/ Bonnie Barnett; Fastest speaker Tom Adams; Sound poets Charles Stein and George Quasha; Knot's Berry Farm Haunted Shack; University of Edinburgh motion research; hypnotism w/ psychiatrist Martin Orne; Dice; Wong Tai Sin Temple ; Tribal Bingo in ; Corning Museum of Glass; Yuichiro Miura Skied down Mount Everest; Edwin Boring and the ambiguous drawing My Wife and My Mother-in-Law. | A holy man began a chant which his followers continued for 13 years; The walls and columns of the Lincoln Memorial lean inward but appear straight; Charles Wells broke the Monte Carlo Casino and died penniless. | NOTE: Featured footage from documentary The Man Who Skied Down Everest, about Miura. | |
| John Peyser | Nicholas Noxon, David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs. | Prince Lorenzo de' Medici; positive thinking; Japanese domino-toppling champion; Color Blindness; JLS contact lenses; vocal chord surgery; muscle grafting; reconstructive microsurgery; cockroaches; Japanese giant wasps; the 1984 Australian mice plague; antique stores; Metro Zoo Miami, Fl - "Urban Man" Vidal, Albert; Moses the paper bag hat artist; Calcio Fiorentino in Florence, Italy; A Ripley's Believe It Or Not! cartoon led to "The Star Spangled Banner" becoming the U.S. national anthem; square bullet reason for Puckle gun. | In China & Korea dominoes are used as a way to foretell the future; Doctors once prescribed metal collars w/ thumb screws for patients with stiff necks; There are about 7,000,000 bats in NYC - and only one person to patrol them. | ||
| John Peyser | Thomas Fuchs, David H. Vowell | John Sutter and the origin of Sacramento, California; Douglas DC-3 plane; The city that inspired the mythical kingdom of Shangri-La, Lhasa; the Dalai Lama's route to exile through the Himalayas; San Diego Zoo nursery and ; Vancouver Aquarium and beluga whale giving birth; Serengeti National Park; Moses Coates apple peeler; Henry Ford museum; an early computerized photo alteration program; an eye typing program; MIT artificial intelligence; Henry J. Wooldridge gravesite monuments; Hong Kong burials; Fol-Sang dong chung; Qilakitsoq, Greenland; voices in relation to air. | The kiwi bird is about the size of a chicken but lays eggs ten times as large; | NOTE: Featured footage from the film Lost Horizon. | |
| The Dead Sea; Bonsai trees; mangled money; professional venom collectors; Nethercutt Collection in Sylmar, Ca; car customizer Dean Jeffries; low-rider competition; junkyard artist Jim Gary; National Severe Storms Forecast Center predicts violent weather; Elis Stenman's Paper house in Rockport, Mass; Ant Lovack French Riviera house; Empress Dowager Cixi's Marble Boat; origin of the Statue of Liberty and its French duplicate; Sea Cucumber in Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco. | Thomas Paine, famous as a pamphleteer during the American Revolution was originally a corset maker; Ronald Coltsnov of Los Scat Ca, adorned his car with 1,045 plastic horses; Chinese experts claim that the leaves on ancient trees in China change colors to predict the weather. | ||||
| Alan Cooke | Nicolas Noxon, David H. Vowell, Thomas Fuchs, Mel Stuart | Cellist Anton Fils ate spiders regularly; Protective glass, Nuclear safety canisters; crash testing; chemo luminescent glow stick; crossword puzzles and the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament; Diaper Derby; the Lake Biwa Birdman Rally hang-gliding contest; Brahma pyramid ; a deep-sea dive to retrieve the gold treasure aboard ; laser-beam technology; ice-cube, salt, and thread trick. | In New York State, some supermarkets have installed seat belts for children on shopping carts; An airborne competition in the 1920s daredevils played tennis on the wings of high flying aircraft; To lift priceless porcelain from the bottom of Japan's Seto Inland Sea, treasure hunters attached ropes to octopus. |