Ripley's Belive It Or Not! Brochures

Believe it or not I'm back... (well I don't think I was missed very much)

Anyway to keep this blog from turning into a ghost blog I bring you some vintage brochures for the Ripley's Believe In Or Not Museums.

Here's one for the Museum in St. Augustine, Florida...

And here's one for the museum at Niagara Falls...

As you can see they both use virtually the same layouts. The use of the "Four-Eyed" man's eyes is certainly eye catching (no pun intended). But featuring the Lincoln Memorial and Lincoln's Log Cabin made of pennies so prominently on the covers was a mistake. I mean come on, they're just not that impressive, and almost looks like a rainy day craft project.

I visited the Ripley's museum in St. Augustine as a child. I don't really remember very much about it. But the image of the Four-Eyed Man from China is unforgettable. I remember thinking as a kid that he was some sort of monster. Just look at how they sculpted his wax figure...

Damn that's one scary-ass dude!

He looks so angry. But I'm sure living with an eye deformity like that was not very fun.

Summertime Reruns

Hey there faithful readers, this isn't much of a post, but thought I'd let you know I've updated a couple of posts.

My popular Magic Wold Brochure post has been updated with firsthand accounts from reader's comments. Thanks again to everyone who has left comments.

My much less popular Old Chicago Brochure post has been updated with a full scene from Brian De Palma's The Fury (1978) which was shot at Old Chicago.

The pic above is an ad for the 1991 NBC Saturday Morning lineup which was basically the last year NBC ran cartoons. I never watched the Chip and Pepper show, but I always assumed they were a couple of LA radio jocks who got a show because some desperate TV executive thought they'd relate to the young viewers. The real story according to the Wiki is surprising, but not too much different than what I thought.

Walt Disney World Bicentennial Brochure

Just in time for Independence Day I bring you the Walt Disney World Bicentennial Brochure.

The year was 1976, and every day at WDW was like the Fourth of July with their very patriotic and lavish "America On Parade" parade.



I don't know if you noticed, but back in 1976 Disney was still on the ticket system. A 2 day ticket book for one adult cost $15 in 1976. Today just parking your car at Disney costs about this much!

BONUS STUFF: Hey look, it's an official "America On Parade" drinking mug. It still has its price tag, and cost $1.25 back in the day. I wonder how much it would go for on Ebay?


Hey look again, it's the official guide to Walt Disney World from 1976. It's compliments of a company called GAF - whatever that was...

This guide is about 30 pages long. So I'm not planning to scan it for this blog any time soon.

Trog-Lo-Dytes LIVE!

Trog-Lo-Dytes were a circular piece of milk chocolate packaged in a cartoonish cardboard wrapper called an "Action Pack" (package patent pending) manufactured in the late 1970's by the Pangburn Candy Company of Fort Worth Texas.

The back of the Trog-Lo-Dyte. Say kids, it's only 23 cents!!

The gimmick of the action pack is when you gently pressed down on the top of the package the cardboard would slide, and usually reveal some sort of joke. Well instead of explaining it why don't I show you through the magic of GIF animation...















They're pretty funny, but that last one with the magician I don't get. Was there supposed to be some sort of joke there?

Groucho Cocktail Napkins

From 1954 here comes a sampling of "That's Me Groucho" cocktail napkins. The novelty of these novelty napkins is that each of the 36 napkins had a different one panel cartoon printed on them.

The box I have has less than half of the napkins remaining, but from what I seen the cartoons are pretty funny. All the cartoons show Groucho in some sort of riskque or sexual situation - usually with a hot girl.





Well that's it. If anyone reading this would like to see more just let me know.

UPDATE: There are more Groucho cocktail napkins here.

Football Super Freaks

Here are four of the possible 42 "Football Super Freaks" stickers printed in 1974 by Donruss. I would have happily shown you more than four, but four is all I have, and that's four more then you'll find anywhere else on the internet.

That's surprising because I would have thought someone would have posted the entire collection by now. The art work on the stickers is good, and looks like it could be the work of Jack Davis (or someone doing a very good imitation). Unfortunately, the "funny" text on the back of the stickers is not very good.

Circus World Brochure

Here's another in a series of now defunct amusement park brochures.

Circus World in Barnum City, Florida was located only "10 minutes west of Walt Disney World,"and that might have been a reason for its ultimate failure. I don't know call me crazy, but unless you're some big media conglomerate like Universal, I don't think it's wise to open an amusement park in Disney's backyard.

Oh well, if you want to know more about what happen to Circus World you can read all about it here.