Editor's Note: Old timers and devotees of the esoteric remember that weird, marginally mind-stretching single-panel comic-page staple "Believe It or Not!" by Robert Ripley. Although there's a "Believe It or Not" museum at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, this collection of quirky oddities has been out of print for many years, leaving a void in humankind's continuing need for the jejunely bizarre, the funkily off-beat, a void which The Paumanok Review hopes to fill with the wholly new and surprisingly up-to-date "You Better Believe It!"
The palindromic eel can descend to a depth of 4,000 feet but because of the high water pressure always forgets why it did
THE VIKING WHO DEFIED GRAVITY! Rolf Almundandson (867-917) of Bergen could perform a running somersault in the air wearing full armor without losing any of the change in his pockets
Tobriand Islanders put mustard on French fries
Potato owned by Fred Miller of Green Slope, Wisc., grew in the shape of W. C. Fields' nose and takes on a slightly pinkish tint on the anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition
HAIR DOES NOT GROW UP! It actually grows DOWN and pushes itself up
Crocodile Dundee once gave an interview to a Melbourne skin mag in which he confessed that American women didn't turn him on!
The largest big toe in the world (8.2 cm) belongs to Earl Trobble of Chula Vista, Tex., and he has stubbed it 479 times
A favorite ice-breaker for a recent GOVERNOR OF ARKANSAS, Wm. Jefferson Clinton, was to ask women if they by any chance had a curved mouth
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philologist, believed life was endlessly repeated without change -- He was unable to determine what number be was currently doing but this, he realized, was no problem -- Had he done so he would have been WRONG on all but one go-around
The average restaurant table in New York City has 13.7 pieces of chewing gum stuck underneath -- 9.1 of these are sugarless
Japanese tourists take photos of the inner workings of the Teacup Ride at Disneyland!
Rex Bangor (1847-1912), an Illinois attorney, was rejected as a Supreme Court nominee of Grover Cleveland when it was learned he occasionally expectorated in public in the presence of women
Serbian nationalists during the Bosnian war broadcast old Dan Quayle speeches in order to humiliate the United States!
3 British punkers were arrested in 1998 for spraying obscene graffiti on a statue of Lawrence Welk at his birthplace shrine
STRANGEST INVASION IN ALL OF HISTORY! The dictator of a small Southeast Asian nation, Whatchauptu, invaded his even tinier neighbor, Nadaman, to maintain control of the international miniature-umbrella market
Pere Rene LaCoste of Rheims, France, predicted in 1632 that he would be reincarnated three centuries later as an actress and would achieve world fame -- He was branded a fraud and while awaiting sentencing closed his eyes and announced he was transporting himself -- He disappeared instantly after whispering to followers he would next appear in the 20th Century on the David Letterman Show and would be known as Shirley MacLaine
THE PATRIOTIC NUMBER! 31770 seen upside down is the name of everybody's favorite ex-lieutenant colonel and highly popular talk-show host (Ans. Next Issue)
Ladislaw Hordlq (1761-1840), a Balkan mendicant, stood on his head for 48 hours in Trieste in front of the laundry which had lost his favorite loincloth
Cuban prison warden requires political prisoners to listen daily to a tape of the STAR SPANGLED BANNER sung by Roseanne Barr
There are more red ants in Brasilia, Brazil, than ALL OF THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE EVER LIVED ON EARTH and the total number of angels religious authorities estimate are currently in heaven
Redd Plum of El Reno, Okla., can produce his signature forward, backward, and upside down with either hand and with either foot while blindfolded -- his signature is a REBUS and is often mistaken for a tomato
Nepalese government has flatly refused U. S. State Dept. appeals to stop the Abominable Snowman from playing the ukelele and imitating PAT BOONE
Hillary Rodham Clinton once spoke harshly and waved her index finger at he-man actor Cornelius Corelone at a White House dinner when he used his fingers to pick up the Jello cubes --Corelone refused to stop and The First Lady had the chief waiter remove the bowl from his table, whereupon Corelone pointedly began licking his fingers and SMIRKING
Beer-swilling parrot in Haverhill, N.H., was trained to say "Gimme a Bud Light" by having a TV commercial played in front of his cage 5,000 times
The ATHLETE'S TREE of Australia is so called because its wood smells exactly like Shaq's sweat socks
Boston gossip columnists report Sen. Ted Kennedy has mandated that all 4th-generation Kennedys take a vow of celibacy
Musicians of the Wanduba tribe of South America are forbidden to play their quaint native instruments unless they are wearing the distinctive Wanduba porkpie hat and have paid their union dues
THE MOST GULLIBLE NATION IN ALL HISTORY! Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President of the United States, and Wm. Jefferson Clinton, the 42nd, were repeatedly caught telling lies . . . yet the vast majority of the people in their country continued to believe EVERY WORD THEY SAID!
An English bulldog owned by Lisa Menudo of Flambe, Fla., bearing an uncanny resemblance to Ernie Kovacs, actually hates cigars -- and refuses to watch TV
Alan Greenspan, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board and author of Complex Talking, started out as a TV weatherman and the barometric pressure got so high everybody's eyelids stuck!
A Century of Tap Dancing -- Mercer Featherstone of Wimple, Kan., first performed as a tap dancer at the age of nine and was still going strong 100 years later although from age 76 to 83 he never danced a step as a result of complaints from the neighbors downstairs
Famous performer Michael Jackson, lead singer of the Jackson Five and promoter of environmental causes, still wears a costume with an estimated 65 buckles three decades after the invention of Velcro
The Wapinzi of the Borneo rain forest believe that the vile-tasting, libido-reducing fruit of the boralinda tree is a remedy for the common cold -- since this discovery by their chief medicine man NOT ONE WAPINZI HAS MISSED A DAY'S WORK as a result of a cold
The President Who Accommodated Political Cartoonists -- Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th President of the United States, had 5 o'clock shadow every day by 3:30
Wm. Randolph Herbst, American tycoon and philanthropist, shot three holes in one in a single round of golf while personally inaugurating the golf course he had had built at his private estate -- This was considered one of the greatest feats in links annals (although he shot a l46 that day!) until it was discovered he had ordered the contractor to build the greens IN THE SHAPE OF FUNNELS
Mixed-breed dog owned by Reg Owen of Pibble, Ariz., was born with outline of a shillelagh on its forehead on St. Patrick's Day after its mother, part Irish setter, had been watching an old Pat O'Brien film on the family VCR
Actress Lola Rendozi, married eight times, lost her last wedding ring overboard while yachting on Lake Como -- A year later she was dining at Luigi's in Venice and while cutting a carp from Lake Como accidentally lacerated her finger during the playing of a record by Perry Como and has never worn a ring since . . . YET REMAINS TO THIS DAY A CLOSE FRIEND OF EX-GOVERNOR MARIO CUOMO!
The STUBBORNEST COLLECTOR in All History! J. C. Frampton of San Diego, Calif., owns a baseball autographed by all members of the 1969 San Diego Padres and consistently refuses to sell it although he has been offered as much as $60
Johan Lobec of Glen Idyll, Md., never missed a single radio broadcast of "Can You Top This?" from 1948 to 1955 yet cannot remember a single punchline
CRUELEST TORTURE IN ALL HISTORY! King Leroy III of Lodavia requires enemies of state to perform Jazzercise to the works of Sigmund Romberg -- in thong underwear!
Martin Heidegger (1899-1976), German philosopher, asserted that the most important question was, Why is there something rather than nothing? -- This was based on his unproven assumption that what's happening now constitutes "something," a finding that a close study of quantum physics renders highly suspect
YOU NEVER KNOW! Monks in a monastery near Lausanne, Switzerland, in the 19th Century on taking their vow of poverty were instructed to wear underwear with holes in it in case they had an accident and had to go to the hospital
TRIPLE THREAT -- The San Diego Chargers were named for the military horse, they have a bolt of electricity on their helmets, and they buy nothing with cash . . . making them the only pro football team whose NAME IS A TRIPLE PUN!
Musical Ups and Downs -- Earlene Droodle of Kansas City, Mo., works on the 24th floor of a high-rise and from 197l to 1986 when the elevator tape was changed heard on an estimated 2,000 occasions snatches of Carmen Cavallero's "The Continental"
Pigeon owned by Ward Framer of Windsock, Wash., has its head in the rear and its tailfeathers in front AND FLIES PERFECTLY WELL -- unfortunately, its excretory abilities are a different matter!
The word "I" is not only highly popular with English-speaking persons -- It was popularized in a number of hit songs by the late Frank Sinatra -- but is also the world's shortest palindrome
Mildred Skelly of Excelsior, Tex., set the national rebound record in women's basketball at Texas Fundamentalist Univ. in l997 -- She has attended 37 weddings and caught the bride's bouquet 37 times . . . yet is unmarried to this day
Loren Trask of New York City was walking home near the scene of a holdup in 1999 with the banana left over from lunch in his jacket pocket and was suddenly surrounded by police and shot 47 times by 11 officers, making him ONE OF THE HEAVIEST CORPSES ever registered at the NYC morgue
THE LOVE THAT NEVER DIES -- The tile-setters knee pads once worn by White House interns have now been confiscated and donated to a skateboard arena in Little Rock -- One pad was discovered to bear a tiny arrow-pierced heart made by a red felt-tip and include the initials BC+ML, which was later discovered by the CIA to be part of the formula for the hydrogen bomb!
Tree Grew in the Shape of a Banana near Graceland in Memphis . . . and has the distinct odor of peanut butter
THE MOST AMAZING MATHEMATICAL FEAT IN HISTORY! St. Abelard of Sienna in 1289 calculated that on the head of a pin 12 smallish angels could perform the minuet, six could do the tarantella, and only one could do the standing long jump
The assertion that cats have nine lives is not strictly true -- When they return they have a new identity and absolutely no memory of their previous existences!
Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980), French writer and philosopher, was highly influential in European intellectual circles in the mid-20th Century (and also had a couple of cool jackets with sheepskin collars) -- His view that what one does is more important that what one is, however, has made few inroads in the United Kingdom and has been completely rejected by the British royal family
Alphonse Sano of Clarksville, Ore., eats an apple every day of his life -- His emphasis on healthy living was a factor in her decision to marry him, says his wife, Dr. Louise Menz-Sano, disproving the old bromide
Spot on acoustic ceiling owned by Virginia Laford of E. Bridgewater, Mass., closely resembled St. Heather of Gross Pointe and wept frequently during Lent and certain religious holidays -- It was discovered to be directly beneath a basin in the upstairs apartment THAT HAD A LEAKING U-JOINT!
