Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Here's the complete, first-run broadcast (save for the first 30 seconds or so) of another edition of Ripley's Believe It or Not! (S03E15), as aired over WLS Channel 7. The hosts are Jack Palance and his daughter, Holly Palance.

(A first-season episode was previously put up on this channel, as seen here: youtu.be/lvCfkaBjeOs)

Includes:

Recording coming in a little late during Jack's preview of coming show, followed by a piece on the historical evolution of wedding traditions, then opening titles

Commercials for:
Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold Medicine (with Sparta, WI dairy farmer Wayne Selbrede)
Philips Petroleum (with a look at a plastic that allowed Memphis' Beale Street to stay open at night)

Segment 2, with a look into the complexities of the human brain, including a weighing of Einstein's brain, shots of people undergoing EEG's while in their sleep, and printouts of brain scans

Commercials for:
Welch's Orchard all-natural juices
Kraft Miracle Whip salad dressing (voiceover by John Bartholomew Tucker)
AT&T - "Reach Out America" plan (featuring Cliff Robertson)
Promo for Hardcastle & McCormick and "Consenting Adult" (voiceover by Ernie Anderson)

Animated ABC ID (with lower-third station ID)

Segment 3, with Holly in San Luis Obispo, CA walking along "Chewing Gum Alley," and looking at an annual festival in a French mountain village, Prats de Mollo, where townspeople dress up as wild bears; young girls becoming ritual brides at age 12 in Nepal; a ritual in Japanese towns such as Rokugomachi meant to ensure a bountiful harvest of rice; and a brief look at the ritual of a holy man pulling out his hair in India until he's completely bald

Commercials for:
York Peppermint Pattie
National Dairy Board - "Milk's Got More!"
Promo for Three's a Crowd, Who's the Boss? (main voiceover by Ernie Anderson) (ending voiceover by Allan Jefferys)

Bumper (voiceover by Jack Palance)

Promo for Magruder & Loud and 20/20 (voiceover by Ernie Anderson)

Commercials for:
Hornsby Stores - "Out of Business Sale"
Chee-tos Puffed Balls (with Steve Landesberg)

Station ID / promo for Eyewitness News "Lost Memories" report on Alzheimer's

Segment 4, with Jack encapsulating Renoir before a look at artist Mykola Bidniak, an accomplished photographer and painter despite losing both his arms in an accident, and working with paraplegics struggling to do their own art; a blind pianist, Geraldine Lawhorn; and a brief piece on footless California athlete Peter Strudwick

Commercials for:
Energizer batteries
Nissan - 8.5% rebate on any truck
Rolaids antacid
Promo for The Fall Guy, State of the Union address, and Dynasty (main voiceover by Ernie Anderson) (ending voiceover by Allan Jefferys)

Segment 5, with a look at various species of fish, an Okinawan who hunts for swordfish without modern sonar, a pup fish who lives in the waters of Devil's Hole in the Death Valley; and dolphins off North Africa

Commercials for:
Wrigley's Spearmint Gum (jingle sung by Jake Holmes)
Sprite soft drink
Promo for "Firefox" (voiceover by Ernie Anderson)

Jack shows how to perforate a potato with a plastic straw, then previews next week's episode

Closing credits (with voiceover promo for Good Morning America, Magruder & Loud, 20/20 and "Firefox" by Allan Jeffreys)

Very brief and incomplete promo for World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, before recording ends

This aired on local Chicago TV on Sunday, February 3rd 1985 within the 6pm to 7pm timeframe.

About The Museum of Classic Chicago Television:

The MCCTv (FuzzyMemoriesTV) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose primary mission is the preservation and display of off-air, early home videotape recordings (70s to early 80s, mostly) recorded off of TV (in Chicago or other cities now too); things which would likely be lost if not sought out and preserved digitally. If you have any old 1970s videotapes recorded off of TV please email: tapes@fuzzy.tv Even though (mostly) short clips are displayed here, we preserve the entire broadcasts in our archives - the complete programs with breaks (or however much is present on the tape), for historical preservation. For information on how to help in our mission, to donate or lend tapes to be converted to digital, please e-mail tapes@fuzzy.tv Thank you for your help!