When Bruce Campbell Tells Us He’s Thrilled to Be Hosting the New ‘Ripley’s Believe It or Not!’, We Believe Him!

The Appeal of ‘Ripley’s Believe It or Not!’

Here’s how Travel describes the series: “Awe-inspiring talents, unusual objects, strange phenomena and mind-boggling feats are explored in Travel Channel’s reboot of the iconic series, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! The 10-episode, hour-long series is inspired by Robert Ripley’s obsession with the awesome and his keen eye for what keeps viewers mesmerized. Seventy years after Ripley hosted the first eponymous series, we still can’t resist his challenge to, ‘Believe it, or not!’ One hundred years ago, Ripley went on a quest to the farthest reaches of the globe in search of the extraordinary and unusual. Now, hosted from the famed Ripley’s Warehouse in Orlando, Florida, Campbell introduces the next generation to astonishing and one-of-a-kind stories.”

The assumption one would tend to make, given his career, is that Bruce has always been drawn to the dark and twisted and this is just another step in that direction. You’d be wrong. “I read Sad Sack comic books; I didn’t read the Marvel stuff. My buddy Sam Raimi read Spider-Man. I would just say I was interested in the human side of weirdness, if you will. So what I like about this show is that you can find the weird footage, no question about it, but it doesn’t tell the story of where they are, how this came to be or how they’re dealing with it. And that’s what draws you in, and then you cheer for them, right? Because you know what their plight is or you know what their bizarre goal is. These people have goals that are, like, ‘Huh?!’ To watch them not only attempt, but for the most part succeed, is uplifting.

“With something like Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, you’d think half of it’s going to be a freak show,” he adds. “My being an executive producer, my part of this is tone. We didn’t want to talk down to anybody or point fingers at anybody. This is a celebration of really unusual stuff, but mostly it’s a triumph of the will. A lot of great stories, a lot of inspiration.”

One point Bruce makes is that while he’s hosting the series, he’s not one of those guys traveling around the globe investigating these stories himself. “My job is the threads,” he says. “I have not met these fine people, but we’re taking it to the next level, because I said to Travel Channel, ‘I go to these conventions. They have these boring panels of eight actors going, ‘Yeah, it was hot that day,’ and talking about whatever. I’m, like, ‘Let’s get some Ripley’s people. Let’s get the guy who can take a card and cut an Oreo in half through the cream. Let’s get guys like that. Now you’ve got a panel.’ So we’re going to the San Diego Comic-Con [in July] with a panel and we’ll see who shows up. But I’m, like, ‘Man, this is such a good fit.’ I want to get the outstanding skills and let’s see this go live; it’ll blow your face off. Let’s do a demonstration. Actors on those panels just usually tell their boring stories. Let’s see something, man. What’ve you got?”

A Unique Way of Overcoming Fears

The enthusiasm in his voice is obvious, because — besides apparently already having his own face blown off — he’s pretty much as blown away by what’s airing on the show as the audience is. “Continuously,” he states. “There’s a woman who’s afraid of heights, right? So how do you cure your fear of heights? Someone might go to the tallest building and have someone grab them, put them in a harness and hold them out and maybe you’re cured. This woman is going to cross on a three-quarter-inch nylon over a canyon time and time again until she gets it. She’s harnessed, but she’s falling. Editorially, they must have watched her fall a hundred times and this is scary stuff. And then, one time she gets it, because she was determined to get over it. She’s going to get over it by challenging herself in the most extreme way imaginable. So she gets over it, and then she gets married floating in the air. You’re not gonna see that every day!”

In a sense, he feels like they’re on a race, trying to capture these people doing their thing before they decide to put themselves on YouTube or something. “We still want to anchor it with the person,” Bruce emphasizes. “You know, our show is real docu-style, not news-style. The footage we have doesn’t look like newsreel, it looks like it’s a movie. So our show has a very documentary feeling and you get to know these people and root for them. That’s what’s cool.”

Planning a Career Simply Doesn’t Work

Earlier Bruce had mentioned that in his career he waits to see what “falls off the truck” toward him. He’s found it’s probably the best way to operate. “Every time I plan, because I love to plan and plan, that’s not where the good stuff comes from. Most of the best stuff that I’ve ever stumbled across has just …. fallen off the truck. It’s just whatever happens. Random stuff is fun.”

It’s also led to so eclectic a career, one that it’s turned him into a bonafide cult hero to his many fans, many of whom he encounters at various Comic-Cons around the country — though the shows bring other highlights as well. “The conventions are so entertaining,” he points out. “Just the green room while you’re waiting backstage, having a cup of coffee or whatever before you go out and sign stuff. You’ve got Elvira having a green tea, Stan Lee, bless his heart, napping in a chair; William Shatner’s tweeting his brains out. And then when you go out there, it’s a highway of the greatest intersection of pop culture.”

As an example, he points to one show where he saw a “very uncomfortable” Duck Dynasty star had been set up to sign autographs. He made his way over and commented, “’You guys seem like you’re sort of new here.’ They’re, like, ‘Yeah, we don’t really know what’s going on,’ to which I’m, like, ‘Welcome to the convention. Hope you guys have a good time, because there’s something here for everyone!’ Conventions used to be for old TV shows and old movies, and everyone was an old geezer, you know? Now it’s people with the best new stuff.”

He also comments on the sheer number of conventions a year taking place now. “Seriously,” he says, “if I wanted to go into raw exploitation mode, I could go to a different city every weekend, because there’s such a proliferation. I think what we’re seeing is just how much TV and entertainment people actually consume, which is enormous.”

Interacting With the Fans

The other important thing for Bruce about the conventions is, again, the fans. “I like to go out there and see what’s going on, what they’re watching, what are they talking about, what are they having me sign?” he details. “My dad was in advertising for 30 years in Detroit and he would always be fascinated with tattoos. He loved the concept that people would tattoo my face on their arms, like they’re a walking billboard. I think I have a collection of probably 250 photos of tattoos of me on people’s bodies, which is really kind of fascinating. So I go to these things for the sociological aspects. I go to see my peeps and stay connected with them. And the live Q&As are as close to Vaudeville as we’ll ever get, being up there and interacting with people, messing with them, asking questions, trash-talking, having little Billy up on stage. We have a good time. I think the live format will never die. Even with as much cocooning as there is, there’s still that face-to-face interaction. And in this case, people get to talk to you. When I met Shatner, I’m, like, ‘Holy s–t, that’s William Shatner!’

“You get to meet the people of your childhood. You know, just meeting Dawn Wells from Gilligan’s Island, and getting to tell her that she was hotter than Ginger. C’mon, Ginger just seemed like a nightmare.”

A personal thrill was getting to work with Lee Majors on the TV series Ash vs. Evil Dead, where the former Six Million Dollar Man played Bruce’s father. “The first choice to play Ash’s completely irresponsible and inappropriate father. Now this is not normally his bag these days; he does Hallmark movies and things like that. But God bless him, he’s got a great, twisted sense of humor and we had a great time talking about The Six Million Dollar Man. See, that’s why I’m in this dumb business, because occasionally you get to run into people you admire like Lee. He’s an iconic television actor. He’s been in three shows over a hundred episodes each. You stick around long enough, you get to work with really cool people, and some jerks, but what the hell?”

Ripley’s Believe It or Not! airs Sunday nights at 9 p.m. on Travel Channel.