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American Morning

Ripley's Releasing New Encyclopedia

Aired June 19, 2002 - 08:38   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Believe it or not, Ripley, the authority on the bizarre, is now releasing a new encyclopedia. It's a collection of the best freaks and curiosities gathered over the last 80 years. Earlier this morning, Daryn and I spoke to the man who helped put that book together. He is the warden of weird. Here is Edward Meyer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HEMMER: Edward Meyer, good morning to you, from "Ripley's Believe it or Not," fresh in from Orlando, Florida.

EDWARD MEYER, "RIPLEY'S BELIEVE IT OR NOT": Good morning.

HEMMER: All right, so listen, Shaq is not in the house here, but that is one extremely large shoe.

MEYER: This is from Robert Wewlow, world's tallest man, tallest guy ever measured. He made Shaq look like midget, 8'11", size 37 aa. So it's almost 10 sizes bigger than Shaq.

HEMMER: Wait, 8'11"? What kind of water was this guy drinking?

MEYER: And he was still growing. He died at age 22, 1940. And believe it or not, the only job he ever had was promoting shoes.

HEMMER: Here we are in the shoe store.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: My foot might fit in here. I'm not sure.

MEYER: Don't try to walk too far.

HEMMER: No shoe horn required.

KAGAN: It's a look.

HEMMER: And not a great one.

MEYER: Oh, I think it looks lovely.

KAGAN: You like my new look better, OK.

HEMMER: This is another fascinating item here. Daryn, grab this here.

KAGAN: Look at this little friend here.

HEMMER: A shrunken head from where?

MEYER: This is a genuine shrunken head, done by the Havarro (ph) Indians roughly 100 years ago.

KAGAN: So this started as a full-sized head.

MEYER: Started as a full-sized head.

The war trophy from Ecuador. They captured the guy, first, of all, obviously, chopped his head off, split open the back of skull. If you can turn it around, you might see the threads there. And take out the skull, take out the bone matter, sew it back up, sand and rocks inside to keep the basic shape, and boil it.

KAGAN: Why?

MEYER: And it takes four days. When they're all finished, they put it over a fire, char it, preserve the skin, harden it.

HEMMER: What's the thinking behind that?

MEYER: It's a war trophy. The basic belief is that the soul is in the brain, is in the head. So if they admired the skills of the soldier, they want to kill him and preserve his soul.

KAGAN: So that's a tribute.

MEYER: It's a tribute to the guy's skills as a warrior.

KAGAN: Speaking of warriors, this is what Bill is fascinated with. This is not a little heart love token. This is a shark's tooth.

MEYER: This is prehistoric megaladon shark, ancient relative of today's great white. Roughly 300 of these teeth in its mouth, all 5- 6" long. The shark was almost 50 feet long, as big as a modern bus, with an 8-foot circumference mouth.

HEMMER: The shark was the size of a bus?

KAGAN: I guess the question is what did it eat?

MEYER: Anything it wants.

KAGAN: Anything it wanted to.

HEMMER: There's an interesting item...

KAGAN: Under this vest.

HEMMER: Yes, pull that out there a second. Constructed from human hair. MEYER: This was made by barber in St. Louis, Missouri. His name was Bill Black, and he initially created potting soil from hair. Because it has a lot of nitrogen in it, which is good for the soil. But he had so much leftover waste, and he was a conservationist trying to figure out what to do with leftover hair, that he designed a whole line of clothing -- bikinis, pants, hats, mitts.

HEMMER: And the catalog coming to a store near you very soon.

KAGAN: The bar is pretty high for "Ripley's Believe It or Not." I mean, I think there a lot of people out there who think that they have the weirdest, or the best or the most amazing. But you guys have seen it all.

MEYER: Well, we've seen it all, but we're still wanting to see more. What we're doing right now is we have a book tour, a brand-new book called "The Encyclopedia of the Bizarre." And we are looking for new talent, both for the next book, hopefully, and possibly for our TV show.

HEMMER: Let me ask you something, how do you separate the weird and the wacky?

KAGAN: Something we deal with every day.

HEMMER: So dead on, Daryn.

KAGAN: The weird and the wacky.

MEYER: What are we separating them from, though?

We are always looking for both the weird and the wacky.

KAGAN: I guess the question, you don't want to go into bad taste.

MEYER: OK, bad taste is different than weird and wacky to me. We have certain standards. We're very much a family-oriented business, that there are certain things we won't touch.

HEMMER: Hey, I've got an idea for you.

MEYER: Generally it's good taste.

HEMMER: Watch what Daryn can do with her left elbow.

KAGAN: Actually both of them. Real quickly, the double-jointed news anchor.

HEMMER: That is so attractive.

MEYER: Great. I love it. That's one my favorites. It's actually fairly common, but it still looks great.

KAGAN: No, come on. Who can turn their arms all the way around.

MEYER: Turn your head around at the same time.

KAGAN: Bill thinks I'm evil enough to do that.

HEMMER: I've seen it happen before at certain times of the morning. What about a double-jointed thumb? Does that qualify?

MEYER: You got to do a little more than that.

HEMMER: We didn't get to everything, but there's a ton in that book, and thanks for stopping by.

Edward Meyer, from "Ripley's Believe It or Not."

KAGAN: Sounds like we better keep these new jobs; we're not getting hired by "Ripley's."

HEMMER: You are right.

Thank you, Edward. Have a great day.

MEYER: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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