At a San Diego Comic-Con event, a clown with a lobster microphone asked actor Bruce Campbell if any of stories he’s introduced as host of the Travel Channel’s new “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!” have freaked him out.
And that clown got a double-barreled rebuke in reply.
First, for asking a Campbell a question while wearing face paint — OK, maybe that’s excusable — but no one should expect the star of movies such as “The Evil Dead” franchise and TV’s “Burn Notice” to deliver his answer into the mouth of a plastic lobster.
And second — and more seriously — was for the clown’s choice of words.
“Don’t say ‘freak out,’ we don’t say the ‘f’ word,” Campbell said, making a point of distancing the new Ripley’s show from the more sensational ways of talking about people who are different. “Say, extraordinary.”
Campbell, who in addition to being host, is executive producer of the show that premiered on June 9. He came to the press conference from a panel at which he’d appeared with some of the extraordinary people who have or will appear on the show.
People such as self-described “cyborg” Angel Giuffria, an actress who appeared in “The Hunger Games,” who has one of the most advanced prosthetic arms there is. Or so-called “Half-man” Short E. Dangerously,” who didn’t let the fact that he was born with a disability that took away the bottom half of his body define or stop him from pursuing his entertainment dreams.
The Ripley folks also had a used car lot set up across the way from the Hilton where Campbell was speaking, filled with unusual machines like a Hummer covered entirely in lottery tickets, a replica of Luke Skywalker’s land speeder, and a Ferrari carved out wood.
There were performers, too, like old-timey New Orleans-based circus performer Ladybeast, who walked atop a variety of bottles without tumbling off them, and Axel Osborne and Megan Vaughan of Los Angeles who performed partner acrobatics for the crowd.
That’s all part of the Ripley legacy, and Campbell said he loves the way the show celebrates the underdog, and how it treats them with the dignity they deserve.
“I can do snark all day long,” Campbell said in response to a question about how he settled on a tone for the show. “But you’ve got to pay respect to somebody who’s overcome something so challenging.”
Asked if any of his exploits might have merited a spot on the Ripley’s show, Campbell was dismissive. (He was, in fact, amusingly salty throughout the news conference.)
“I don’t have skills like that, I have stunt guys,” he said. “Everything I do is fake. I love the fact that everything they do is real.”
He took one or two questions off-topic. Asked if he’d like to see Ash Williams, his character in the “Evil Dead” movies return to the screen, he said he would. “The only thing that’s consistent is that I’m not going to put the chainsaw back on,” he said of prosthetic zombie-slaying attachment he wore for some of the series.
Campbell said he thinks the “Evil Dead” fandom are more likely than any of his other fans to dig the Ripley’s show.
“People living on the edge a little bit,” he said of them. “They’re very scary on the outside but very nice on the inside.”
But mostly he stuck to Ripley’s, which he said appealed to him because of its long history as a name in entertainment.
“Everybody’s always 22 years old,” he said of the meetings he takes in Hollywood today. “It’s nice to be with a company that’s been around for 100 years.”
Asked how a show like “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!” can compete in a world where YouTube is packed with people doing unusual, dangerous, or — let’s use his word — extraordinary things, he said it’s because of the care with which these stories will be told.
“We’ll give a (damn) about the people we tell stories about,” Campbell said. “And we’ll get to know them. And celebrate them. These people are cool.”
In a way the show is a solid meal of old-fashioned entertainment, he said.
“We like ham sandwiches, we like eating meatloaf,” he said. “This is a meatloaf show. It makes you feel good.”
The clown and the lobster got the last question, because why not, and they got what they deserved when that question was so basic — how many stories are told in each episode — that even Ripley wouldn’t believe it.
Six, Campbell said, before adding, “Of course, it’s been on for five weeks, so maybe you should watch it.”
Ouch, somebody call the fire department, a clown just got burned and his lobster’s a-boil.
READ MORE about SDCC 2019:
- Photo galleries: Cosplay | Scenes from Comic-Con | Her Universe Fashion Show | Preview night
- Recaps: Day 2 | Day 1 | 5 memorable moments from opening day |Preview night and the Running of the Nerds
- Only at Comic-Con: Tom Cruise lookalike at the “Top Gun” bar | Wheelchair cosplay | The dancing monster
- Fashion: Her Universe Fashion Show winners | SoCal Her Universe designers | Interview with Her Universe’s Ashley Eckstein | The Hero Within clothing line | What cosplay weapons are allowed | The 23 swag backpacks
- Inside SDCC: A daily guide to TV and movie panels | George Takei and “The Terror” | “Fear the Walking Dead” | Christian comic books | The $1.1 million comic book | Mensa members predict the future | The future of college esports |
- Super fans: Orlando Jones is Comic-Con’s No. 1 fan | “Steven Universe” | “Dragon Ball Z” world record | Wayward Cocktails “Supernatural” party
- Things to do: No badge needed for these activities | Comic-Con museum in Balboa Park | Where to drink and party
- History: The 12-year-old who co-founded Comic-Con | 50 facts about Comic-Con’s 50 years
- The big issues: Service animals are superheroes | Cosplay, panels reflect diversity | Security measures
