Gatlinburg, Tennessee – trip report part 7 – Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium
Continuing with our trip report, after visiting Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies, we headed down the main street in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and stopped at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium.
The heart of the Ripley’s empire is thanks to an explorer named Robert Ripley, and his fascination with sharing unusual stories and artifacts from around the world. Many of those discoveries were presented in a series of books, and there have been at least two television shows as well. Naturally, it was just a matter of time before many of these exhibits found their way into some sort of fun house / museum.
Located right in the middle of Gatliburg, the Odditorium is a three-story museum that helps showcase stories and artifacts covering what many people consider to be weird and unusual. Natural human curiosity wants us to go inside and take a look around, wondering what we’ll find in Ripley’s famous museum.
Let’s take a peek, shall we?
RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT! ODDITORIUM
Gatlinburg, Tennessee – Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – 2018
The lobby and entrance area for the Odditorium have a handful of free exhibits for people to enjoy. Anybody can simply walk up and see them. It’s all designed to catch your interest so that you’ll pay for an admission ticket and go inside, not too different from the old carnival barkers advertising a “freak” show.
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – Ripley’s Jungle
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – Ripley’s Jungle
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – shrunken head
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – Ripley’s Jungle
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – jungle masks
After passing through the entrance gates, the first stop is an elevator that takes you to the top of the Odditorium. On the third floor the doors open and you’re officially in the starting point of the museum, a land known as Ripley’s Jungle. Here you can pose for pictures with the man himself and see some jungle-related artifacts, including a shrunken head. Is it real? That’s a question you’ll be asking yourself when viewing some of the creepier exhibits.
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – freak show
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – freak show
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – freak show
Leaving the jungle, the museum has some human “freak show” exhibits that are a combination of just plain weird to those that you’d expect to see in The Guinness Book of World Records. In short, it’s a quick little showcase mostly featuring birth defects and rare medical conditions.
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – rope bridge
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – rope bridge
Following the human “freak show” is an exhibit focusing on oddities from outer space, including some meteorites. Here you’ll also have an opportunity to cross a rope bridge (it’s easy to bypass if this isn’t your thing). The rope bridge isn’t challenging, but rather a quick little fun element in the museum.
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – Emma Watson artwork
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – The Simpsons artwork
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – The Simpsons artwork
After surviving the harrowing journey across the rope bridge, crossing over a pit of hungry crocodiles (just kidding — you just cross over another exhibit that you’ll later see on a lower level of the museum), we find ourselves in the wonderful world of . . . art. One of the more interesting exhibits was a really tiny sculpture from The Simpsons.
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – Egyptian mummy
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – mechanical shark submarine
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – mechanical shark submarine
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – noisemakers
Following the artwork is a series of exhibits that seem more like “odds & ends” without a central theme to it. Here you’ll find items such as an Egyptian mummy to a robotic “shark” submarine to a bunch of loud noisemakers whose sole purpose seems to be — you guessed it! — making loud noises. This area is a combination of unusual and fascinating to completely irritating, especially when kids keep triggering the noisemakers over and over again.
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – Hogwarts castle
The museum continues and there’s more “art” including a model of Hogwarts castle made out of matchsticks, and a gigantic walk-through kaleidoscope, complete with funky music.
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – alternative archery
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – dragon hunting
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – modern art
Following the path, we find ourselves in a large open area directly above the Odditorium’s entrance area. It’s easy to look over the railing and see the people below us checking out the free exhibits in the lobby. All around us are more exhibits, most of them being more forms of artwork. Don’t worry though, there’s still more art ahead.
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – modern art
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – mop lamb
Yep. Art is definitely the theme for many parts of the Odditorium, in one way or another. Is it all strange an unusual? Not really. For me, much of the art fell into the category of “just because” rather than truly unique items from the most remote corners of the world.
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – water wheel
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – nature
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – albino alligator
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium – freaky animals
The museum breaks from the hardcore art exhibits and shows us some of the more unusual parts of nature, including an albino alligator as well as animals with birth defects and other abnormalities.
After taking a quick stroll through nature, the Odditorium concludes with —- more art! The final exhibit in the museum is bright, funky, and full of hands-on exhibits that want to help you leave the museum on a high note. Or it’s a final piece of irritant if this really isn’t your thing. The exit door drops you off in a “secret location,” but don’t worry, it’s quick and easy to get back to the main street in Gatlinburg. It’s a plain, unguarded exit door, and we did see a family go through it and enter the Odditorium for free. It was very obvious that they were cheating the system. We have no idea if security later caught them (or even cared enough to do so).
FINAL THOUGHTS
Is Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium worth your time?
That’s a tough question. While the museum starts off fairly well with Ripley’s Jungle, and it does have some fascinating artifacts and exhibits, it also has a lot of (
It’s one thing for art to have a purpose to it (besides the artist feeling good), such as the fertility statue found in Ripley’s Jungle, or “artistic” artifacts created for luck, power, money, control, rituals, or whatever. But the portrait of Emma Watson made from spices? Um, okay. And later that portrait of Stephen Colbert with that smirk on his face? Hell no. And the mop lamb? Why? Just why? Oh, that’s right. Just because.
Do we even need to mention the two “freak show” exhibits with the people and the animals? They weren’t gross but rather sad, especially with the deformed animals.
For a person who thoroughly enjoys the odd parts of nature and the darker and more sinister side of human beings, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium was fairly disappointing.
I’m sure that kids will find it fun and amusing (there were quite a few hands-on exhibits), and adults might be interested in parts of it as well. This is especially true the less you know about remote civilizations, nature, and other parts of the world. But if you’ve been an avid fan of the Believe It or Not! books and/or TV shows, and if you like to watch documentaries and such on TV, then most of this museum will feel like “old news,” and not be fresh or informative. And then there’s all that art. Oh boy.
I went into this museum wanting to like it so much. The outside is fascinating, it’s supposedly full of weird and unusual exhibits, and the museum has been part of Gatlinburg for a very long time. The beginning even felt like visiting that weird but cool kid down the street and seeing his cabinet full of curiosities. But after experiencing the Odditorium, I left disappointed. This museum could have been so much better, especially if they removed about half of those art exhibits.
We still had two more Ripley’s attractions to visit that day in Gatlinburg, and let’s just say that Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium was the best of those three. I’ll cover the rest of our time in Gatlinburg in the next article.