It’s Strange... Real Strange
An Interview with the Wizards of Weird,
Ron Lyon and Jenny Paschall
By Jason McCurry

Come one. Come all... Let’s begin our global journey into the bizarre!

The wizards of weird, Ron Lyon and Jenny Paschall, crisscross the globe in search of eccentric people, peculiar places, and bizarre things. They in turn bring these rare jewels to light via  their traveling road show and through the magic of television.

This husband and wife team is responsible for such classic shows as: Ripley’s Believe It or Not!,  The Discovery Channel’s Would You Believe It, and The Travel Channel’s Strangest Remains and Most Haunted Journeys.

This very talented pair took time recently to share some of their insights and amazing stories with Ghost! Magazine; they also informed us of a new TV show on the horizon called Real Strange.

Come on, shall we. Let’s travel with ‘em!

Ghost! Magazine: What do you think it is about the strange that fascinates so many people?

Ron Lyon: I think most people lead lives that are fairly conventional and things that are outside of their reality, that don’t necessarily have any logic to them, is appealing by its very nature.

Jenny Paschall: We speak to a lot of people that say that they’ve been contacted by the paranormal. I think that part of that is because a lot of people have gone away from conventional religion, partly scared off by some of the stuff that’s been going on with this fundamental Christian thing, and families are so scattered. I think sometimes feeling that there is a ghost (of) a grandfather or parent, kind of, looking over your shoulder is quite comforting.

G!M: Are there any particular methods that you use when seeking out your subjects and locales?

RL: The basic method we use is credibility. There are an awful lot of people who, for the sake of confrontation, create their own myths, and then believe they’re true. We would like to know that there have been some credible things that have taken place and a history of credible things.

Remember, what we don’t do is walk around with a magnetometer (to determine) whether or not we can see a ghost that day. The odds of specters making appearances because there’s a television crew there are fairly minimal, so we really are going there to report.

Think of us more as reporters, and reporters and, to a certain degree, as skeptics. We don’t go in believing everything or anything. Our job is to record what other people have seen and try to present it in a way that makes it credible.

G!M: You’ve dealt with many oddities in your career, is there any one in particular that stands out the most to either of you? Why?

JP: Yes, for me, undoubtedly, there’s a place called the Church of Bones, which is in Sedlec, outside of Prague, in the Czech Republic. It’s a church that was an ossuary at one point, where they deposited thousands and thousands of bones.

Finally, someone [Frantisek Rint, wood carver and artist] was given the job of doing something with the bones, and what he did was create these extraordinary sculptures that lined the walls. In the middle of this church is a nine-foot-tall chandelier. Every bone in the human body is incorporated into this chandelier. It is probably one of the most astonishing sites I’ve ever seen.

RL:  As a matter of fact, we’re shooting new television series now called Real Strange.  I can’t tell you where it’s going to be on the air, in that as we speak we have serious interest from several broadcasters.  It’s probably going to be the lead piece of that series. Ironically, it was used the very first time by me when I produced and directed the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! pilot. It was in the Church of Bones that Jack Palance said, “Believe it or not!” the first time.  Jack stood in front of the Coat of Arms (of the Schwartzenberg Family) made entirely out of bones, and we tried various ways to say, “Believe it or not!” before agreeing on the final delivery, which was to become a household expression.  Now, the new words are, “It’s Strange, Real Strange.”

G!M: How did the traveling road show begin, and what can attendees expect to get out of it?

JP: Oh, the traveling road show began about seven or eight years ago, purely by chance. We were actually filming one of our shows for The Discovery Channel and we met a woman at one of the locations visiting. She was an agent who handled student lectures.

She said (to us), ‘Have you ever done any lectures.’ We said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘well, you should.’

The next thing we knew, we had a booking. We didn’t know what the hell we were doing, or talking about or anything. We suddenly looked at each other and said, ‘Well, what do we do now?’

So we came up with the idea of giving the people what we call our menu, which is a list of about thirty or thirty-five pieces that we filmed and that are edited.

RL: It now includes the Church of Bones.

JP: Yes, it includes the Church of Bones. We give the students a slightly cryptic list, which doesn’t really tell them a whole lot. It’s just a funny kind of rhyme for them. They shout out numbers or they shout out titles and we show them the piece. Then they ask us whatever it is they want to ask us. That can be anything from, how on earth do we manage to work together and be together 24/7 and still be talking to each other; which the answer is, often we’re not. Or (we’ll be asked what’s) the weirdest thing we’ve seen, have we really seen ghosts, those kind of things.

G!M: Ron, did your interest in the weird and strange begin initially when you acquired Robert Ripley’s collection?

RL: Well, actually, when I was a kid, Ripley’s Believe It or No!t was something you read every Sunday as a comic strip. You had to read it. It was a quick journey into the weird places in the world. I think for those of us with an imagination, Robert was the answer to a lot of that (desire).

Over the years, I’ve made a number of documentaries about things that have happened in life that were strange, and not necessarily pleasant. What was always fascinating to me was how odd people were as well as the objects that people (possessed) and the strange places people lived.

Frankly, when I sold Ripley’s Believe It or Not! to ABC, I didn’t realize the trouble I was getting into. Ripley’s was a bunch of cartoons. In fact, there was nothing to show. Once I made the sale, I had to back it up, so I went running off to Europe and pretended I was Robert Ripley now equipped with a camera and sound, rather than pen and paper.  I went looking for the real Castle Frankenstein and Robin Hood’s grave, among other things. Amazingly, I found all of that stuff, and I loved it. Ripley’s Believe It or Not! went on the air and became a success, ran for five years, and I ran around the world looking for oddities.