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

Actor Bruce Campbell’s career has seen him mixed up in some pretty crazy stuff, whether it was playing Ash Williams in the Evil Dead franchise, an aging Elvis Presley living in a nursing home who has to take on a mummy’s curse in Bubba Ho-Tep or, now, serving as host of the newest TV version of Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, the reality series which just recently began airing on on the Travel Channel. So just how the hell does the battler of demonic forces end up a TV host?

“How the hell does an actor get involved in anything? Stuff falls off the truck. That’s my analogy,” Bruce laughs in an exclusive interview with Closer Weekly. “They thought it was a good fit, so they approached my peeps and asked, ‘What do you think about Ripley’s?’ I was, like, ‘Ripley’s? Whoa, I still have the red clothbound book from my childhood!’ I used to thumb through that thing all the time; the illustrations were indelible. It focused on people who had all of these crazy skills and bizarre things about them. So it was something I’d heard of, and that was the appeal. I’d even heard of the Travel Channel!”

Seems like a match made in heaven, huh? “Ripley’s is a hundred years old,” he notes, “so they’ve got some pedigree. It’s like working with Ivory Soap; they’re an institution.”

Admittedly we didn’t see that comparison coming.

For more of our conversation with Bruce Campbell, please scroll down.