WEBVTT - Short Stuff: Jackalope 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:07.040 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and 0:00:07.080 --> 0:00:10.120 there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and this is short stuff, 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:16.959 the shortest stuff of all about Jack Lopes. Do you 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:22.239 hear that siren? No? Do you hear now? No? Do 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:25.360 you hear it now? No? Now I do? Yeah. Do 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:28.200 you remember, Chuck? There was a period of time where 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:34.800 the fire department would layer down the street every time 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:39.120 we recorded. It was weird, like there was either somebody 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:41.480 who kept like faking a sprained ankle at the same 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:44.400 time on the same day every week, or they were 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:47.000 testing something out that we're not familiar with, but it 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:49.760 happened a lot. Yeah. That that was when we just 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:53.159 started podcasting, and they were like, go in that closet. 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:55.240 And then it got to be a little bigger and 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:56.560 they were like, well, I guess you guys should at 0:00:56.640 --> 0:00:59.360 least be in that dumb office. And then after a 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.400 little while longer, eventually they're like, Okay, I guess we'll 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:05.680 put up a studio. Yeah, they said, it's just like 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:08.920 that too. They're so upset, And now look at us. 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:13.640 Now we're like podcasting from home, speeding towards twenty years 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.920 in our basement, yeah, that's right. All right, So jackal opes. Uh, 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:22.680 if you listen to our Taxidermy episode Taxidermy, no, no, no no, 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:25.080 it was regular Taxidermy. Oh well, we've done one on 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.680 rogue Taxidermy too, haven't we. We covered that in Taxidermy. 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:30.039 I don't know if we did a stand alone we 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:32.319 may have. All right, okay, go ahead, I'm sorry. But 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:34.959 either way it was in both, then this might be 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:38.240 take three. But if you've never seen a jackalope, just 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:40.400 pull your car over. If you're at home, just type 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:43.880 in jackalope. They're fairly familiar here in the United States 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:48.680 as sort of kitchy um art that you can hang 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:51.080 on your wall. Jackallyps are not real. It is a 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:54.640 combination a taxidermy combination of a rabbit or a hare 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:59.120 with antlers. And I grew up seeing them here and 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:01.800 there at roadside diners or if you travel out west 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:06.440 or something like maybe a hotel lobby wall, and and 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:08.480 the whole thing with jacolypse is always that you try 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.840 to convince somebody that it's a real thing. Yeah, it's 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:15.280 very annoying, like that's a really annoying, unnecessary part of 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:18.120 the whole thing. But it's a Wyoming tradition. From what 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:21.440 I understand, it's the snipe hunt of wall Art. That's 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:25.119 exactly right. Um. And there's lots of legends and tall 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:29.720 tales about the jaclopes that they have really nice singing voices, 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.040 and that in particular, if you're out on the range 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:34.480 and you have a campfire going, you start singing cowboys 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:38.720 songs that from out in the out in the bush brush, 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:41.720 they'll start singing in. They'll join in on the course 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:45.079 and everything, which is kind of adorable. They're also supposedly 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:48.760 cousins to big Foot. Um. They're pretty great and probably 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:52.919 the cutest mythical creatures there are. Um. But they actually, 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:55.120 as far as the New York Times I think reported 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:58.880 in nineteen, there's actually like a real life origin story 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:01.360 to them that we may or may not have discussed before, 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:05.000 but we're definitely going to again here. That's right. The 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:10.639 origin story is I think very well vetted. Uh. This 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:12.360 is the kind of thing where it seems like it 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:16.359 could be because there's just so much, um, so many 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:18.760 tall tales surrounding jackalopes. That seems like the kind of 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:21.880 thing where the origin could be very highly suspect. But 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:24.120 it seems like, this is totally real. And the Herrick 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.400 brothers H E, R, R, I, C K and Wyoming, 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:31.080 And we should mention Wyoming is very much into their 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:35.560 jackalopes because of this, because they were where it all started. Yeah, 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.080 if you look at the Wyoming Lotteries logo, there's a 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:43.160 jackalope on. Yeah, it's a big deal in Wyoming. As 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:46.680 a matter of fact, there's at least five times. Uh, 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:50.400 the Wyoming legislature has tried and failed for some reason. 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:53.600 I don't get it to make the jackalope Wyoming's official 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:58.160 state mythological creature. Maybe they're trying to really govern and 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:02.440 do something that matters. I guess so. I suspect Liz 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:06.360 Cheney is killing this every time. I don't know why, 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:09.200 but I do. Uh. So the Herrick brothers, you know what, 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:11.160 maybe we should take a break and leave a cliffhanger 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:15.040 as to what they actually did. Okay, it's short stuff. 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:19.279 Why not? Well, now we're on the road driving in 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.240 your truck. Want to learn a thing or two from 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:28.320 Josh can Chuck. It's stuff you should know, all right, 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.120 all right, it's quite a cliffhanger. I know about the 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:48.479 Herrick brothers, H Douglas Herrick. He was born in Douglas, 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:51.960 Wyoming in nine. He's in the Air Force during World 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:55.359 War Two and then worked as a pipe fitter and 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:57.880 was a big hunter because he is in Wyoming and 0:04:57.920 --> 0:04:59.880 there's there's a lot of people that are into that there. 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:04.160 And his brother Ralph, they got into taxidermy at an 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:07.960 early age and had their own taxidermy shop. And as 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:12.599 legend goes, one day, one of these brothers, and it 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:15.520 was the year is kind of um debatable, could be 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:19.520 thirty four, thirty nine or forty is what I've heard. 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:22.359 One of them came back from a hunt, had this 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:26.200 jack rabbit slid it across the table and it hits 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:31.920 little dead head slid and perfectly met a pair of antlers, 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:37.440 and one of them said they check that out, and 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.440 the other one said that's awesome, and that was it. 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.120 That was it. They said, well, we're taxidermists, we might 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:47.359 as well make this happen, and they did. It's a 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:49.640 very sad origin story because of the dead rabbit, but 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:53.160 other than that, it's pretty cool. They made one. They 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:55.520 actually just made one, I guess from that rabbit and 0:05:55.560 --> 0:06:00.880 those antlers and um, there was a guy named Roy Ball, 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:05.080 who had a hotel in Douglas, Wyoming, who got wind 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:08.080 of the brother's little invention, and he bought it off 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:11.480 of them for ten bucks back in again nineteen thirties 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:15.560 at the latest, which is substantial um. And he put 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:19.200 it up in his hotel and it became uh basically 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.200 a little legendary piece of like you call it wall 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.640 art uh. And it stayed there for a good three 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.880 maybe four decades, and then someone actually stole it off 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:32.320 the wall and was it was never never found out 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:34.880 who did it. It was never recovered. The original jackalope 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.440 maybe in somebody's garage or attic or even maybe on 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:40.880 their wall somewhere out there, and they may not even 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:44.279 know that this is the original jackalope that the Herrick 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:46.920 brothers created. So this is where I have to confess, 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:48.920 because every time I was researching this, when we got 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.880 to this part, I kept thinking of the story. In college, 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:55.719 I stole something with my friends and I in college 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:59.240 one time when we were out doing bad things and 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:02.400 a night out and Athens, we took a stuffed porcupine 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:06.279 from a bar that was hanging on the wall, and 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:08.839 that porcupine lived in our apartment for about six months 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.960 before we returned it. Oh you did return it? Huh yeah, 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:13.960 we read it well. When we moved out, we're like, 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:17.000 what do we do with the porcupine? What bar was it? 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:19.720 I want to say it was Gus Garcias. Do you 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:22.200 remember that place? No? I remember it was that the 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:26.760 same thing as Guesses maybe, I think so. I've only 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:29.320 heard of it referred to as Gusses. Yeah, that's probably 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:31.040 one of those things where you knew the cool kid 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:33.200 name and I was older and more square, so I 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:35.720 called it by It's a given name. So so how 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:37.960 did you guys return it? We have to know. I 0:07:38.160 --> 0:07:41.840 believe it was like, um, you know the fine upstanding 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:44.600 thing that you do when you go and throw it 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:48.280 at the front door and run with a note through 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:50.400 one of the quills that said like, you know, we 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:55.280 took this six months ago, sorry, signed anonymous. At least 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.320 you gave it back to Gus Garcia. Yeah. So somebody 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:01.200 stole that original jackalope and did not even have the 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:03.760 you know, the fourth rightness to throw it on the 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:07.680 front porch at that hotel. So it remains gone. Man, 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:11.760 do you remember Uptown Lounge in their happy hour with 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:15.440 fish bowl Margharita's. I don't remember going to the happy 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:21.400 hour there. Oh it was insane. Athens is a lot 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:25.960 different now, Yeah, I know when you were there. Oh, 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:29.600 I can't remember what we passed through there for about 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:32.160 three or four years ago. Okay, not too bad. I 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:35.079 still go occasionally, and um, yeah, it's a lot different 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:39.040 grown up, A lot can still porcupines willy nilly anymore. No, 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:44.240 there's no college shenanigans. Everybody's like an activist and interested 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:48.880 in like important things, and we're like basically like animal 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:52.520 house or something. Pretty much. That was what we were 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:56.680 like in college. Uh So, Yeah, this original Jackalope was stolen, 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.480 and like you said, they never caught the thief. But 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:01.400 this kind of kick started a thing for the Herrick 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:05.360 family and they started making and selling these things. I 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:07.280 don't I tried to find out if they held any 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.360 kind of weird patent or not, or if they were 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:13.640 knockoff jacko loobes. But they sold tens of thousands of these, 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.200 which I really have to point out here. We're talking 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:20.280 about tons of thousands of dead rabbits and dead deer, 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.959 some of which may never have been otherwise dead had 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:28.000 it not been for the jack Lope craze. Yes, I 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:30.199 think it had it's worth remarking. I don't want to 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:31.679 be a downer here because I know it's all sweet 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:35.000 and cute and hot like they like to to to 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:37.480 put the hurt and on tourists brains with, you know, 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:40.280 talking about it's real or whatever. But a lot of 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:42.880 rabbits and and Dee or died because of this, this 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:45.480 whole idea like it's real dead is what it is 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:49.520 exactly just for this rogue Taxadermy No, I agree. I 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:51.160 love those rabbits. I don't want to see him hanging 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:53.360 on a wall with antler sticking out of their heads. No, 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:58.959 let the rabbits live. But Douglas, I think, uh wall 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:01.559 drug in Wyoming, which has a giant jackalope. There no 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:04.719 wal drugs in North Dakota. Oh it is okay. So 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:07.720 they became a distributor and they have a giant jackalope. 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:11.600 So eventually, when Douglas Herrick, the initial jackal oper died 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:15.040 in two thousand three, I think his son was interviewed 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:17.319 by the New York Times and said that they were 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:21.120 selling it looks like, you know, fifteen to two thousand 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:25.679 of these a year just a wald drug. Yeah, yeah, 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:27.839 it's a lot of rabbits. It is a lot of 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:30.640 I feel like we've really kind of taken this thing 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:33.240 on a nose dive, but um, I feel like we 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:35.319 could also take it on an even bigger nose dive 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:38.920 in a second, chuck, let's do it with the shop 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:43.880 Papioma virus. Uh. It's so sad to look at these pictures. 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:48.079 It is sad, but it's also fascinating. It's much more 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:52.160 gratifying to look at um botanical or not botanical biological 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:57.960 um Yeah, botanies just plants, biological um or like nature 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:02.040 illustrations of it. Yeah, the um it's related to HPV 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:06.439 and it's an affliction that can cause rabbits to develop 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:09.800 these horns, their tumors basically, and they can come out 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:12.319 of their face looking like a little horns. So there 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:16.360 are pictures of rabbits with all these horny spikes thrusting 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:18.360 from their face and heads, and it's just look a 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:23.280 lot like war hogs. Yes, sort of like a rabbit 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.480 war hoog. And like, what's what's interesting to me? There's 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:30.240 actually one in the Smithsonians collection, their animal collection, dead 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:34.600 animal collection, I should say, um and that they that 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:38.360 doesn't seem to have informed the Herrick brothers creation of 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:41.679 the jackalope. Those are two different things, but there was 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:44.280 a period of time. I think the first sightings are 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:48.240 described in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. Yeah, the seventeenth 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:51.960 century um that that people wondered if there was a 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:55.199 species of rabbit out there that had horns or antlers. 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.400 And it's just totally tangential to the invention of the jackalope, 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:02.280 nothing to do with it, and even tangential not even 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:07.640 connected in any way. And that's jack galobes, that is 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:11.240 jack lops. If you want to know get to know jacklebs. 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:14.040 You could do worse than traveling to Douglas, Wyoming, which 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:17.840 is the official, as proclaimed by Wyoming Governor Ed Herschler, 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:22.480 home of the jacklope. That's where they hail from. And again, 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:25.400 you could go play some scratch offs in Wyoming with 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:27.960 their lottery and see jackalope. Yeah, and you can even 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:31.440 buy a little fun fake jackalope hunting license. Yeah. I 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.160 thought that was kind of adorable, which is not real obviously. 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:36.800 I think they grant hunting from sunrise to sunset on 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:38.920 one day a year. Yeah, but it's a day that 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:42.880 doesn't even exist June thirty one, but it coincides with 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:46.079 Douglas is Um Jackalope Days festival, which I think is 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:48.520 held in June as well. So if you're all about 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:52.440 the Jackalopes, yeah, killing rabbits, they do. And we also 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:54.120 have to give a shout out, which we probably did 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:57.400 in the Taxidermy episode two to our from Van Nostrin 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:00.880 who once had a band called the Jacklyps. Remember that's right, 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:04.240 and also shout out to one of the nicest hotels 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:06.959 I've ever stayed in on our Australia tour on our 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:11.080 down days, the Jackalppe Hotel. Oh is that right? Yeah? 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:15.240 That was amazing. I could see Australians loving the jack Lope, 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:19.880 but it's probably actually real in Australia. That's right. Um, 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:22.080 I guess that's it. Chuck doesn't have anything more. I'm 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:24.680 assuming I don't either, so that means, of course, short 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:31.040 stuff is out. Stuff you Should Know is a production 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.040 of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.280 visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:38.720 you listen to your favorite shows.