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He's a mean motor scooter and a bad go-getter.
And furthermore:
(Alley-Oop) He's the toughest man there is alive
(Alley-Oop) Wearin' clothes from a wildcat's hide
(Alley-Oop) He's the king of the jungle jive
(Look at that cave man go!) (Scream!)
Yeah, you know the guy from the funny pages, as immortalized in the song by The Hollywood Argyles (lyrics by Dallas Frazier, who was not from Dallas, or even Texas). One-hit wonders they were, BTW.
(Dude Oop. Comic Vine)
So why is Alley Oop being discussed in a column called Texas Weird?
I thought you’d never ask.
The Oop Man was created _ first published _ on Dec. 5, 1932, by a cartoonist named V.T. Hamlin.
Guess where he was from?
At the time of Oop’s birth, either in Hamlin’s mind or under his pen and ink: Iraan TX.
Ninety-three years later, Oop is still going strong (under a different pen and ink, obviously) in 600 publications worldwide.
Hamlin, originally from Iowa, had stints at the Fort Worth Record, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and the Houston Press before hiring on as an oilfield worker in Iraan. That’s pronounced “Irey-Ann,” an amalgam of the names of the couple who founded the town, Ira and Ann Yates, according to Katie Sherrod of Fort Worth, who grew up there.
Oop himself first saw official light of day in Des Moines IA as his famous self, dinosaur Dinny and girlfriend Ooola had adventures in the prehistoric land of Moo. He became even more popular when Hamlin thought to throw in time travel and had him brought into the 20th Century, still in loincloth. (Wikipedia)
Hamlin later moved back to Iowa, but he will always be in Iraan’s heart.
“It was a huge source of pride to Iraan,” Sherrod said.
There’s now a museum, a statue of a giant dinosaur and another of Oop himself.
(Dinny, Alley Oop’s pet dinosaur, at Alley Oop Fantasy Land in Iraan. Photo from Texas Highways via Iraan-Sheffield Chamber of Commerce.)
The Yates' land became the site of “the largest oil deposit in Texas at the time it was discovered,” Sherrod, a former work colleague, said by email and Messenger. “In the 1950s, the two largest oil producing fields in the world were in Iran and Iraan.”
And the kids knew Alley Oop. “We all read Alley Oop in the comics with great pride of ownership,” she said.
Oil production in Iraan, Pecos County and the rest of West Texas was flying high in the late 1940s but living there could be a challenge in the sparsely populated region.
Medical facilities were nearly non-existent, and Sherrod’s dad had just graduated from surgical residency at St. Louis University. Marathon Oil Co., the biggest producer in the region, offered through a Sherrod relative to move the family (Mom was a nurse) to Iraan and set him up in practice, Katie Sherrod said.
“My dad, Alan Sherrod, and my mom, Judy Sherrod, were the only physician and nurse for three huge counties" when they moved there in 1946, shortly before Katie’s birth.
“He would make house calls out to remote ranches and to the oil camps. The only hospital was 60 miles away in Fort Stockton.”
Alan Sherrod later built a clinic in town, and in what was a somewhat risky architectural statement for 1950s West Texas, it only had one waiting room.
One day the richest rancher in the county came in and told Dr. Sherrod, “'I ain’t sittin’ in this waiting room with dirty Meskins,'” Sherrod said. “My dad said, ‘OK, you can wait in your truck. We’ll call you when it’s your turn.’ It was 100 degrees outside. The rancher sat down in the waiting room.” The clinic had two “swamp machines” _ evaporative coolers.
It wasn’t until the '60s that the area got the idea to capitalize on Oop and company.
“Tourism is the third largest money-making industry in this country, and you’d better get your town in shape if you want a part of this dollar,” George Jordon, head of the West Texas Chamber of Commerce, said in a feature about Iraan in the June 2021 edition of Texas Highways Magazine.
On May 8, 1964, the city, population just a little more than 1,200, held its first Alley Oop Day, which included a barbecue, beauty pageant, and live music. The next year, Alley Oop Fantasy Land opened, featuring the 65-foot-long statue of Dinny. To cap things off, Hamlin himself appeared, the magazine article by John Lomax said.
“It was after my family moved to Odessa in 1960 that they installed the dinosaur,” Sherrod said. “We made a special trip to see it, a mere 160-mile round trip.”
The Permian Basin Oil Patch was once the bottom of an ocean, “so fossils were everywhere,” she said, “so it wasn’t hard for us kids to believe dinosaurs had roamed the area. It was a bit of a shock at Permian High school (go Mojo!) to learn that humans and dinosaurs did not coexist! I mean, Alley Oop lied to us!”
Fun facts:
Iraan is the second largest town in the second largest county (Pecos) in the second largest state in the United States, which is the second largest country in North America, according to Wikipedia. County seat Fort Stockton is the largest city.
Katie Sherrod later became an editor and columnist at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, but the Alley Oop comic was carried in the rival Fort Worth Press.
Hamlin once said, "I really can't recall just how I struck upon the name 'Alley Oop', although it might be from the fact that the name is a French term (Alez, hop!) used by tumblers. Alley Oop really is a roughhouse tumbler." The name of Alley's girlfriend, Ooola, was a play on a different French phrase: oh là là. (Wikipedia)
Smart Alec Question of the Day:
Who currently authors the Alley Oop comic strip? Answer below.
Notes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alley_Oop
https://www.songfacts.com/lyrics/the-hollywood-argyles/alley-oop
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraan,_Texas
And the Answer!
The current Oop comic strip is co-authored by writer Joey Alison Sayers and artist Jonathan Lemon. Failing eyesight forced Hamlin to retire in 1971. Two other authors, Dave Graue and Jack Bender preceded them.