0:00

This

0:01

is ninety nine percent invisible.

0:03

I'm Roman Mars.

0:06

There's a place in South Dakota, just

0:08

off interstate ninety. That's one of those tourist

0:10

attractions that you see hundreds of

0:12

signs for as you approach. They

0:14

count down the miles and list the reasons

0:17

to stop in.

0:18

cowboy boots doughnuts, cheap coffee,

0:20

sixty miles ahead. souvenirs,

0:23

fun for the whole family. That's reporter

0:26

Phil Corbett from a podcast called

0:28

The Wynn. In a few months

0:30

ago, while driving across the

0:32

wide stretching grasslands of South

0:34

Dakota, I aimed the

0:36

wheel off the freeway and followed

0:38

the signs to the ultimate roadside

0:41

stop wall drug.

0:43

We are a fun

0:46

roadside attraction. we're

0:48

slice of Americana,

0:49

you know. This

0:51

is Sarah Houston. Sarah

0:53

owns wall drug with her dad, and

0:55

she is the fourth generation of Houston

0:58

to run this place. It's

1:00

in the small town of Wall

1:02

South Dakota, which sits right

1:05

at the spot where the badlands crumple

1:07

up. Above, the

1:09

great plains silently sprawl

1:11

toward a distant horizon. Sara's

1:15

great grandfather bought this place as a simple

1:17

small town pharmacy during the Great Depression.

1:19

And over nine decades, the family

1:21

expanded this small drugstore to

1:23

take up an entire city block.

1:26

And in addition to its restaurant soda

1:28

fountain donut shop and travelers chapel,

1:30

it is a remarkable purveyor of

1:32

western catch.

1:38

And that is why I stopped. not

1:41

for the cheap coffee, but because wall

1:43

drug is synonymous with

1:45

one of my favorite examples of

1:47

Western Kitchen.

1:49

We are looking at a

1:51

full wall of Jackalope.

1:53

The Jackalope.

1:55

Looks like we've sold some here, but

1:57

we have four rows

1:59

of solid Jackalopes and

2:02

they have their nice wood

2:04

plaques and the

2:07

beautiful Jackrabbits with

2:09

the real antlers. If

2:12

you're not familiar with the Jack this

2:14

magical mythical creature is

2:17

a horned rabbit. And

2:19

though I've seen many lone mounted

2:21

Jackalope heads I am

2:24

struck by the variety, seeing them

2:26

side by side in rows.

2:28

Oh,

2:28

I think his lips are kind

2:30

of purged and he's looking quite perky

2:32

here. I would call this

2:34

guy a little more wirey, and

2:37

then you have the nice kind of more

2:39

wintery Jackalopes. that

2:41

are nice and white, super

2:43

fluffy, and I think

2:45

those ones are extra cute. The

2:49

antlers are of different sizes

2:51

and shapes. The rabbits

2:53

all have different expressions. Some

2:56

rye and knowing others

2:58

calm and wide eyed, but

3:01

all of them with a certain straight

3:03

faced charm. Do you have

3:05

a Jackalope at home --

3:07

Yeah. -- of course. For

3:09

the past seventy years, wall

3:12

drug has been central in the

3:14

spread of this iconic creature.

3:17

I wouldn't wanna say wall

3:18

drug is responsible. I wouldn't

3:20

wanna get too big of a head, but

3:23

we do see a ton of people from

3:25

all over come through

3:28

and here is probably

3:30

the first time that they're seeing, the Jackalope.

3:33

But

3:33

the story of how the Jackalope became

3:35

a mythical mascot of the American

3:37

West, inspiring an app loot river

3:40

of trinkets and songs and

3:42

whiskeys and postcards and tall

3:44

tales. That story goes

3:46

back much further than wall drug.

3:49

The way most people encounter the

3:51

Jackalope is not in the but

3:53

instead on a wall.

3:55

Yeah. A pool hall, a bar,

3:57

a greasy spoon diner, and

3:59

maybe

3:59

your grandfather's basement.

4:01

This is Michael Branch. who wrote a book

4:04

called On the Trail of the Jackalope.

4:06

He spent years

4:08

driving around the American West talking

4:11

to everyone who knew anything

4:13

about Jackalopes in a quest

4:16

to understand where this creature came

4:18

from and why it stuck around

4:20

for so long. According to

4:22

Mike, the first documented taxidermy

4:24

Jackalope was made by two

4:26

young brothers in the early nineteen

4:29

thirties. Ralph and Doug Herrick

4:31

lived on a little homestead outside of a tiny

4:33

town called Douglas, Wyoming out

4:35

on the edge of the prairie. and

4:37

those kids had been taken a taxidermy

4:40

course as a correspondence course through

4:42

the mail. Like many depression

4:44

era families, the young heroics

4:47

hunted and fished to

4:49

help stock the family dinner table.

4:51

And they had been out hunting one day and they bagged

4:53

a jack rabbit. They came back and

4:55

threw it on the floor of their shop, and as the

4:57

story goes, it slid up against some

5:00

deer handlers from a deer that had been

5:02

dressed out not long before. I'm

5:04

not totally understanding the physics of

5:06

this scene, but it's okay. Let's continue.

5:08

And that gave them the idea in that moment

5:10

when they saw that weird hybrid

5:12

thing sitting on the floor of their shop Let's

5:15

mount that thing. And that

5:17

was the first Jackalope head

5:19

mounted on a plaque. This

5:22

was the hoax mount. that

5:24

started it all. These two kids

5:27

taking a taxidermy class through

5:29

the mail apparently they did a pretty

5:31

good job because they brought the

5:33

mount down to the local pub where

5:35

the bar owner paid them ten bucks

5:37

for it. In that particular first

5:39

Jackalope, hung in the old Lebanti

5:41

hotel in Douglas, Wyoming over the

5:43

bar from the nineteen thirties all the way

5:45

through the nineteen seventies. And that was

5:48

That was the rock that got thrown in the

5:50

pond and the Jackalope ripples went

5:52

out from there across the country and across the

5:54

whole world really.

5:58

The Harrick

5:59

Brothers kept making these things,

6:02

and they probably would have remained

6:04

just a local Wyoming oddity if

6:07

not for wall drug, which

6:09

has been selling Jackalopes for

6:11

at least seventy years.

6:14

The reason why drug is such a vital

6:16

part of the story of the

6:18

Jackalope is that it was

6:20

probably the first place that ever commercially

6:22

sold Jackalopes. and they have

6:24

never stopped since. Long before

6:26

the Internet, wall drug

6:28

helped the Jackalope go viral.

6:31

tourists and road trippers from all

6:33

over the world would stop in

6:35

at this roadside emporium and

6:38

see on the wall, this

6:39

rabbit.

6:40

with antlers. As more

6:43

people came into contact with the antler

6:45

rabbit, a torrent of tall tales

6:47

followed. an elaborate mythology

6:49

sprung up around the creature dreamed up

6:52

by many different storytellers. Nobody

6:54

owns the Jackalope, No corporation

6:57

or person is entitled to control

6:59

its distribution, its consumption, its

7:01

interpretation. It is truly

7:03

part of the folk process. According

7:06

to Jackalope lore, the

7:09

creatures are smart and considerably

7:11

dangerous. They only mate

7:13

during lightning storms. And if you

7:15

put out a bowl of whiskey at night, a

7:18

passing Jackalope may finish it off

7:20

and in his drunken bravado.

7:23

he'll believe he can catch bullets

7:25

in his teeth, which is the only

7:27

way hunters can manage to

7:29

bag them. Also, Jackalope

7:31

milk is supposedly a powerful

7:33

aphrodisiac. And even though the

7:35

Jackalope sleeps on its back, it's

7:38

incredibly dangerous to milk one. And

7:40

finally, the Jackalope is the only

7:42

animal that can throw its voice

7:44

like a ventriloquist. If

7:46

you're out camping and you sing around campfire, you'll

7:48

hear that voice coming in from the sage

7:51

of the Jackalope harmonizing with you.

7:55

Throughout history, people have told stories

7:57

about Chimera. The original

7:59

Chimera from Greek mythology was

8:01

a fire breathing monster with lion's

8:03

head, a goat's body, and a serpent's

8:06

tail. Over time, the word has

8:08

come to mean any hybrid creature

8:10

made up of different animal parts. Horses

8:12

with wings, cats with eagle

8:15

heads, fish with fur. When inventing

8:17

something new, the oldest trick in

8:19

the book is to smash two existing

8:21

things together. But the

8:23

Jackalope Chimera distinctly fits

8:26

into the American West. and

8:28

it emerged at a particular moment

8:30

in the west's history. Early in

8:32

the country's western colonization Frontiersman

8:36

and settlers were often seen from

8:38

the east as bumpkins,

8:40

uncultured and immoral

8:42

people. living in a wild

8:45

land. But going into the nineteen

8:47

hundreds, pop culture started

8:49

to romanticize the west. people

8:51

loved stories about heroic

8:53

cowboys living on the prairie,

8:55

the stuff that you'd see in

8:57

Buffalo Bills' Wild West Show. Over

8:59

time, the diverse and complicated

9:02

reality of the west was slowly

9:04

flattened into a simpler and

9:06

more whitewashed myth. part

9:08

of that romantic retelling included

9:10

an interest in the actual western

9:13

tradition of tall tales.

9:15

that language of hyperbole, of

9:18

exaggeration, of larger than

9:20

life. So that's part of what

9:22

we associate with the American West straight is

9:24

this wonderful tradition of extravagant

9:26

folk humor. settlers

9:28

as early as the mid eighteen

9:30

hundreds used humor and

9:32

embellishment. to

9:34

subvert the narrative that they

9:36

were ignorant. I think the tension

9:38

between the east and west and the United

9:40

States from the nineteenth forward is a really

9:42

important part of the story. You know,

9:44

people in the American West who maybe are seen

9:46

as frontiersmen or bumpkins

9:48

or uneducated They say, oh,

9:50

yeah. Well, guess what? I know more than you

9:52

do about something, and it's this.

9:54

I'm gonna fool you with this Jackalope.

9:57

there's a great satisfaction in

9:59

taking someone who is condescending or

10:02

a lead

10:03

and exposing their ignorance

10:05

when busy trying to expose yours. Some

10:07

of

10:08

the Jackalope's allure is that it sets up

10:10

this rules. There are people

10:12

who know and people who

10:14

don't. and a lot of the satisfaction

10:16

comes from playing with that

10:18

line. Telling people a long

10:20

just barely plausible story

10:23

all the while pointing to the

10:25

evidence right there on the

10:27

wall. Like all

10:29

good humorous the Jackalope always keeps a

10:31

straight face, it refuses to

10:33

acknowledge that it's funny in any way. It takes

10:35

itself perfectly seriously. But

10:39

there's a curious thing about horned

10:41

rapids. While we know the origin story of

10:43

the Jackalope, Douglas

10:45

Wyoming nineteen thirty two, There are

10:47

illustrations and descriptions of

10:49

this specific creature going back

10:51

much, much further. For instance,

10:54

There's a Renaissance illustration of a

10:56

squirrel and three rabbits, the central

10:58

one, sporting a crown

11:00

of antlers. Or

11:02

there's a flemish painting from the

11:04

seventeenth century that shows a

11:06

wreath of fruit and flowers

11:08

surrounded by birds, deer, and

11:10

a small horned rabbit. And

11:12

this is not just in Europe. Horned

11:14

rabbits show up all over the

11:16

world. Indigenous people from Mexico and

11:18

the Americas. There are

11:21

horned rabbit tails in the folklore of

11:23

many African peoples. certainly

11:25

all across Europe and then in

11:27

Asia. A horned rabbit is

11:29

even invoked in early Buddhist

11:31

texts. as a way to

11:33

talk about the very nature of

11:35

reality. Basically,

11:37

the Buddha says to his students.

11:39

If you think a horned rabbit exists,

11:41

then you don't understand anything about

11:43

the world or about human consciousness because

11:46

obviously it doesn't exist. And then

11:48

he'd ask his students to

11:51

picture a Horned rabbit. And he'd

11:53

say, well, the Horned rabbit is real to you

11:55

now, isn't it? So if you think the Horned

11:57

rabbit doesn't exist, You don't know anything

11:59

about reality or the nature of the

12:01

mind. So he used it as a tool to

12:03

kind of break down this binary thinking, the

12:05

specific lesson was

12:07

that the horn grab it both does and doesn't exist.

12:10

And that

12:12

line between real and not

12:15

real, blurs with the

12:17

horned rabbit because they don't

12:19

only show up in art and mythology.

12:21

Early cosmographies and natural

12:23

histories will depict the Horned

12:25

Rabbit, and then throughout the late medieval and

12:27

renaissance periods in Europe, the

12:29

Horned Rabbit was actually taxonomized

12:31

as a unique species. It was called

12:33

lepus cornudis. And so

12:35

if rabbits with horns are depicted

12:37

all over the world in an art from nearly

12:40

every continent and in natural

12:42

history, Is there actually

12:44

a lepus Cornutus? A

12:46

taxonomized distinct species? No.

12:49

They were wrong on that. But

12:51

horn

12:52

rabbits actually exist in nature.

12:55

The horned

12:56

rabbit is real,

12:58

real sort

12:59

of.

13:02

Most of what we know about the existence

13:04

of Horned Roberts is thanks to a pioneering

13:07

virologist named Richard Shoppe,

13:09

Shope was born in Des Moines, Iowa in

13:11

nineteen o one. And by the nineteen

13:13

thirties, he was working at the Rockefeller

13:16

Institute at Princeton University. That's

13:18

where he discovered what caused the pandemic

13:20

of nineteen eighteen by

13:22

linking the influenza virus to one he

13:24

observed in pigs. Shoak was

13:26

well established in his field, and he

13:28

was an expert on animal

13:30

to human disease transmission. Shoak

13:33

has two living children. And

13:35

though neither could do an interview for this

13:37

story, his daughter, Nancy,

13:39

shared some of her dad's unpublished

13:42

letters, which were incredible

13:44

to read. Here is Richard

13:46

Shope describing his own

13:48

work in a letter he sent in

13:50

nineteen thirty two to

13:52

his mom.

13:54

February twenty second nineteen thirty

13:56

two.

13:57

You asked what to tell people that

13:59

asked you what

13:59

my work was, Just tell them

14:02

that I work with diseases, the

14:04

causes of which are unknown, trying

14:06

to find the cause and to study the

14:08

pathology.

14:12

At this time, Shoppe had conducted

14:15

research that convinced him that viruses

14:17

could cause certain kinds of cancer

14:19

in mammals. The scientific community

14:21

hadn't caught up with them yet, but that would

14:23

change starting in nineteen

14:25

thirty two. That year, The

14:27

same year, the Herrick brothers mounted

14:29

their first Jackalope in Wyoming,

14:32

Hope started hearing about some

14:34

strange horned rabbits. in the

14:36

Midwest, not the ones the Heryks

14:38

were making, but real

14:40

rabbits that hunters had come

14:42

across on the great plains.

14:44

And so asked these hunters to essentially to start

14:47

mailing him these weird rabbits from the

14:49

Midwest. When the

14:50

rabbits arrived at his lab, Shope could

14:52

see that the rabbits didn't actually

14:54

have horns. They had these gnarly

14:57

disturbing growths that were caused, show

14:59

thought, by some kind of disease.

15:01

show

15:01

collected samples of the groats.

15:04

Then he pulverized them, did

15:06

some, you know, science stuff,

15:08

And as a result, he would get a mix

15:10

of organic material all

15:13

contained in a fluid. And that

15:15

fluid would be strained

15:17

through a porcelain filter. When

15:19

it was strained through that filter, lots

15:21

of genetic material and lots of bacteriological

15:25

material would be filtered out. Shope

15:27

applied that filtered fluid

15:29

to healthy rabbits who then

15:31

developed the same

15:33

growths. So whatever this disease was,

15:35

it was transmissible. But because

15:37

of this filtration process, he was

15:39

able to prove that all the other things

15:41

it might be had been filtered out

15:43

and the only thing small enough to go through

15:45

that porcelain filter was a virus.

15:48

That

15:48

virus that soap extracted is what's

15:50

called a papillomavirus. and that

15:52

can cause these really grotesque

15:54

growths on the animal's

15:56

head, which can look a lot like horns.

16:00

they are pretty terrible to

16:02

look at. I do not

16:04

recommend googling it, but

16:06

basically these growths are

16:08

carcinomas. that sometimes

16:10

grow quite large and

16:12

often on the rabbit's face and

16:14

head. I would definitely say

16:16

that A rabbit stricken with

16:18

papilloma virus is likely to look

16:20

more grotesque and less stylized

16:22

than an actual ejaculate. In

16:24

most cases, growths emerge

16:26

from the rabbit's face or the back of

16:28

its head, but in some instances,

16:30

they grow right out of the

16:32

rabbit's forehead. and look

16:34

uncannily like antlers or

16:36

goat horns. It's

16:38

hard to say for sure, but

16:40

it is certainly possible that these rabbits

16:42

with horns antlers that were showing up

16:44

in Renaissance paintings and

16:46

naturalist fieldbooks were

16:48

depictions of this disease.

16:51

observed in nature.

16:53

Now at

16:55

the time, the scientific community didn't

16:57

believe that viruses could cause cancer.

16:59

as soap wrote in a letter to a colleague. If

17:02

it's true, the observation would hurt lots of

17:04

people's feelings that have

17:05

for a long time considered tumors

17:08

as invariably of non infectious

17:10

nature. Cancer

17:11

isn't contagious. Right?

17:13

Well, show by studying those horn

17:15

rabbits was able to prove that those

17:17

weird growths were caused by a

17:20

virus. And that was a major breakthrough

17:23

because proving that a virus could

17:25

cause cancer in a mammal

17:27

open the way to all kinds of research that was

17:29

gonna turn out to be important to human

17:32

beings. By the

17:34

nineteen

17:34

seventies and eighties, Researchers

17:36

were starting to explore the link between

17:39

papillomaviruses and humans

17:41

and certain kinds of cancer.

17:44

It took years to prove the connection,

17:46

but eventually researchers

17:48

did. And they won the Nobel Prize

17:50

for the Discovery. We

17:52

now know that HPV can cause

17:55

various types of cancer in

17:57

people. But the most prominent example

17:59

is

17:59

cervical cancer. which was a

18:02

huge, huge killer. Over

18:03

ninety percent

18:04

of cervical cancer is caused

18:06

by HBV infection. but

18:09

decades after the work on

18:11

papillomaviruses by Richard Schopen,

18:13

scientists used that early research

18:15

to develop a vaccine.

18:16

If you connect the dots, this leads

18:19

eventually to development of the

18:21

human papillomavirus vaccine,

18:23

the HPV vaccine, which is

18:25

the safest, most effective anti cancer vaccine

18:28

we have ever created. It saves millions

18:30

of lives every year, and it

18:32

would not exist without

18:34

horn rabbits and without a person who was

18:36

curious enough to ask how

18:39

did these weird rabbits come to be the way

18:42

they are?

18:43

Mike lays

18:48

out in

18:50

the book. that there

18:52

is something charming and inexplicable.

18:55

That Richard Choe's work on

18:57

horned rabbits began in

19:00

nineteen thirty two.

19:03

Nineteen

19:03

thirty two is the year that the Herrick brothers

19:06

in that little town in Wyoming

19:08

claimed that they made their first

19:10

Jackalope hoax mail. I don't

19:12

think there's any relationship between those

19:14

two things, but I love the idea that

19:16

in the same year, This river forks,

19:18

and one fork is a kind of

19:20

hoax that is gonna become a staple of

19:22

popular culture. And the other

19:24

fork is this legitimate scientific

19:26

research that is gonna lead to the

19:28

saving of millions of lives. So the Jackalope

19:31

story turns out to be so much

19:33

more complicated than we

19:35

would ever guess when we stick a stamp

19:37

on a tacky postcard or we see

19:39

a taxidermy mount in a

19:41

pool

19:41

hall. The

19:43

Jackalope so artfully inhibits this space between

19:45

the fake and the real. It is

19:47

a true boundary cross center.

19:50

name your incongruity. Right? Is it a rabbit or

19:52

deer? Is it timid or vicious?

19:54

Is it funny or serious? Is

19:56

it ironic or genuine?

20:00

Back at wall

20:01

drug. I amble across

20:03

the courtyard. I pass

20:06

a taxidermy buffalo and the

20:09

threshold the back building and duck into

20:11

a hallway filled with

20:13

remarkable historic photographs. Young

20:16

cowboys on the great plains hold tight,

20:19

tibucking bronchos. Settlers

20:21

traverse the windswept grasslands,

20:23

indigenous families, and

20:25

chiefs posed together in traditional

20:28

garb standing on the land that they've

20:30

inhabited for millennia. And

20:32

this sincere quiet collage of

20:34

deep American history is

20:37

interrupted every twelve minutes

20:39

by a giant animatronic

20:42

T

20:47

Rex. The

20:53

American West can be

20:55

a weird place. Beautiful

20:58

and ugly, sincere

21:00

and commodified serene and

21:03

absurd. And overseeing all

21:06

of it up on the

21:08

wall is the antlered rabbit.

21:11

always with a straight

21:13

face. Alright. I think

21:15

just one final question.

21:17

Is the Jackalope real or

21:19

is it myth? Yes.

21:22

yes

21:36

Coming

21:41

up after the break, I talked with Phil about the

21:43

Jackalope in pop culture and

21:46

how it connects with the long tradition of the trickster.

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23:44

So

23:45

Phil, you're back

23:49

to talk with us a little bit more about

23:51

the Jackalope and its relationship with arts and culture.

23:53

And since your own podcast, the wind

23:55

is about listening and sound and

23:57

music. Let's start with some examples of

23:59

the Jackalope in

24:01

music. Yeah.

24:02

The Jackalope has inspired

24:04

a ton of pop culture.

24:06

In Mike Branch's book, he

24:08

devotes about two pages to

24:10

listening music that mentions the Jackalope. So

24:13

I just started listening through

24:15

all of those bands. Okay.

24:17

Great. So what did you find? There are a ton.

24:19

But just a couple quick highlights to

24:21

play for you. One is

24:24

creepy Jackalope eye by Arizona

24:27

cowpunkband SuperSuckers.

24:40

or here's one from

24:42

your neck of the woods. This is an extra

24:44

noisy track called Jackalope

24:46

Rising by the Phantom

24:49

Lynds. and and they're from beautiful downtown Oakland,

24:51

California. Maybe not downtown, but they're

24:53

from Oakland, California. Exactly.

25:02

The list goes on

25:04

and on and on, but I started

25:06

realizing that a lot of these

25:08

musicians were using the

25:10

Jackalope in their song titles and their

25:12

lyrics, and they were bending

25:14

genre in these really

25:16

interesting ways. Okay. So what do you mean by

25:18

that? Like, a lot of the songs just don't

25:20

neatly fit into, you know,

25:22

pop or punk or black

25:24

metal or whatever, but we're

25:26

instead combining all of

25:28

these different elements into

25:30

one song. Like the Jackalope itself,

25:32

it's hybrid creature. it sort of evokes

25:35

a kind of hybrid musical styles as

25:37

well. Exactly. And and so one of the

25:39

bands that caught my ear was

25:41

simply called Jackalope. Okay.

25:43

A lot of their songs have

25:45

this kind of like eighties,

25:47

new age jazz fusion

25:49

thing going on. And

25:58

they describe themselves as,

26:00

let's see,inth acoustic

26:03

Pankarachi Nappajez. Okay.

26:07

You might need to break that down for me a little bit

26:09

more, but yeah. Go on. So

26:11

it's co fronted by a very

26:13

prominent Native American flute player.

26:16

named R Carlos Nacai. Mhmm. And,

26:18

like, when I say prominent, I mean, you

26:20

know, if you're imagining what Native

26:22

American flu sounds like there's a

26:24

chance here imagining his music. He has,

26:26

like, multiple gold albums, etcetera

26:29

etcetera. And So called

26:31

up R Carlos Nacai to talk

26:33

about the image of the Jackalope

26:35

and, you know, what it means

26:38

to him? I think the first time

26:40

I was ever

26:41

made aware of the Jackalope was

26:43

when I was visiting with friends

26:45

down at the Mojave community

26:48

in Parker, Arizona, and

26:50

there was a

26:52

rabbit

26:52

with horns in one of the shops.

26:54

And I said, what is that?

26:57

Nakai was immediately drawn

26:59

to the Jackalope precisely because

27:01

it is a hybrid creature.

27:04

It crosses the boundary

27:06

between rabbit and deer, and

27:08

there's something just compelling and

27:10

playful about it for that reason. Also,

27:13

Nakai's collaborator in the band,

27:15

Larry Janias, is an

27:17

artist from Yuma, Arizona, and he

27:19

works a lot with chicano

27:21

imagery and ideas of living on

27:23

a border, coming from a bilingual family.

27:26

So we live in two worlds at once

27:28

all of us do. Jackalope is

27:31

that mixture of

27:33

cultural

27:33

awareness. And we go,

27:35

this is something we can have

27:37

a good time with. So we're

27:39

not guy, it's not just about

27:41

mixing cultures. It's also about breaking

27:43

down this line between what's funny and

27:45

what's serious. Exactly. And

27:48

This

27:48

is the other thing about the Jackalope that makes it

27:50

so interesting is that it fits into

27:53

this whole tradition of

27:55

the trickster. which,

27:57

you

27:57

know, you see in cultures all over

27:59

the world. Yeah. I'm

28:00

remembering from the main story how the

28:03

Jackalope is itself as

28:05

trickster with you know, they drink whiskey

28:07

and they catch bullets with their teeth

28:09

and throw their voices and

28:11

even the image of them is used to

28:13

trick. globally easterners to to

28:15

thinking that they're real. But you're saying that

28:17

trickster figures appear in lots of

28:19

cultures. So what are some of those examples? This

28:22

type of character is common in

28:24

indigenous stories. In North

28:26

America, specifically Coyote,

28:28

and in the northwest, the Crowe --

28:30

Mhmm. -- who both have major roles

28:32

in many creation stories

28:35

than Essu in Nigeria, who

28:37

is the Frickster God of the

28:39

Yaraba people. Hermes

28:41

in ancient Greece, Loki

28:43

from Norse mythology, He

28:46

changes form and gender. I mean, the

28:48

definition is fluid, but the

28:50

trickster just shows up everywhere.

28:52

And so I'm familiar with some of those, but,

28:54

you know, what makes a trickster?

28:56

One thing is that they are constantly

28:58

testing what is socially acceptable.

29:02

Sometimes they bridge different realities

29:04

as well. So in some stories, the

29:06

coyote will be able to pass between

29:09

the world the living in the spirit world. Mhmm.

29:11

And they also often

29:13

upend power structures usually

29:16

through mischief. So Michael

29:17

Branch told me that at the core of

29:19

it, the trickster is all about

29:22

crossing lines. Most of

29:24

us live in worlds where

29:27

boundaries are set out for

29:29

us every day, and those

29:31

lines have been drawn for us.

29:33

And there's something exhilarating

29:35

about breaking out of that. Right?

29:37

So elicit boundary crossing.

29:39

That's the forte of the

29:41

trickster. Okay. I'm sorry to get

29:42

some sense

29:43

of what the trickster is all about. But do you have other

29:45

examples of how they operate? So it

29:47

might help to talk about a couple

29:49

examples from more contemporary

29:52

culture. Mhmm. One would be George

29:54

Clooney's character from Oh Brother

29:56

Warehouse. I mean, that is contemporary

29:58

in one sense, but also isn't it based on

30:00

the odyssey, which is not very contemporary.

30:02

Exactly. And Odysseus from the Odyssey

30:05

is one of those ancient trickster

30:07

figures. So in O brother

30:09

where it now Clooney is

30:11

constantly using, you know, his wit and

30:13

embellishment and straight up

30:15

lives to get out of all these sticky

30:17

situations.

30:19

That was my hair.

30:24

Got you surrounded

30:26

there. We're in

30:27

a tight spot. Come on.

30:31

You

30:31

know he starts off in jail and he lies to

30:34

his fellow prisoners about hidden

30:36

treasure so they'll help him go on this big journey to break up

30:38

his ex wife's marriage. Mhmm. And

30:40

throughout the movie, he's super

30:42

smart and resourceful But

30:45

at the same time, he is totally

30:47

fallible -- Yeah. -- which is

30:49

basically how the trickster works.

30:51

Like, very clever, seemingly

30:53

all knowing but then completely

30:55

tripped up by lowly desires like

30:57

hunger or sex or

30:59

jealousy or even curiosity. Yeah.

31:01

It's like the trickster is charming because

31:04

of its fellibility. I'm

31:07

curious if you have a favorite

31:09

trickster. So one of my favorite tricksters

31:11

is one everybody will be

31:13

familiar with, which is bugs

31:16

bunny. I

31:18

never thought about that, but that seems yeah. That's

31:20

right that's right on the money. That makes sense.

31:22

Yeah. because, you know, bugs is constantly

31:25

defeating this bumbling human

31:27

hunter, Elmer Fudd. Mhmm. And

31:29

he does it, you know, not through physical

31:31

strength, but by out smarting him

31:33

and basically playing these elaborate cranks.

31:36

Come on. Oh. Anywhere's words?

31:39

Wabbit. Yeah. Those sliplaps have

31:41

been out style for at least three

31:43

decades. Willie. In

31:45

fact, I wouldn't be caught dead wearing

31:47

those things. Oh, well, I was just about

31:49

to take them off.

31:51

Oh. Oh,

31:51

question. Oh. This

31:54

minute went by. Yeah, doc. That

31:56

sun ain't pulling around. better

31:58

put on some sunscreen. Oh,

32:01

now I

32:02

can't see.

32:04

And if you think about it,

32:06

like, if bugs loses in these episodes,

32:08

he dies. Right. Right.

32:10

Right. And and yet he's just super

32:13

cool, nonchalant. and he

32:15

pretty much always comes out on

32:17

top.

32:17

Right. Another

32:18

thing about it, he's so

32:20

much like the Jackalope. Like, he he's this trickster

32:22

because he's constantly trolling Omurfud,

32:24

but he's also a bit of this chimera

32:26

hybrid because he's this mix between a

32:28

rabbit and a human. Exactly. Yeah. because

32:30

he walks on his back feet, he

32:33

has gloves, He breaks

32:35

down that line between human

32:37

and nonhuman. Mhmm.

32:39

And, like, low key bugs

32:41

also messes with gender. in

32:43

these really understated ways. Like,

32:46

he'll just fluidly play a fem

32:48

version of himself without

32:50

making a big thing of it. or

32:52

sometimes they do make a big deal of it, and he's

32:54

like a fem fatale, like,

32:56

really dolled up as noted

32:58

by Garth and Wayne's World. but

33:01

he he he admits on a hood of a

33:03

car that he's secretly attracted to bugs

33:05

bunny. Did you ever find bugs bunny

33:07

attractive when he put on a dress and play a girl

33:10

bunny?

33:12

No.

33:16

No.

33:20

Neither did I.

33:21

I it's just asking. Yeah.

33:23

And bugs

33:24

is just subversive. You

33:27

know, he's always upsetting power

33:29

structures. And that's

33:31

part of what makes him such a great

33:33

example of a trickster. Mhmm.

33:35

So yeah, I mean, if you haven't had a chance to, you

33:37

know, visit wall drug or see a

33:39

Jackalope on a wall, I

33:41

mean, you've definitely got the vibe

33:44

from bugs. That's fantastic.

33:47

Well, this has been so cool. I I really

33:49

appreciate this deep dive into

33:51

something that I had I just had no

33:53

idea there was so much behind. the

33:55

foe mounted heads that you see in

33:57

kitschy western shops. It's just it's

33:59

been so cool

33:59

to go on this journey with you. Thank you, folk. Really

34:02

appreciate it. Yeah. Thank

34:04

you, Roman.

34:12

Ninety nine percent Invisible Fence

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was reported this week by Phil Corbett and

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edited by executive producer, Delaney Hall.

34:17

Phil makes a podcast

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34:54

thanks this week to Alyssa Sobo,

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from San Diego State University and Rick

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