Skip to Content
Everything Else

Top 100 Oklahoma Embarrassments: 30-21

9:28 AM EDT on September 4, 2007

30. The City of Bethany

If you are a fan of the City of Bethany, you are probably here because:

a: Your pastor wanted you to see the evils of the Internet, or
b: You Googled something like "Sad Oklahoma Towns", "Nazarene Hot Spots" or "Where to meet boring white religious people in Oklahoma City."

If you chose "A", you probably live in Bethany. If you chose "B", you should probably live in Bethany. If you chose both, you should probably just close the browser, order some Swadley's and watch KSBI Channel 52 for the rest of the day or night. Because in Bethany, that's about all there is to do.

29. The Morning Animals

When the initial Top 100 Oklahoma Embarrassments were ranked, the Morning Animals didn't make the list. Then they decided to read our "famous" Jim Traber Drinking Game on the air and not give us any credit. Later that day, Pork sent us some apologetic emails that "clarified" the situation, and the next morning he "allegedly" read the game again and gave us our proper due. In all honesty, we are not sure which is more embarrassing. Stealing content from a blog, or sending the blog that you stole from an email. We would say it's a push, and that doing both gets you on this list!

28. Tommy Franks

The good:
Franks was born in Wynnewood. The bad: He also lead the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The ugly: He dropped out of the University of Texas after 2 years because of poor grades.

27. Post-1996 Bob Barry, Sr.

A drunk blind man could call a better OU game than Post-1996 Bob Barry. Hell, a drunk mute would do a better job, too. Need proof? Check out what Merv Johnson said in interview from the Oklahoman:

During our first year in 1999, Iowa State had this lineman from Florida. Bob says, "˜John Jones, a 6-foot-3, 285-pound junior from Tampon Springs, Florida.' So we get off air and I say, "˜Bob, I gotta call you on this. I think it's Tarpon Springs.' He tells that story and laughs about it. A lot of people couldn't do that.

Let it be known that we found this article by googling "Bob Barry Sr" "Tampon". That's what we get for doing research.

26. John Blake

At least John Blake brought us Bob Stoops. That nearly got him off this list.

25. "Twister"

Helen Hunt. Gary England. Thomas Stalcup. What do these three people have in common? According to some comment at NewsOK.com*, they all appeared in Twister:

Did yall know Chad Stevens, the guy who does the Fowler Toyota commercials, was an extra in the movie Twister? You can see him at the drive-in movie scene. 1st on a car with a girl friend watching the movie, then running for cover he looks back at the camera.

In case you forget, Thomas Stalcup is the real name of Chad "Follow Me to Fowler" Stevens. So screw the fact the Twister is a horrible movie that reinforces the age old Hollywood stereotypes of Oklahoma. CHAD STEVENS makes an appearance in it. Ahhh!

(*thanks to a reader for pointing this out)

24. Tommy Morrison

Not only did Morrison ruin the Rocky series with his awful portrayal of "Tommy Gunn", he also thought it would be a good idea to compete as a professional boxer despite being HIV positive.

23. Wes Lane

Bobbie Burbridge-Lane's Manchurian Candidate came into power when Frank Keating selected him to replace Bob Macy as the district attorney for the Oklahoma City area. Aside from placing stickers at every 7-11 attempting to scare check writers of prosecution for bounced checks, Lane's only other real attempt at immortality was re-trying Terry Nichols for the Oklahoma City bombing. While it is noble to bring a heinous criminal like Nichols to justice, Lane was a little late on the job. You see, Nichols had been convicted and sentenced to life in prison by the federal government. The result of Lane's re-do, a conviction and life sentence. Your taxpayer dollar being put to good use?

The real calling for the ex-D.A. is unintentional comedy. Daily, it is his voice warning listeners of the Sports Animal of things like "the financial rape of our senior citizens" and touting the evils of per-NAHHHH-gru-phee. (Did you know that Ted Bundy would have been a law abiding citizen if he hadn't discovered Hustler magazine?) I am 99% convinced, however, that Lane's commercials are actually a clever ploy to actually encourage pornography. In his most recent commercial he let me know that our children are making homemade porn and sending it via their cell phones. "It is happening!" By broadcasting it over the airwaves, I imagine that Dean Blevins a few teen boys have gotten the idea to stick their camera phones down their pants.

22. Al Eschbach

If you are not from Oklahoma, and had to guess what Al Eschbach did for a living, you would probably think he is a retired Penn Square Mall Christmas elf who is going through some hard times. The last thing that would cross your mind is that he is a local sports radio "legend." But lets not regress. It's not Al's appearance that got him this spot on our list, it's his painfully bad sports talk show. You see, other than local athletics (OU, OU, OU, OSU, Norman North), Al really doesn't watch or follow sports. Yet he has a job making around $200,000 a year where he gets to "talk" about them.

In summary, Al is simply a great example of the number one rule of marketing success:

Leadership: It is better to be the first than it is to be better.

Al was the first sports talk host in Oklahoma City. That's why he'll always be branded as most popular and most listened to sports radio host around (and why he can't make it in a place like Kansas City). That's also why he'll always have a show here, no matter how much it sucks!

21. Dexter Manley

Technically, this spot probably belongs to Oklahoma State University and all the schools Dexter somehow managed to graduate en route to becoming one of the NFL's elite pass rushers and worst readers. You see, Dexter got a high school diploma and made it through four years at OSU despite being completely incapable of deciphering what the little symbols in his books meant. Shouldn't we be celebrating Manley for his clever ways of maneuvering through academia despite being illiterate? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Generally, the editors of TheLostOgle.com would be concerned about placing a man of Manley's mass and temperament on a list such as this, but we're fairly confident that he isn't one of our readers.

Previous entries:
100-91
90-81
80-71
70-61
60-51
50-41
40-31

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter