I Think the Wrong Guy is on This Mural in Ada

Okay, this one takes a little bit of explaining.  If you visit the "Arts District" of Ada, Oklahoma you'll notice a couple of murals in town that celebrate the artists who came from the area.  Actors, musicians, writers and other creative types are grouped together on a few buildings.  Here's the one I'm interested in today:

Take a look at the guy second from left.  He's credited as "Tom Allard."  Recognize him?  Tom Allard is a very tall actor from either Ada or Big Cabin, depending on who you ask.  There's not a lot of information on him online.  Here's one of the few pics I was able to find of him:

Big guy, right?  That's him with Kathleen Turner in the 1991 film "V.I. Warshawski."  She's not exactly short herself so you can tell he's a tall drink of water.  His height has led to being cast as tough guys, enforcers and just generally intimidating characters.

But it's also led to being cast as monsters, aliens and whatnot.  He had a recurring role on a a "Land of the Lost" reboot in the 90s as a great big Dino-Man.  He also played a tall alien in the 1991 film "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey."

 

Put aside the lingering butt shot for now (if you can).  Does anyone in that clip look familiar?  Keep in mind, our Oklahoma guy Allard is inside the alien suit.  Let's take a closer look at the mural:

Looks like the Grim Reaper character from the movie, right?  But he was played by New York native William Sadler.  So what's going on here?  Here's my theory:

The artist needed visual references for all the people he was painting.  Remember how I said there wasn't a lot of info about Allard online?  I found maybe two pics of him and neither we of any quality.  So I'm thinking the artist looked up Allard's credits, saw that he was in the Bill & Ted movie and then mistook Sadler's "Death" character as Allard.  (Death is very tall in the film.  The actor is probably wearing lifts so that he can loom over Bill & Ted.)

So we've got the wrong guy on the mural, right?  What do we do about it?  Anything?  Probably can't repaint the whole thing and just painting over the one guy might look weird.  I say we leave it and we have ourselves a brand new roadside attraction!  Your thoughts?

Miller Time

These days it's easy to forget about the classic 90s Saturday morning comedy "Saved by the Bell."  But in its day it surpassed "hit show" status and became a full on franchise. The original cast graduated to prime time (briefly) and the powers that be decided to keep the Saturday morning train rolling so we got...

Yep, out with the old and in with the new class.  What does any of this have to do with Oklahoma?  Well, the opening episode of season five guest starred one of the Sooner State's most decorated athletes.  Our story begins with the gang looking for jobs at the mall.

They all do well by getting various wacky jobs at various wacky mall stores except for Katie who gets fired from the "Suncoast" type store (remember those?) for lying on her resume.  She wants to get a job at the gym but the head gym guy isn't convinced she's right for the job.  Needing to prove herself and lacking the confidence, she runs into some inspiration:

Yep, Olympic gold medal winning champion Shannon Miller (from Edmond, OK) has stopped by the mall for a book signing.  She gives Katie the old "get your poop together" pep talk and Katie gets inspired.  After a brief run in with Mall Security Guard Screech (who's still on the show for some reason and way more annoying that I remember) Miller eventually makes it to her signing at the non-Suncoast.

Well that pep talk worked and Katie decides to market herself for the gym position by staging an impromptu workout class/membership drive in the middle of the mall.  Mall Security Guard Screech, who has had a problem with literally every single thing that every single character has done in this episode so far, doesn't seem to mind.

And it works!  Presumably she gets the job but more importantly she gets the high five and approval of an Olympian.  This seems to resolve everything, the credits role and we all learned a valuable lesson, probably. 

It might not be high art but definitely a gold medal winning outing for an Oklahoma legend.  Also, Mr. Belding was there.