Sheep thrills

It has been called a parody for charity and a roast of the town. For more than half a century, the annual Sheep Dip Show has brought locals together for a satirical look at the year in review through skits, videos and songs.

The name Sheep Dip is a reference to a liquid solution used to cleanse sheep of parasites and preserve their wool—a nod to Basque heritage in western Nevada. The idea behind the Sheep Dip Show is to “dip” local politicians and newsmakers in satire—a kind of annual, metaphorical cleansing for the deeds with which they made headlines during the previous year.

The first Sheep Dip Show was organized by the Reno Advertising Club. It took place on March 21, 1965 in what was then the Circus Room at the Nugget in Sparks. The Ad Club used the proceeds to set up a foundation to fund scholarships for advertising students at the University of Nevada, Reno. A few days after the show, the Reno Evening Gazette reported 525 tickets had been sold, and a total of $1,066 was raised to fund scholarships.

The Sheep Dip Show has happened every year since and raised a total of more than $500,000. For the first three and a half decades, the funds went to advertising scholarships and the university’s Donald W. Reynolds School of Journalism. In 2001, however, a 501 (c)3 nonprofit was formed—Sheep Dip, Inc.—and the show’s organizers began donating it’s yearly proceeds to various charities. The printed show programs from years past contain thank you letters from recipients, including Care Chest, the Nevada Diabetes Association, Northern Nevada Children’s Cancer Foundation and Honor Flight Nevada.

The Sheep Dip Show programs from past years are actually something to see—and an important part of the show’s tradition of irreverence. The Reno Evening Gazette article published after the first show in ’65 noted the, “Sheep Dip’s wild, wild, wild, show program” had already become a collector’s item.

In addition to lists and photos of cast, crew and volunteers, the past programs contain lyrics to the satirical songs and lampooning advertisements created for show sponsors. The program for the 50th Sheep Dip Show is a retrospective, with stories and photos of participants—“the Dippers,” as they call themselves. They also call one another the “Sheep Dip Family.” Many of them have been involved in the show for years, some of them as families across generations.

Dyed in the wool

Linda Lott, the executive producer of this year’s show, got her start with Sheep Dip 29 years ago.

After seeing a friend dance in the 24th annual show, Lott decided she wanted in, too. She had another friend named Jim Mooers who was involved and decided to approach him about it.

“I said, ’Jim, I’m a dancer. I want to dance in the show,’” Lott recalled. “And he said, ’Well, Linda, to dance in the show, you have to sell 20 ads.’ And I believed him, so I went out and sold 20 ads so I could be a dancer in the show.”

It was, in fact, a joke, but she took in stride. That year, she received the “Rookie of the Year” award, one of many the Sheep Dip crew hands out during post-show celebrations.

This year is Lott’s sixth as the show’s executive producer. But, like many Dippers, she’s filled a lot of roles—from choreography to ad sales to being president of the board.

The current president, Kevin Cralle, has also worked on a variety of things for Sheep Dip over the years. He’s been involved since his father, Don Cralle—an original member of the Reno Ad Club—brought him in to volunteer backstage when he was 12.

Neither Lott nor Cralle are old enough to remember when former Gov. Grant Sawyer appeared onstage alongside other state and local lawmakers for a skit in ’66. But, over the decades, both of them have been witnesses to the show’s evolution.

It has been many years since legislators participated onstage in Sheep Dip. Lott recalled the last time was a skit featuring Sparks Mayor Geno Martini and then Reno Mayor Bob Cashell, around a decade ago. And while the governor has traditionally helped produce an introductory video each year—this year included—perhaps it’s not surprising that onstage participation isn’t the norm. The Sheep Dip can be pretty acerbic, after all.

Take, for example “the shaft” awards. Since 1973, the organizers of the show have annually presented this series of awards to individuals and institutions they deem to have “thoroughly and prominently screwed up” during the previous year.

Receiving “the shaft” might sting. In 1987, when then Harrah’s CEO Phil Satre received it for his role in the selling of the Harrah’s car collection and the laying off of employees, it sparked an editorial in the Reno Gazette-Journal. The author of the piece wrote that all of the public ire Satre had received in recent months had surely left him hurting inside. Recalling the 1940 Western novel The Ox-Bow Incident—whose protagonists were hanged for a crime they didn’t commit—he wrote, “I hope the public sees that Satre is about as guilty.”

But Cralle and Lott are quick to point out that this is the nature of the beast—and all in good fun.

“It’s a roast,” Cralle said. “It’s not malicious. It’s a spoof.”

According to Lott, the majority of recipients have fun with it.

“I remember I was working at the phone company, and we shafted Nevada Bell for the Yellow Pages, because the print was too small,” Lott recalled. “And they came with magnifying glasses to accept the award.”

That was in 1989—the same year former Gov. Grant returned for another skit in which he lamented not having nipped Sheep Dip in the bud. But, by then, Sheep Dip was in some ways milder than it had it been. Whereas the 1976 show had been criticized by a writer in the RG-J for its overabundance of sexual jokes, a review by Michael Sion in 1991 noted that year’s show conscientiously avoided sexist humor. Sion wrote that “perhaps the biggest groaner of the evening” was Nevada Bell’s Bob Chez quipping that “removing sexism meant it’d have a broad appeal.”

Lott and Cralle said the show has become more politically correct in some ways. They view it as in keeping with the times. It’s reflected in recent year’s programs, too. Sheep Dip organizers used to determine the content of the lampooning advertisements they created. Now, advertisers are given a naughtiness scale of one to five to choose from.

“It’s up to the advertiser now, how risqué or not they want their ad,” Cralle said. “It doesn’t fall on us any longer, whereas the whole program—it was in line with Playboy Magazine, really, when I was a kid.”

Nonetheless, both are quick to point out that Sheep Dip isn’t family-friendly—not by a long shot—and, as the forward to the program has noted for years, the show’s level of political correctness is “deliberate but not malicious.”

They just want “the spirit of Sheep Dip to be with ewe.”