Bigfoot!

It's April 1st, a perfect day to talk Bigfoot.

Now don't get me wrong; I love Bigfoot. I simply adore watching quasi-documentaries about dedicated and earnest folks wandering the deep woods searching fruitlessly for the mythic monster. It's fantastic viewing pleasure. The semi-science of it appeals to my stunted logic sensors and the sense of controlled adventure makes for great lite-thrills. Nothing to see here, but always something to look for.


I'm especially in love with the show Monsterquest which weekly has people searching for one mythic almost-animal after another. I'm fascinated by the way they always strap up some camera in some presumed "ideal location" only after just too many dramatic flourishes to find they got nothing. Week after week they come up empty handed and week after week I keep watching. It sure beats watching drek like Jersey Shore.


Before these Bigfoot TV shows of course we had movies that went looking for Bigfoot. And once they caught him. The famous Patterson film which I've seen maybe a hundred times over the decades, the first time in a theater film presentation the title of which I've forgotten, is fantastic stuff. I have no way of knowing its authenticity, and it's not for me to call people I don't know liars, but it's the kind of thing that if true should call to arms legions of investigators into the woods to confirm. The fact that it hasn't makes me wonder what is known, really.


There have been some great Bigfoot movies, some of them quite scary. That's the thing about Bigfoot, he's really a very scary concept. An almost human living in secret just beyond our ability to confirm, watching us and smart enough to elude us until he picks the moment. It's the very essence of a monster movie, and great modern mythic fluff. In a society overripe with technology, a shaggy near-man lurking in the shadows calls out to something ancient in our spirits.


I wish I believed in Bigfoot, but I don't. But I love to keep thinking about him, and watching the shows about him. It's like April Fools Day all year long.

Rip Off