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Bigfoot is Real, Part 3
Bigfoot on Film
October 20, 1967: Roger Patterson films what he believes to be Bigfoot, strolling along Bluff Creek in Northern California's Six Rivers National Forest. The infamous 16mm film has since been studied and disputed as much as Abraham Zapruder's Kennedy assassination footage. Some claim the grainy, shaky footage proves Bigfoot's existence, while others believe it to be a hoax, insisting that the costume designer for Planet of the Apes was responsible, or that "Bigfoot" is clearly wearing a wristwatch. Many more folks -- like me -- just aren't sure. In any case, Patterson's indelible images ignited worldwide interest in Bigfoot, along with four decades' worth of exploitation movies.
Since nobody has a copyright on Bigfoot, pretty much anybody with at least a Camcorder and gorilla suit can make a Bigfoot movie. As such, Bigfoot movies vary widely in production values, from public-access quality home video to big-budget, would-be blockbusters. They also span the genres, from G-rated family fare to PG documentaries, from gory, R-rated horror films to X-rated hardcore porn. Likewise, Bigfoot has had as many different portrayals: gentle giant, fun-loving clown, fantastic lover, brutal rapist, misunderstood loner, bloodthirsty killer. Yet, in almost all cases, Bigfoot is tall, hairy, immensely strong and, of course, has big feet.
Many of these films center around a small group trekking through the wilderness, either actively searching for Bigfoot or simply enjoying the great outdoors. Their run times are often padded with ponderous wilderness footage -- woodsy flora and fauna, lakes and streams, mountains and sunsets -- accompanied by folksy banjo or harmonica music. However, once viewers are lulled into what seems like Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, Bigfoot rears his smelly head.
At first, he's often obscured by shadows or foliage, or seen from the backside, or from a distance, or in profile or silhouette, or perhaps only his hairy legs are seen lumbering along, leaving a trail of giant footprints. We also often see action from Bigfoot's POV, with overdubbed breathing sounds as he spies on humans from behind a bush. But suddenly Bigfoot will explode onto the screen, whether for some heartwarming bonding, disembowelment, comic relief or whatever. Almost all of these movies end with some philosophical statement about man and nature or something. Also, pretty much all of 'em stink.
There have been a few pre-1967 films films dealing with Bigfoot creatures like his Himalayan cousin, the Abominable Snowman (a.k.a. Yeti), and subsequent movies invovling Bigfoot's extraterrestrial cousin, the Wookie. However, the focus here is strictly on Gigantopithecus blackii, the North American Bigfoot, post-Patterson.
Lights, please.

Bigfoot (1970).
A colony of Bigfoot creatures has kidnapped some bikini-clad babes with whom they intend to breed. A biker gang tries to resuce the girls (whom the dextrous creatures have somehow tied to stakes), while a pair of traveling salesmen (John Carradine and John Mitchum) hope to strike it rich by capturing one of the creatures. With its bad script, bad acting, bad costumes, bad soundstage sets and bad acid-rock soundtrack, this camp classic set the standard for most Bigfoot movies to come.

The New Scooby-Doo Movies (CBS, November 11, 1972).
In "Scooby-Doo Meets Laurel and Hardy," the teen sleuths run into the comedy duo on the road to a Vermont ski lodge, where they discover that the "Ghost of Bigfoot" has been scaring off the guests. Of course, the creature is actually a crook dressed in a Bigfoot costume, scaring visitors away so that his nearby stolen-car operation wouldn't be discovered. Even though the creature is referred to as "Bigfoot" throughout the episode (and he laughs and growls "Hnnnn! Hnnnn!"), his white fur and snowy habitat are more akin to the Abominable Snowman... Side Note: A better resemblance is the brown-haired monster in Tracey West's book Scooby-Doo and You: The Case of the Bigfoot Beast (Scholastic, 2000). Turns out the creature is actually a crook dressed in a Bigfoot costume, scaring guests away from a campground so that his nearby stolen-jewel operation wouldn't be discovered.

The Legend of Boggy Creek (1973).
A G-rated creature feature comprised of several moody, atmospheric vignettes in which rural folk encounter Bigfoot. In one scene, farm animals sensing Bigfoot's proximity get edgy before he attacks some chickens. In another, he smashes his arm through some farmhouse windows, freaking out the folks inside. Instead of the Pacific Northwest, however, the action takes place in another hotbed of Bigfoot sightings, the swamps near Fouke, Arkansas.

Beauties and the Beast (1974).
Bigfoot goes a-courtin' in this softcore mess, featuring buxom Russ Meyer favorite Uschi Digard. Horny hippies visit a cabin in the woods, where Bigfoot ravages sexy chicks in short-shorts and go-go boots before hauling them back to his cave-cum-harem. There's plenty of full-frontal nudity -- both male and female -- what with all the skinny-dipping, nude sunbathing, lesbian nookie, and in one scene, Bigfoot breaking up a copulating couple (Bigfoot interruptus?). We see plenty of shots of Bigfoot in broad daylight, with the sun shining on his oddly white teeth. Oh, and he also kills a guy.

The Creature from Black Lake (1976).
Crazy-eyed Jack Elam plays a trapper helping anthropology students track Bigfoot in the Louisiana swamp. In this horror film's most memorable scene, a submerged Bigfoot springs out of the water to attack a guy in a rowboat.

Curse of Bigfoot (1976).
A ridiculously sloppy pastiche of film from different decades and genres, all cobbled together into a barely coherent narrative about a back-from-the-dead Bigfoot mummy, or something. There are remnants of a half-finished, early '60s horror film combined with '70s high school classroom footage, along with stock Hollywood wildlife footage from all different climates and decades, and what appears to be an industrial logging film. Bigfoot himself looks like a fifth-grader's papier mâché project... Anyway, some creep lectures a class of '70s high schoolers about how -- extended flashback here -- in the early '60s a teacher and teenage archaelogy students find a Bigfoot mummy in a Southwestern cave. The Bigfoot mummy comes to life and attacks a sheriff in an orange grove, then the teens douse Bigfoot with gasoline and set him ablaze. The end.

The Legend of Bigfoot (1976).
A guy named Ivan Marx breathlessly narrates this documentary about his ten years spent pursuing Bigfoot. He and his wife live in the Northwest wilderness, where they examine footprints, poke around in caves, and interview Eskimos. The crazed, Ahab-like researcher seems to have caught every form of wildlife on film -- bear, beaver, moose, raccoons, chipmunks, cougar, deer, salmon, hawks, eagles, elk, mountain lions, ducks, mountain goats, geese, bison, coyotes, wolves, squirrels, trout, caribou, moose -- everything but Bigfoot. It's all pretty boring, until the end, when he finally gets Bigfoot on film, limping around like a retarded baboon. Nobody takes it seriously, and Marx seems bitter that his footage isn't as famous as Patterson's.

Mysterious Monsters (Syndicated, 1976).
Host Peter Graves poses lots of stupid questions in this televised documentary, true to Phil Hartman's Saturday Night Live impersonation. This movie pretty much lays down the template for scads of future Bigfoot docs, with all its interviews with believers and skeptics, researchers and scholars, zoologists and hunters, and backwoods kooks claiming "I seen 'im!" Newspaper clippings, tabloid articles are shown, plaster footprint casts are examined, and several different Bigfoot costumes are used in several reenactments of multiple Bigfoot encounters.

The Six Million Dollar Man (ABC; Feb. 1, 4, 1976; Sept. 19, 22, 1976; Oct. 9, 1977).
Andre the Giant played a fanged Bigfoot with piercing white eyes in two two-hour, two part episodes ("The Secret of Bigfoot" and "The Return of Bigfoot"), as well as in another one-hour episode ("Bigfoot V"). Steve Austin has long, slo-mo fight sequences with Bigfoot -- in one he tears off Bigfoot's arm and sparks fly out. Turns out Bigfoot is controlled by space aliens who operate from a cave in a Northern California mountain... Side note: Kenner produced an action figure of this Bigfoot, which commands top dollar on eBay.

Return to Boggy Creek (1977).
The second Boggy Creek movie breaks ground as the first Bigfoot movie in which he's portrayed not as a monster but as a friend, to humans such as Dana Plato (Diff'rent Strokes) and Dawn Wells (Gilligan's Island). The family film takes place in a remote fishing village, where locals have reported Bigfoot sightings in a nearby swamp. The kids prevent hunters from killing Bigfoot, and then when the kids are stuck in a boat during a storm, Bigfoot wades into the water and hauls them to safety. The benevolent Bigfoot's face is never shown.

Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot (1977).
It supposedly took seven years of research to put together this pseudo-documentary, which follows a horseback expedition through British Columbia to capture Bigfoot. Besides newspaper clippings flying across the screen and inclusion of the Patterson film, this stinker mostly amounts to one long reenactment. Armed with rifles and tranquilizers, the group heads out to investigate local Bigfoot sightings, making footprint plaster casts along the way. A caucausian guy made up like an Indian provides some hokey native lore. Bigfoot kills a guy, snapping his neck like a twig, later attacks their camp at night, smashing up their crappy '70s Bigfoot tracking equipment.

Bigfoot and Wildboy (ABC; June 2 -- August 18, 1979).
This Sid & Marty Krofft Saturday-morning TV series spun off from a segment which aired on the Krofft Supershow during the 1977-78 season. Ray Young plays Bigfoot, who found an orphaned boy in the Pacific Northwest wilderness and raised him into a teenager named Wildboy. They communicate in broken English, but most often in Bigfoot's own language. The duo fights against evil aliens and pollution, and they fight for justice and to "make the world safe and happy." The episodes have sci-fi elements and lots of slo-mo shots of Bigfoot running around and leaping extraordinarily high and far. Bigfoot isn't much of an enigma here, since Wildboy and plenty of others see him in broad daylight.

The Capture of Bigfoot (1979).
The only reason this horror movie is included here is the "Bigfoot" in the title, because this beast is more Yeti-esque, looking like an obese albino gorilla. Unlike Yeti's home in the Himalayas, a North American ski resort is the setting for this film. An angry Bigfoot kills people and throws snowmobiles around before reuniting with his Bigfoot offspring, and in one scene, he spies through the window of the ski resort's disco.

Night of the Demon (1980).
Bigfoot kills and kills and kills again in this cabin-in-the-woods gore-fest. Bigfoot tears off a camper's arm, and his blood forms a pool in Bigfoot's giant footprint. Bigfoot rips the genitals off a biker dude, who then bleeds profusely from the crotch. Bigfoot impales a guy in a sleeping bag on a stick. Bigfoot tears out a guy's throat. Bigfoot attacks couple having R-rated sex. Bigfoot slices up a couple of Girl Scouts. Bigfoot rapes 15-year-old virgin, impregnating her with his mutant demon love child. Bigfoot shoves a guy's face down on a hot stove. Bigfoot stabs a girl with a pitchfork. Bigfoot chops up a guy with an axe. Quality drive-in fodder.

The Geek (1981).
This Bigfoot thrives on human poon. Though this hardcore porno claims to be filmed on location in Washington, Oregon and Alberta, it appears to have all been shot on a few rural acres in a single afternoon for $50. According to the film's foreward: "In the wild, untamed regions of the Northwest part of our continents [sic] strange stories have been unfolding for two hundred years. There is a legend OF A MAMMOTH BEING. PART ANIMAL, PART HUMAN. IT'S [sic] GROTESQUE FORM has on occasion BEEN SEEN by some. OTHERS SCOFF AT IT'S [sic] EXISTANCE [sic], yet all RESPECT IT -- THEY CALL IT THE 'SASQUATCH' We call it -- "THE GEEK." A scientific expedition of three men and three women spends more time having sex than tracking Bigfoot, and when they finally meet him, Bigfoot rapes the women and fights off their boyfriends. You can actually see Bigfoot's pasty white weiner poking through his greasy black costume.

Boggy Creek II (1985).
Despite its title, this is actually the third film in the Boggy Creek franchise. An anthropoligist and three students head into the wilderness to investigate Bigfoot sightings. At first, Bigfoot seems like a scary amphibious monster who somehow kills a deer from underwater as it crosses a stream (kinda like in The Creature from Black Lake, above). However, Bigfoot is only truly angered when his kid is held captive by some fat southern redneck. It seems that Bigfoot isn't a monster after all, but rather a gentle father and one of God's precious creatures...Side note: For good reason, his stinker later received the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment.

Cry Wilderness (1987).
Bigfoot loves Coca-Cola and rock 'n' roll, thanks to his young friend Paul, a kid who wears a magic pendant around his neck that Bigfoot gave him. Bigfoot is only visible to those who "truly believe," and at first the kid is the only one who does (they speak to one another in English). Besides Bigfoot, the woods are teeming with other animals -- wolves, foxes, bears, even a Bengal tiger that escaped from the zoo -- it's like the magical wonder of nature as seen through the eyes of a boy, set to a synthesized '80s soundtrack. Unfortunately, some rich asshole hires a forest ranger, a big-game hunter, and a Native American Bigfoot expert to hunt Bigfoot, and they also wind up hunting the tiger. Bigfoot warned the boy that his dad was in danger, what with tiger and cougars and all. At the end, Bigfoot lifts a boulder off the boy's dad, making a believer out of him too. The kid also meets a sage old Indian ghost.

Harry and the Hendersons (1987).
This Amblin production smacks of E.T. and other Spielberg fare: the amusing family's encounter with the supernatural. A station wagon driving through the wilderness accidentally hits Bigfoot, whom family adopts and names Harry. Harry inadvertently smashes up their Seattle home, but dad teaches him to sit and stay. Harry kicks back in a recliner and laughs at Bedtime for Bonzo on TV. Soon Harry causes citywide hysteria, running amok through Seattle (the Space Needle and monorail are shown, and Harry howls like a siren to clear traffic on I-5). After a poacher kicks Harry in the nuts comes the corny, tear-jerking finale: Harry reunites with his Bigfoot family near Mt. Rainier, and he returns to the wild... Side notes: This best-known Bigfoot movie spun off action figures, bubblegum cards, a syndicated sitcom (1990-92), and a costumed "Harry" character at Orlando's Universal Studios theme park... Rick Baker, best known for creating the aliens in the Star Wars cantina, won the "Best Makeup" Oscar for Harry's costume... The son in the movie wears Mariners cap.

Demonwarp (1988).
This film's first hour is a typically bad '80s horny-teens-in-a-cabin-in-the-woods horror outing, with gore and boobs and crappy special effects. Bigfoot, with his Elvis-like sneer, steals George Kennedy's daughter in a home invasion. Then Bigfoot smashes Kennedy's head on a rock, tears a drunk girl's head clean off her bikini-clad body, and sticks a guy's arm in a beartrap and disembowels him with a stick. Then the last half-hour takes place in a mysterious cave, with this confusing sci-fi zombie satanic ritual sacrifice alien slaying-type thing. In the end, it was all a nightmare-within-a-nightmare, or some such deal.

Secrets of the Unknown (Syndicated, 1988).
Bigfoot was featured on an episode of this lousy TV series hosted by Edward Mulhare, the old Irish guy from Knight Rider. His cheap studio set, which is supposed to be the interior of a high-tech mountain fortress, brings to mind The George Michael Sports Machine. He's surrounded with computer gizmos, enhanced with hokey '80s computer graphics spacey synthesizer music and bad bluescreen trickery. His accent supposedly serves to add an air of mystery and authenticity to the proceedings. Not worth it.

The Simpsons (Fox; February 18, 1990).
In "The Call of the Simpsons," a near-nude Homer is lost in the wilderness. After bees sting him inside his mouth and he falls into mud, a random photographer in the area mistakes him and his inarticulate roars for Bigfoot. The forest quickly becomes a carnival of souvenir stands, burger shacks, and cardboard cutouts advertising "Get Your Picture Taken with Bigfoot." Homer is eventually hunted down, tranquilized, and taken to a lab for testing. Upon observation, scientists are unsure if Homer really is Bigfoot, or merely sub-human. A TV news anchor reports that the photographer "was most impressed by the creature's uncivilized look, its foul language, and most of all, its indescribable stench." After a reporter interviews Marge, a tabloid runs articles with the screaming headlines: "I Married Bigfoot," "Bigfoot's Wife Pleads: 'Call Him Homer,'" and "The Bigfoot Diet: 'Pork Chops Aplenty.'"

Pizza Hut commercial (1993).
In 1993, Pizza Hut rolled out the "Bigfoot" -- with a surface area of two square feet, it was touted as "the biggest pizza you can get delivered." The TV spot showed a bunch of people trembling at the prospect of Bigfoot showing up on their doorstep, but it only turned out to be the delivery guy... Side note: That summer, Pizza Hut had a "Bigfoot Blimp" tour the country. The white, 165-foot-long dirigible had a Bigfoot cartoon character on its side. On the afternoon of July 4, the helium-filled airship deflated mid-flight over Manhattan and crash-landed on a seven-story apartment building on West 53rd Street. Rooftop sunbathers scrambled out of the way, and the two crew members sustained minor injuries.

Quantum Leap (NBC; March 16, 1993).
"The Beast Within" takes place on November 6, 1972. A kid who mistakenly thinks he saw Bigfoot crawling out a window of his family's house explores the Washington wilderness in search of the beast. He meets up with a pair of Vietnam vets who live in the woods, choosing to hide away from civilization. The kid realizes one of them was who the he thought to be Bigfoot -- "Bigfoot" was actually a thief fleeing the house. The kid fails to find the real Bigfoot, but at episode's end, the show's two regulars do get a quick glimpse of Bigfoot as he ambles through the forest.

Bigfoot: The Unforgettable Encounter (1994).
A family film in which a kid from Home Improvement gets lost in the woods and gets caught in a beartrap. When a bear is about to attack him, Bigfoot appears from nowhere to fight off the bear and free the kid. The two bond and become friends, but a media circus develops as a greedy millionaire puts up a reward for Bigfoot's capture. With the help of a park ranger played by Matt McCoy, the kid saves Bigfoot before the millionaire gets to him. Bigfoot gets plenty of screen time, including close-ups in broad daylight. Forgettable... Side note: Like Harry and the Hendersons (and E.T. before it) the scary outsider creature soon becomes both a beloved family member and a catalyst to help a misfit kid become popular with his peers, and while he's hunted down by no-goodniks, he simply wants to be reunited with his own kind. Look for this theme again in Little Bigfoot, Little Bigfoot 2, and Big and Hairy, all reviewed below.

A Goofy Movie (1995).
Goofy and his son Max cross paths Bigfoot on a camping trip in this animated Disney offering. Goofy films Bigfoot with his camcorder as the beast chases them. They seek refuge in their car while Bigfoot destroys the videotape. Bigfoot then rummages through their belongings at their campsite and gets Goofy's underwear stuck on his head. He listens to their Walkman and starts dances to the Bee Gees's "Stayin' Alive." Bigfoot spends the night sleeping on top of their car while Goofy and son remain stuck inside... Side note: Bigfoot didn't make it into 2000's direct-to-video sequel, An Extremely Goofy Movie.

Hunt for Bigfoot (Syndicated, 1995).
A TV documentary hosted by elderly Clu Gulager, including interviews with a psychic, anthropologists, a taxidermist and the usual witnesses and skeptics. It also covers a Bigfoot festival in Fouke, Arkansas, and shows scenes from The Creature from Black Lake. Among other clips are reenactments of Bigfoot bothering a family eating dinner and watching TV, Bigfoot stealing fruit, and Bigfoot attacking a teenage couple making out in a steamed-up parked car. Most memorable is graphic footage of Bigfoot's skeletal remains, with flesh rotting off the bone.

The Last Chance Detectives: Legend of the Desert Bigfoot (1995).
Don't be fooled by the title -- the mystery in this pre-teen morality yawner is pretty much given away by the gorilla on the videotape's cover. A suspected Bigfoot haunts a Southwest desert town, where a quartet of kid detectives examine online video of "the famous Murphy footage from 1967." Bigfoot is indeed simply a gorilla that was "liberated" from the circus by an evil poacher, pretending to be an evil animal-rights activist... Side note: this stupid made-for-TV movie was produced by James Dobson's stupid Focus on the Family organization. Unfortunately, this Christian "family values" video doesn't address biblical views of cryptozoology, like, whether Bigfoot was a product of intelligent design, or if a Bigfoot couple was brought aboard Noah's Ark.

Little Bigfoot (1995).
Little Bigfoot 2: The Journey Home (1997).
The most blatant E.T. ripoff, Little Bigfoot is set in fictitious Cedar Lake, Oregon. Out in the woods on a camping trip, single mom P.J. "Riff Randall" Soles and her three kids meet Little Bigfoot, who looks like a cross between an Ewok and E.T. With the help of a sheriff played Matt McCoy (in his second Bigfoot movie, following 1994's Bigfoot: The Unforgettable Encounter) the kids save Little Bigfoot from a greedy logging-company owner... Tom "Howard Cunningham" Bosley stars in the 1997 sequel, in which another family (including a kid from Home Improvement (not the one from 1994's Bigfoot: The Unforgettable Encounter, but another one)) also meets Little Bigfoot on a camping trip, and protect him from another evil industrailist.

Almost Live! (KING-TV; February 3, 1996).
On "The Late Report," the faux-news segment on this Seattle-based sketch-comedy show, host John Keister reports that a Washington State University professor said that Bigfoot should be hunted down and killed. Bigfoot (Pat Cashman) is then brought on to provide an alternate view. He's angry about tired Bigfoot jokes and sensitive about his "overwhelmingly putrid odor" (he wears Old Spice), and says the name "Bigfoot" itself is mean: "If I wore shoes, I'd probably take an 11, 11-and-a-half." He further rants, "Some anthropology so-called professor from Wazzu wants to hunt me down and blast me away. Keep in mind that this is the same university that recently announced a research study on how cow farts affect the ozone. This guy's livin' in Pullman, and he thinks I don't have anything to live for! I'm a Sasquatch with feelings, who really doesn't look all that different from a Wazzu freshman after his first kegger. So please, don't hunt me down and kill me. Thank you very kindly."

Drawing Flies (1996).
Jason Lee (My Name is Earl) is inspired by The Six Million Dollar Man's Bigfoot episodes to find the beast in the British Columbia wilderness, and he cons four of his fellow slacker friends into joining him. They get lost and they swear a lot and smoke loads of pot, and Lee's insanity grows as the movie progresses. The low-budget comedy is shot in black and white, and Bigfoot appears only briefly in dream sequences.

Big and Hairy (Showtime, 1998).
In this made-for-cable family film, Bigfoot's face is actually scarier than in most Bigfoot horror movies, looking like Mike Myers's mask in Halloween. Anyway, Bigfoot befriends some junior-high loser, who recruits Bigfoot for the school basketball team. Like Squatch, mascot of the Seattle Supersonics, Bigfoot clowns around, dances, and hams it up, but he also makes all kinds of amazing acrobatic dunk shots. Of course, both Bigfoot and the kid achieve sudden popularity. Bigfoot is often seen in out in public, like in the scene where kids pretend to play Star Wars in their homemade costumes (naturally, Bigfoot plays Chewbacca). However, the lonely Bigfoot wants to be rejoined in the wilderness with his Bigfoot parents. In the end, the reunited Bigfoot family is accepted and respected in the human community, and they all party together.

Celebrity Deathmatch (MTV; May 28, 1998).
"The Mystery of the Loch Ness Monster" is the Bigfoot episode of this stupid Claymation series. Hollers the ring announcer, "In the blue corner, hailing from an undisclosed location somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, the grungiest one of them all, Bigfoot!" Bigfoot snarls and looks mean and makes menacing poses, but isn't given the opportunity to do much more. Just six seconds into the match, Nessie's tail slices Bigfoot in two, clean through his belly, though both his upper and lower halves continue writhing around.

Search for the Beast (1998).
From Something Weird Video comes a film that boasts "SEX-CRAZED CARNAGE!" The videotape's cover depicts Bigfoot carrying a hot bikini-clad blonde, and though there are some occasional boobs, no such scene happens in the movie. Set in Alabama. Ultra-low budget, shot on video. Bigfoot always shown in "staggered" "stuttering" video. Overdubbed breathing. Lame comedy. Guitar-playing hicks. Takes place mostly in the woods with stereotypical rednecks. Closeups of Bigfoot's footfalls. Bigfoot's face isn't seen that much, probably to hide that he only had one masked expression. Bigfoot has a singular expression. Bigfoot kills people. Missing campers. Yet another expedition.

Family Guy (Fox; April 11, 1999).
In "I Never Met the Dead Man," Peter crashes his station wagon into a satellite transmitter, knocking out the town's cable TV. As an angry mob approaches him, he desperately tries to divert their attention, blurting out: "Hey, look, there's Bigfoot!" Sure enough, Bigfoot is standing nearby, minding his own business. Bigfoot turns around and says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. This isn't about me. This is about you." Three seconds of screen time, one lame joke.

Tenacious D (HBO; March 1999).
An uncredited John C. Reilly plays Sasquatch in "Death of a Dream." He jams with the D on drums, but the duo isn't comfortable with taking on a third member. As the scenario plays out, Jack and Kyle a song with these lyrics:
"In Search of Sasquatch" -- that was a kickass In Search Of
With Leonard Nimoy kickin' out the jams
Scientists have proven that the Sasquatch -- he is real
Take a look at the plaster cast of his foot now you know he's real
Listen real close to the audio tape now you will know that he's real
Couldn't be a man in a gorilla suit no fuckin' way now you know he's real...
Side note: That 1976 In Search Of episode is a glaring omission in this survey, and while I remember seeing it as a kid, I haven't been able to track it down since.

Little Nicky (2000).
The horned Sasquatch-like denizen of hell is called "Gary the Monster" in the film's credits, but referred to as "Bigfoot" in the shooting script... Side note: A McFarlane action figure of the creature is also called Bigfoot.

Sasquatch (2002).
Bigfoot is a bald-headed, greasy, black-skinned monster who seems to have thermal night vision, as scenes are often shown from his point of view. He gets shot to death in the end, but perhaps it all a dream? With Lance Henriksen.

Ape Canyon (2003).
Bigfoot throws his feces at people he sees in the woods and masturbates while looking at pictures of Britney Spears. He also rapes girls who wander into the wilderness, but they come to desire Bigfoot, who gains a reputation "North America's greatest lover." The married woman protagonist falls in love with Bigfoot, and fantasizes about him while having sex with her redneck husband. Once the husband discovers the betrayal, he sets out to kill Bigfoot. However, he too gets raped by Bigfoot, only to fall in love with Bigfoot and seek him out again. At the end, these three love triangle participants converge in the woods. The husband kills Bigfoot, the wife kills the husband, and then she kills herself. Bigfoot is simply an actor in a gorilla costume, with mouth agape, fangs exposed, and face frozen in rubbery growl. This extremely low budget, public-access quality film, shot in California's Humboldt County, is the most scatological of the Bigfoot films.

Bruce Almighty (2003).
Jim Carrey plays a TV reporter who does a live broadcast while falling from an airplane, but his parachute fails to open. The DVD's deleted scenes show that his fall is broken when he randomly lands on Bigfoot, saving his life. Bigfoot survives too, and is seen with Carrey on live TV news. "I have proven once and for all the existence of Bigfoot," Carrey reports, hugging Bigfoot. "This unwitting Sasquatch has given its life to save mine."

Runnin' with Bigfoot (video by the Groovie Ghoulies, 2003).
Some longhair rock dude in a furry costume dances and frolics with the girls in the pop-punk band. He doesn't bother wearing a mask.

Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science (Syndicated, 2003).
An hour-long documentary with the usual parade of scientists and witnesses and plaster casts and various renderings and picking apart of footage, narrated by Stacy Keach.

They Call Him Sasquatch (2003).
This is probably the best of the low-budget Bigfoot comedies, though some B-list pros help out: Garry Marshall plays a TV news producer, and Chuck McCann (of Far-Out Space Nuts) plays an innkeeper. Michael Jackson has put up a $1 million reward for Bigfoot's capture so he could add him to his menagerie. A slick TV reporter dresses up like real-life British Bigfoot tracker Peter Byrne and assembles a Bigfoot expedition, including the owner of a diner, a suburban family of four whose wife/mom feels like she has a psychic connection with Bigfoot after seeing him on their honeymoon, a "Bigfoot Vocalization Expert" with a hot wife, a pair of British rockers from the band "Bigfeet," and a pair of bumbling backwoods hicks. They run into a crazy woodsman who warns them against Bigfoot, and have lots of other wacky misadventures in the forest. Unfortunately, most of what's shown of Bigfoot is in the opening credits.

Triple Trouble (video by the Beastie Boys, 2004).
The Beasties attributed their six-year hiatus since their previous studio album to Bigfoot, who held them captive in his cave until they escaped. Bigfoot then sees them on TV talking about his poor hygeine and bad odor, angering him. After consulting Mapquest.com, Bigfoot runs from his cave through the forest to the streets of Manhattan, where he finds them on the set of their "Triple Trouble" video. He beats them up and hauls them back to his cave, where he leads them in calesthenics, then they play Pong, smoke pot, and jam (Bigfoot plays bongo). Then Bigfoot makes them dinner and reads them a bedtime story. The B-Boys dream about trick-or-treating and playing basketball with Bigfoot. The audio set-up menu on the DVD that accompanied the 2005 CD anthology Solid Gold Hits (2005) has extended percussive jam sequence of the foursome... Side note: An insanely rare tie-in action figure occasionally appears on eBay -- Bigfoot wears a kitchen apron, like in the video -- but only 70 were made.

Among Us (2004).
In this generally unfunny mockumentary, a low-budget filmmaker and his pals are hunted in the woods by Bigfoot, spoofing the cabin-in-the-woods horror genre. Bigfoot attacks a guy in a campground toilet stall, and then he attacks a girl in the shower. The fictional filmmaker's previous fictional creations are Hunger of Bigfoot, Bride of Bigfoot, Gladiator Bigfoot and Bigfoot House Party.

Bigfeet (2004).
A public-access-quality comedy in which a hoax Bigfoot film is produced in the hopes of collecting a $50,000 reward. Bigfoot is simply a a guy in a red-haired orangutan costume, but he accidentally gets shot by someone who mistakes him for the real Bigfoot. Dumb.

Harry Knuckles and the Pearl Necklace (2004).
A campy spy/adventure flick shot in Canada on grainy film and using deliberately poor over-dubbing, combining elements from James Bond, martial-arts and Santo films. A bionic Bigfoot with insanely long arms and legs and massive hands to crush people's skulls steals a museum's pearl necklace, which Super-spy Harry Knuckles must recover. Knuckles meets Bigfoot in the woods and they fight. Knuckles recovers the necklace from inside Bigfoot's circuitry, sapping him of his strength, and then Knuckles throws Bigfoot off a cliff to his death. Later he gives the necklace back to Bigfoot, restoring his power and bringing him back to life.

The Venture Bros. (Cartoon Network; August 21, 2004).
"Home Insecurity," an episode in this Adult Swim series, spoofs the The Six Million Dollar Man episodes described above. Sasquatch happens across Brock Samson on a camping trip. Samson throws a knife at Sasquatch which stabs him, and then he grapples with Sasquatch, and then he grapples with Steve Somers, a Steve Austin-like character on AWOL from his Army duties. Samson learns that the reclusive Sasquatch has joined Somers as his male inter-species lover. Samson sneaks the disguised couple past an Army checkpoint to freedom -- Sasquatch is shaven to look like a man, and Somers wears a wig and mustache made from Sasquatch's hair.

Clawed: The Legend of Sasquatch (2005).
Some poachers are killed by Bigfoot, so four horny high-schoolers set out on a camping trip to see if they can find him. It's explained that Bigfoot once coexisted peacefully with the Native Americans, but became vengeful when non-natives started destroying the environment. There are shots from Bigfoot's point of view as he spies on people in the woods, but the movie shows only fleeting glimpses of Bigfoot himself.

Dayhike (2005).
An amateurish 45-minute home video made by and starring some teenage boys in a comedic search for Bigfoot in the California wilderness. Two boys suspect their flaky Bigfoot guide simply puts on an ape costume pretending to be Bigfoot, but in the end, Bigfoot seems to be real, as he kills one of the boys. But it was all a bad dream... Or was it? Um, well, it didn't quite make sense, but still gets an "A" for effort.

Sasquatch Hunters (2005).
A small party of forest rangers and paleontoligists tracks down Bigfoot in a Pacific Northwest forest, only to find a whole mess of Bigfoot creatures attacking them. The creatures, all with big fangs and vicious gorilla faces, are mostly CGI, resulting in an effect similar to Ang Lee's CGI Hulk.

Stomp! Shout! Scream! (2005).
Gidget meets Jaws meets Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. When the all-girl rock trio the Violets have their car break down in Florida, they run into the Skunk Ape, the Bigfoot of the Everglades. The Skunk Ape has run amok, killing people and attempting to kidnap the Violets's lead singer as they perform their rendition of "Go Go Gorilla." Deliberate camp; Bigfoot is just a guy in a gorilla costume.

Abominable (2006).
In his third Bigfoot movie (following 1994's Bigfoot: The Unforgettable Encounter and 1995's Little Bigfoot), Matt McCoy plays a wheelchair-bound guy who keeps tabs on his neighbors through his binoculars, much like Hitchcock's Rear Window. He witnesses Bigfoot kill people in gory fashion in nearby mountain cabins. Also stars Dee Wallace Stone (the mom from E.T.), and Lance Henricksen in his second Bigfoot movie (following 2002's Sasquatch).

Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (Showtime; April 24, 2006).
"Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster are complete bullshit!" So say Penn & Teller, who spend this half-hour episode raking "craptozoologists" over the coals. As an experiment, they put a 6-foot-7 guy in a rented Bigfoot costume and shoot blurry footage of him hiking through some tall grass. Then they put it online with some bogus backstory, which generates lots of feedback. The responses are presented by a guy in the studio dressed in a Bigfoot costume and glasses, thoughtfully "reading" the letters that the video inspired. Among them are offers for radio and print interviews, including one from a self-proclaimed Bigfoot expert who offers P&T $6,000 for an interview and rights to the video. Elsewhere, this guy from the American Museum of Natural History demands hard evidence beyond footprints and blurry videos to prove Bigfoot's existence. Predictably, the show concludes that Bigfoot is bullshit.

Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny (2006).
John C. Reilly reprises his uncredited role as Sasquatch from Tenacious D's HBO series. Jack Black eats some psychaedelic mushrooms and hallucinates that Sasquatch is his father. They romp through a Day-glo, Peter Max-inspired landscape, flying through the air like Superman and riding innertubes down the Strawberry River. Black, whose Bigfoot makeup looks like something out of Cats, sings a Bigfoot song with nonsensical lyrics before he snaps out of his trip.

Weeds (Showtime; October 2, 2006).
In "MILF Money," a prudish city councilwoman arranges for "Sober the Sasquatch" to deliver a brief anti-drug speech to a grammar-school classroom: "Arr! Arr!" yells Sober. "Drugs are wrong! Arr! I'm putting my big foot down on drugs!" (Sober emphatically stomps on floor.) "My big foot!" After removing her mask, the woman inside Sober's stuffy costume observes, "My sweat smells like peanuts!" Episodes later, it's revealed that one of the kids in the class, whose mom is the protagonist weed dealer, has stolen Sober's costume.

Sasquatch Mountain (2007).
In his third Bigfoot movie (following 2002's Sasquatch and 2006's Abominable, Lance Henriksen has shot the infamous "Jackson Footage," in which Bigfoot killed his wife. The "edgy" horror movie is a mess of saturated colors, Arizona state police, hunters, bankrobbers in gorilla masks, a sexy hostage, and retarded editing, as if the creators were overly inspired by Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie and Rob Zombie. Mostly just a bunch of running around in the woods, with little gore and few frights. Bigfoot gets shot to death at the end... Side note: While the DVD cover art says Sasquatch Mountain, the opening credits bill the film as Devil on the Mountain.

Stay tuned -- many more Bigfoot movies are on the horizon.

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Last updated on October 20, 2007.

© 2004-2007 Steve Mandich

		*Bigfoot* (1970). A colony of Bigfoot creatures has kidnapped some bikini-clad babes with whom they intend to breed. A biker gang tries to resuce the girls (whom the dextrous creatures have somehow tied to stakes), while a pair of traveling salesmen (John Carradine and John Mitchum) hope to strike it rich by capturing one of the creatures. With its bad script, bad acting, bad costumes, bad soundstage sets and bad acid-rock soundtrack, this camp classic set the standard for most Bigfoot movies to come.
		*The New Scooby-Doo Movies* (CBS, November 11, 1972). In "Scooby-Doo Meets Laurel and Hardy," the teen sleuths run into the comedy duo on the road to a Vermont ski lodge, where they discover that the "Ghost of Bigfoot" has been scaring off the guests. Of course, the creature is actually a crook dressed in a Bigfoot costume, scaring visitors away so that his nearby stolen-car operation wouldn't be discovered. Even though the creature is referred to as "Bigfoot" throughout the episode (and he laughs and growls "Hnnnn! Hnnnn!"), his white fur and snowy habitat are more akin to the Abominable Snowman... Side Note: A better resemblance is the brown-haired monster in Tracey West's book Scooby-Doo and You: The Case of the Bigfoot Beast (Scholastic, 2000). Turns out the creature is actually a crook dressed in a Bigfoot costume, scaring guests away from a campground so that his nearby stolen-jewel operation wouldn't be discovered.
		*The Legend of Boggy Creek* (1973). A G-rated creature feature comprised of several moody, atmospheric vignettes in which rural folk encounter Bigfoot. In one scene, farm animals sensing Bigfoot's proximity get edgy before he attacks some chickens. In another, he smashes his arm through some farmhouse windows, freaking out the folks inside. Instead of the Pacific Northwest, however, the action takes place in another hotbed of Bigfoot sightings, the swamps near Fouke, Arkansas.
		*Beauties and the Beast* (1974). Bigfoot goes a-courtin' in this softcore mess, featuring buxom Russ Meyer favorite Uschi Digard. Horny hippies visit a cabin in the woods, where Bigfoot ravages sexy chicks in short-shorts and go-go boots before hauling them back to his cave-cum-harem. There's plenty of full-frontal nudity -- both male and female -- what with all the skinny-dipping, nude sunbathing, lesbian nookie, and in one scene, Bigfoot breaking up a copulating couple (Bigfoot interruptus?). We see plenty of shots of Bigfoot in broad daylight, with the sun shining on his oddly white teeth. Oh, and he also kills a guy.
		*The Creature from Black Lake* (1976). Crazy-eyed Jack Elam plays a trapper helping anthropology students track Bigfoot in the Louisiana swamp. In this horror film's most memorable scene, a submerged Bigfoot springs out of the water to attack a guy in a rowboat.
		*Curse of Bigfoot* (1976). A ridiculously sloppy pastiche of film from different decades and genres, all cobbled together into a barely coherent narrative about a back-from-the-dead Bigfoot mummy, or something. There are remnants of a half-finished, early '60s horror film combined with '70s high school classroom footage, along with stock Hollywood wildlife footage from all different climates and decades, and what appears to be an industrial logging film. Bigfoot himself looks like a fifth-grader's papier mâché project... Anyway, some creep lectures a class of '70s high schoolers about how -- extended flashback here -- in the early '60s a teacher and teenage archaelogy students find a Bigfoot mummy in a Southwestern cave. The Bigfoot mummy comes to life and attacks a sheriff in an orange grove, then the teens douse Bigfoot with gasoline and set him ablaze. The end.
		*The Legend of Bigfoot* (1976). A guy named Ivan Marx breathlessly narrates this documentary about his ten years spent pursuing Bigfoot. He and his wife live in the Northwest wilderness, where they examine footprints, poke around in caves, and interview Eskimos. The crazed, Ahab-like researcher seems to have caught every form of wildlife on film -- bear, beaver, moose, raccoons, chipmunks, cougar, deer, salmon, hawks, eagles, elk, mountain lions, ducks, mountain goats, geese, bison, coyotes, wolves, squirrels, trout, caribou, moose -- everything but Bigfoot. It's all pretty boring, until the end, when he finally gets Bigfoot on film, limping around like a retarded baboon. Nobody takes it seriously, and Marx seems bitter that his footage isn't as famous as Patterson's.
		*Mysterious Monsters* (Syndicated, 1976). Host Peter Graves poses lots of stupid questions in this televised documentary, true to Phil Hartman's Saturday Night Live impersonation. This movie pretty much lays down the template for scads of future Bigfoot docs, with all its interviews with believers and skeptics, researchers and scholars, zoologists and hunters, and backwoods kooks claiming "I seen 'im!" Newspaper clippings, tabloid articles are shown, plaster footprint casts are examined, and several different Bigfoot costumes are used in several reenactments of multiple Bigfoot encounters.
		*The Six Million Dollar Man* (ABC; Feb. 1, 4, 1976; Sept. 19, 22, 1976; Oct. 9, 1977). Andre the Giant played a fanged Bigfoot with piercing white eyes in two two-hour, two part episodes ("The Secret of Bigfoot" and "The Return of Bigfoot"), as well as in another one-hour episode ("Bigfoot V"). Steve Austin has long, slo-mo fight sequences with Bigfoot -- in one he tears off Bigfoot's arm and sparks fly out. Turns out Bigfoot is controlled by space aliens who operate from a cave in a Northern California mountain... Side note: Kenner produced an action figure of this Bigfoot, which commands top dollar on eBay.
		*Return to Boggy Creek* (1977). The second Boggy Creek movie breaks ground as the first Bigfoot movie in which he's portrayed not as a monster but as a friend, to humans such as Dana Plato (Diff'rent Strokes) and Dawn Wells (Gilligan's Island). The family film takes place in a remote fishing village, where locals have reported Bigfoot sightings in a nearby swamp. The kids prevent hunters from killing Bigfoot, and then when the kids are stuck in a boat during a storm, Bigfoot wades into the water and hauls them to safety. The benevolent Bigfoot's face is never shown.
		*Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot* (1977). It supposedly took seven years of research to put together this pseudo-documentary, which follows a horseback expedition through British Columbia to capture Bigfoot. Besides newspaper clippings flying across the screen and inclusion of the Patterson film, this stinker mostly amounts to one long reenactment. Armed with rifles and tranquilizers, the group heads out to investigate local Bigfoot sightings, making footprint plaster casts along the way. A caucausian guy made up like an Indian provides some hokey native lore. Bigfoot kills a guy, snapping his neck like a twig, later attacks their camp at night, smashing up their crappy '70s Bigfoot tracking equipment.
		*Bigfoot and Wildboy* (ABC; June 2 -- August 18, 1979). This Sid & Marty Krofft Saturday-morning TV series spun off from a segment which aired on the Krofft Supershow during the 1977-78 season. Ray Young plays Bigfoot, who found an orphaned boy in the Pacific Northwest wilderness and raised him into a teenager named Wildboy. They communicate in broken English, but most often in Bigfoot's own language. The duo fights against evil aliens and pollution, and they fight for justice and to "make the world safe and happy." The episodes have sci-fi elements and lots of slo-mo shots of Bigfoot running around and leaping extraordinarily high and far. Bigfoot isn't much of an enigma here, since Wildboy and plenty of others see him in broad daylight.
		*The Capture of Bigfoot* (1979). The only reason this horror movie is included here is the "Bigfoot" in the title, because this beast is more Yeti-esque, looking like an obese albino gorilla. Unlike Yeti's home in the Himalayas, a North American ski resort is the setting for this film. An angry Bigfoot kills people and throws snowmobiles around before reuniting with his Bigfoot offspring, and in one scene, he spies through the window of the ski resort's disco.
		*Night of the Demon* (1980). Bigfoot kills and kills and kills again in this cabin-in-the-woods gore-fest. Bigfoot tears off a camper's arm, and his blood forms a pool in Bigfoot's giant footprint. Bigfoot rips the genitals off a biker dude, who then bleeds profusely from the crotch. Bigfoot impales a guy in a sleeping bag on a stick. Bigfoot tears out a guy's throat. Bigfoot attacks couple having R-rated sex. Bigfoot slices up a couple of Girl Scouts. Bigfoot rapes 15-year-old virgin, impregnating her with his mutant demon love child. Bigfoot shoves a guy's face down on a hot stove. Bigfoot stabs a girl with a pitchfork. Bigfoot chops up a guy with an axe. Quality drive-in fodder.
		*The Geek* (1981). This Bigfoot thrives on human poon. Though this hardcore porno claims to be filmed on location in Washington, Oregon and Alberta, it appears to have all been shot on a few rural acres in a single afternoon for $50. According to the film's foreward: "In the wild, untamed regions of the Northwest part of our continents [sic] strange stories have been unfolding for two hundred years. There is a legend OF A MAMMOTH BEING. PART ANIMAL, PART HUMAN. IT'S [sic] GROTESQUE FORM has on occasion BEEN SEEN by some. OTHERS SCOFF AT IT'S [sic] EXISTANCE [sic], yet all RESPECT IT -- THEY CALL IT THE 'SASQUATCH' We call it -- "THE GEEK." A scientific expedition of three men and three women spends more time having sex than tracking Bigfoot, and when they finally meet him, Bigfoot rapes the women and fights off their boyfriends. You can actually see Bigfoot's pasty white weiner poking through his greasy black costume.
		*Boggy Creek II* (1985). Despite its title, this is actually the third film in the Boggy Creek franchise. An anthropoligist and three students head into the wilderness to investigate Bigfoot sightings. At first, Bigfoot seems like a scary amphibious monster who somehow kills a deer from underwater as it crosses a stream (kinda like in The Creature from Black Lake, above). However, Bigfoot is only truly angered when his kid is held captive by some fat southern redneck. It seems that Bigfoot isn't a monster after all, but rather a gentle father and one of God's precious creatures...Side note: For good reason, his stinker later received the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment.
		*Cry Wilderness* (1987). Bigfoot loves Coca-Cola and rock 'n' roll, thanks to his young friend Paul, a kid who wears a magic pendant around his neck that Bigfoot gave him. Bigfoot is only visible to those who "truly believe," and at first the kid is the only one who does (they speak to one another in English). Besides Bigfoot, the woods are teeming with other animals -- wolves, foxes, bears, even a Bengal tiger that escaped from the zoo -- it's like the magical wonder of nature as seen through the eyes of a boy, set to a synthesized '80s soundtrack. Unfortunately, some rich asshole hires a forest ranger, a big-game hunter, and a Native American Bigfoot expert to hunt Bigfoot, and they also wind up hunting the tiger. Bigfoot warned the boy that his dad was in danger, what with tiger and cougars and all. At the end, Bigfoot lifts a boulder off the boy's dad, making a believer out of him too. The kid also meets a sage old Indian ghost.
		*Harry and the Hendersons* (1987). This Amblin production smacks of E.T. and other Spielberg fare: the amusing family's encounter with the supernatural. A station wagon driving through the wilderness accidentally hits Bigfoot, whom family adopts and names Harry. Harry inadvertently smashes up their Seattle home, but dad teaches him to sit and stay. Harry kicks back in a recliner and laughs at Bedtime for Bonzo on TV. Soon Harry causes citywide hysteria, running amok through Seattle (the Space Needle and monorail are shown, and Harry howls like a siren to clear traffic on I-5). After a poacher kicks Harry in the nuts comes the corny, tear-jerking finale: Harry reunites with his Bigfoot family near Mt. Rainier, and he returns to the wild... Side notes: This best-known Bigfoot movie spun off action figures, bubblegum cards, a syndicated sitcom (1990-92), and a costumed "Harry" character at Orlando's Universal Studios theme park... Rick Baker, best known for creating the aliens in the Star Wars cantina, won the "Best Makeup" Oscar for Harry's costume... The son in the movie wears Mariners cap.
		*Demonwarp* (1988). This film's first hour is a typically bad '80s horny-teens-in-a-cabin-in-the-woods horror outing, with gore and boobs and crappy special effects. Bigfoot, with his Elvis-like sneer, steals George Kennedy's daughter in a home invasion. Then Bigfoot smashes Kennedy's head on a rock, tears a drunk girl's head clean off her bikini-clad body, and sticks a guy's arm in a beartrap and disembowels him with a stick. Then the last half-hour takes place in a mysterious cave, with this confusing sci-fi zombie satanic ritual sacrifice alien slaying-type thing. In the end, it was all a nightmare-within-a-nightmare, or some such deal.
		*Secrets of the Unknown* (Syndicated, 1988). Bigfoot was featured on an episode of this lousy TV series hosted by Edward Mulhare, the old Irish guy from Knight Rider. His cheap studio set, which is supposed to be the interior of a high-tech mountain fortress, brings to mind The George Michael Sports Machine. He's surrounded with computer gizmos, enhanced with hokey '80s computer graphics spacey synthesizer music and bad bluescreen trickery. His accent supposedly serves to add an air of mystery and authenticity to the proceedings. Not worth it.
		*The Simpsons* (Fox; February 18, 1990). In "The Call of the Simpsons," a near-nude Homer is lost in the wilderness. After bees sting him inside his mouth and he falls into mud, a random photographer in the area mistakes him and his inarticulate roars for Bigfoot. The forest quickly becomes a carnival of souvenir stands, burger shacks, and cardboard cutouts advertising "Get Your Picture Taken with Bigfoot." Homer is eventually hunted down, tranquilized, and taken to a lab for testing. Upon observation, scientists are unsure if Homer really is Bigfoot, or merely sub-human. A TV news anchor reports that the photographer "was most impressed by the creature's uncivilized look, its foul language, and most of all, its indescribable stench." After a reporter interviews Marge, a tabloid runs articles with the screaming headlines: "I Married Bigfoot," "Bigfoot's Wife Pleads: 'Call Him Homer,'" and "The Bigfoot Diet: 'Pork Chops Aplenty.'"
		Pizza Hut commercial (1993). In 1993, Pizza Hut rolled out the "Bigfoot" -- with a surface area of two square feet, it was touted as "the biggest pizza you can get delivered." The TV spot showed a bunch of people trembling at the prospect of Bigfoot showing up on their doorstep, but it only turned out to be the delivery guy... Side note: That summer, Pizza Hut had a "Bigfoot Blimp" tour the country. The white, 165-foot-long dirigible had a Bigfoot cartoon character on its side. On the afternoon of July 4, the helium-filled airship deflated mid-flight over Manhattan and crash-landed on a seven-story apartment building on West 53rd Street. Rooftop sunbathers scrambled out of the way, and the two crew members sustained minor injuries.
		*Quantum Leap* (NBC; March 16, 1993). "The Beast Within" takes place on November 6, 1972. A kid who mistakenly thinks he saw Bigfoot crawling out a window of his family's house explores the Washington wilderness in search of the beast. He meets up with a pair of Vietnam vets who live in the woods, choosing to hide away from civilization. The kid realizes one of them was who the he thought to be Bigfoot -- "Bigfoot" was actually a thief fleeing the house. The kid fails to find the real Bigfoot, but at episode's end, the show's two regulars do get a quick glimpse of Bigfoot as he ambles through the forest.
		*Bigfoot: The Unforgettable Encounter* (1994). A family film in which a kid from Home Improvement gets lost in the woods and gets caught in a beartrap. When a bear is about to attack him, Bigfoot appears from nowhere to fight off the bear and free the kid. The two bond and become friends, but a media circus develops as a greedy millionaire puts up a reward for Bigfoot's capture. With the help of a park ranger played by Matt McCoy, the kid saves Bigfoot before the millionaire gets to him. Bigfoot gets plenty of screen time, including close-ups in broad daylight. Forgettable... Side note: Like Harry and the Hendersons (and E.T. before it) the scary outsider creature soon becomes both a beloved family member and a catalyst to help a misfit kid become popular with his peers, and while he's hunted down by no-goodniks, he simply wants to be reunited with his own kind. Look for this theme again in Little Bigfoot, Little Bigfoot 2, and Big and Hairy, all reviewed below.
		*A Goofy Movie* (1995). Goofy and his son Max cross paths Bigfoot on a camping trip in this animated Disney offering. Goofy films Bigfoot with his camcorder as the beast chases them. They seek refuge in their car while Bigfoot destroys the videotape. Bigfoot then rummages through their belongings at their campsite and gets Goofy's underwear stuck on his head. He listens to their Walkman and starts dances to the Bee Gees's "Stayin' Alive." Bigfoot spends the night sleeping on top of their car while Goofy and son remain stuck inside... Side note: Bigfoot didn't make it into 2000's direct-to-video sequel, An Extremely Goofy Movie.
		*Hunt for Bigfoot* (Syndicated, 1995). A TV documentary hosted by elderly Clu Gulager, including interviews with a psychic, anthropologists, a taxidermist and the usual witnesses and skeptics. It also covers a Bigfoot festival in Fouke, Arkansas, and shows scenes from The Creature from Black Lake. Among other clips are reenactments of Bigfoot bothering a family eating dinner and watching TV, Bigfoot stealing fruit, and Bigfoot attacking a teenage couple making out in a steamed-up parked car. Most memorable is graphic footage of Bigfoot's skeletal remains, with flesh rotting off the bone.
		*The Last Chance Detectives: Legend of the Desert Bigfoot* (1995). Don't be fooled by the title -- the mystery in this pre-teen morality yawner is pretty much given away by the gorilla on the videotape's cover. A suspected Bigfoot haunts a Southwest desert town, where a quartet of kid detectives examine online video of "the famous Murphy footage from 1967." Bigfoot is indeed simply a gorilla that was "liberated" from the circus by an evil poacher, pretending to be an evil animal-rights activist... Side note: this stupid made-for-TV movie was produced by James Dobson's stupid Focus on the Family organization. Unfortunately, this Christian "family values" video doesn't address biblical views of cryptozoology, like, whether Bigfoot was a product of intelligent design, or if a Bigfoot couple was brought aboard Noah's Ark.
		*Little Bigfoot* (1995). *Little Bigfoot 2: The Journey Home* (1997). The most blatant E.T. ripoff, Little Bigfoot is set in fictitious Cedar Lake, Oregon. Out in the woods on a camping trip, single mom P.J. "Riff Randall" Soles and her three kids meet Little Bigfoot, who looks like a cross between an Ewok and E.T. With the help of a sheriff played Matt McCoy (in his second Bigfoot movie, following 1994's Bigfoot: The Unforgettable Encounter) the kids save Little Bigfoot from a greedy logging-company owner... Tom "Howard Cunningham" Bosley stars in the 1997 sequel, in which another family (including a kid from Home Improvement (not the one from 1994's Bigfoot: The Unforgettable Encounter, but another one)) also meets Little Bigfoot on a camping trip, and protect him from another evil industrailist.
		*Almost Live!* (KING-TV; February 3, 1996). On "The Late Report," the faux-news segment on this Seattle-based sketch-comedy show, host John Keister reports that a Washington State University professor said that Bigfoot should be hunted down and killed. Bigfoot (Pat Cashman) is then brought on to provide an alternate view. He's angry about tired Bigfoot jokes and sensitive about his "overwhelmingly putrid odor" (he wears Old Spice), and says the name "Bigfoot" itself is mean: "If I wore shoes, I'd probably take an 11, 11-and-a-half." He further rants, "Some anthropology so-called professor from Wazzu wants to hunt me down and blast me away. Keep in mind that this is the same university that recently announced a research study on how cow farts affect the ozone. This guy's livin' in Pullman, and he thinks I don't have anything to live for! I'm a Sasquatch with feelings, who really doesn't look all that different from a Wazzu freshman after his first kegger. So please, don't hunt me down and kill me. Thank you very kindly."
		*Drawing Flies* (1996). Jason Lee (My Name is Earl) is inspired by The Six Million Dollar Man's Bigfoot episodes to find the beast in the British Columbia wilderness, and he cons four of his fellow slacker friends into joining him. They get lost and they swear a lot and smoke loads of pot, and Lee's insanity grows as the movie progresses. The low-budget comedy is shot in black and white, and Bigfoot appears only briefly in dream sequences.
		*Big and Hairy* (Showtime, 1998). In this made-for-cable family film, Bigfoot's face is actually scarier than in most Bigfoot horror movies, looking like Mike Myers's mask in Halloween. Anyway, Bigfoot befriends some junior-high loser, who recruits Bigfoot for the school basketball team. Like Squatch, mascot of the Seattle Supersonics, Bigfoot clowns around, dances, and hams it up, but he also makes all kinds of amazing acrobatic dunk shots. Of course, both Bigfoot and the kid achieve sudden popularity. Bigfoot is often seen in out in public, like in the scene where kids pretend to play Star Wars in their homemade costumes (naturally, Bigfoot plays Chewbacca). However, the lonely Bigfoot wants to be rejoined in the wilderness with his Bigfoot parents. In the end, the reunited Bigfoot family is accepted and respected in the human community, and they all party together.
		*Celebrity Deathmatch* (MTV; May 28, 1998). "The Mystery of the Loch Ness Monster" is the Bigfoot episode of this stupid Claymation series. Hollers the ring announcer, "In the blue corner, hailing from an undisclosed location somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, the grungiest one of them all, Bigfoot!" Bigfoot snarls and looks mean and makes menacing poses, but isn't given the opportunity to do much more. Just six seconds into the match, Nessie's tail slices Bigfoot in two, clean through his belly, though both his upper and lower halves continue writhing around.
		*Search for the Beast* (1998). From Something Weird Video comes a film that boasts "SEX-CRAZED CARNAGE!" The videotape's cover depicts Bigfoot carrying a hot bikini-clad blonde, and though there are some occasional boobs, no such scene happens in the movie. Set in Alabama. Ultra-low budget, shot on video. Bigfoot always shown in "staggered" "stuttering" video. Overdubbed breathing. Lame comedy. Guitar-playing hicks. Takes place mostly in the woods with stereotypical rednecks. Closeups of Bigfoot's footfalls. Bigfoot's face isn't seen that much, probably to hide that he only had one masked expression. Bigfoot has a singular expression. Bigfoot kills people. Missing campers. Yet another expedition.
		*Family Guy* (Fox; April 11, 1999). In "I Never Met the Dead Man," Peter crashes his station wagon into a satellite transmitter, knocking out the town's cable TV. As an angry mob approaches him, he desperately tries to divert their attention, blurting out: "Hey, look, there's Bigfoot!" Sure enough, Bigfoot is standing nearby, minding his own business. Bigfoot turns around and says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. This isn't about me. This is about you." Three seconds of screen time, one lame joke.
		*Tenacious D* (HBO; March 1999). An uncredited John C. Reilly plays Sasquatch in "Death of a Dream." He jams with the D on drums, but the duo isn't comfortable with taking on a third member. As the scenario plays out, Jack and Kyle a song with these lyrics: "In Search of Sasquatch" -- that was a kickass In Search Of With Leonard Nimoy kickin' out the jams Scientists have proven that the Sasquatch -- he is real Take a look at the plaster cast of his foot now you know he's real Listen real close to the audio tape now you will know that he's real Couldn't be a man in a gorilla suit no fuckin' way now you know he's real... Side note: That 1976 In Search Of episode is a glaring omission in this survey, and while I remember seeing it as a kid, I haven't been able to track it down since.
		*Little Nicky* (2000). The horned Sasquatch-like denizen of hell is called "Gary the Monster" in the film's credits, but referred to as "Bigfoot" in the shooting script... Side note: A McFarlane action figure of the creature is also called Bigfoot.
		*Sasquatch* (2002). Bigfoot is a bald-headed, greasy, black-skinned monster who seems to have thermal night vision, as scenes are often shown from his point of view. He gets shot to death in the end, but perhaps it all a dream? With Lance Henriksen.
		*Ape Canyon* (2003). Bigfoot throws his feces at people he sees in the woods and masturbates while looking at pictures of Britney Spears. He also rapes girls who wander into the wilderness, but they come to desire Bigfoot, who gains a reputation "North America's greatest lover." The married woman protagonist falls in love with Bigfoot, and fantasizes about him while having sex with her redneck husband. Once the husband discovers the betrayal, he sets out to kill Bigfoot. However, he too gets raped by Bigfoot, only to fall in love with Bigfoot and seek him out again. At the end, these three love triangle participants converge in the woods. The husband kills Bigfoot, the wife kills the husband, and then she kills herself. Bigfoot is simply an actor in a gorilla costume, with mouth agape, fangs exposed, and face frozen in rubbery growl. This extremely low budget, public-access quality film, shot in California's Humboldt County, is the most scatological of the Bigfoot films.
		*Bruce Almighty* (2003). Jim Carrey plays a TV reporter who does a live broadcast while falling from an airplane, but his parachute fails to open. The DVD's deleted scenes show that his fall is broken when he randomly lands on Bigfoot, saving his life. Bigfoot survives too, and is seen with Carrey on live TV news. "I have proven once and for all the existence of Bigfoot," Carrey reports, hugging Bigfoot. "This unwitting Sasquatch has given its life to save mine."
		*Runnin' with Bigfoot* (video by the Groovie Ghoulies, 2003). Some longhair rock dude in a furry costume dances and frolics with the girls in the pop-punk band. He doesn't bother wearing a mask.
		*Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science* (Syndicated, 2003). An hour-long documentary with the usual parade of scientists and witnesses and plaster casts and various renderings and picking apart of footage, narrated by Stacy Keach.
		*They Call Him Sasquatch* (2003). This is probably the best of the low-budget Bigfoot comedies, though some B-list pros help out: Garry Marshall plays a TV news producer, and Chuck McCann (of Far-Out Space Nuts) plays an innkeeper. Michael Jackson has put up a $1 million reward for Bigfoot's capture so he could add him to his menagerie. A slick TV reporter dresses up like real-life British Bigfoot tracker Peter Byrne and assembles a Bigfoot expedition, including the owner of a diner, a suburban family of four whose wife/mom feels like she has a psychic connection with Bigfoot after seeing him on their honeymoon, a "Bigfoot Vocalization Expert" with a hot wife, a pair of British rockers from the band "Bigfeet," and a pair of bumbling backwoods hicks. They run into a crazy woodsman who warns them against Bigfoot, and have lots of other wacky misadventures in the forest. Unfortunately, most of what's shown of Bigfoot is in the opening credits.
		*Triple Trouble* (video by the Beastie Boys, 2004). The Beasties attributed their six-year hiatus since their previous studio album to Bigfoot, who held them captive in his cave until they escaped. Bigfoot then sees them on TV talking about his poor hygeine and bad odor, angering him. After consulting Mapquest.com, Bigfoot runs from his cave through the forest to the streets of Manhattan, where he finds them on the set of their "Triple Trouble" video. He beats them up and hauls them back to his cave, where he leads them in calesthenics, then they play Pong, smoke pot, and jam (Bigfoot plays bongo). Then Bigfoot makes them dinner and reads them a bedtime story. The B-Boys dream about trick-or-treating and playing basketball with Bigfoot. The audio set-up menu on the DVD that accompanied the 2005 CD anthology Solid Gold Hits (2005) has extended percussive jam sequence of the foursome... Side note: An insanely rare tie-in action figure occasionally appears on eBay -- Bigfoot wears a kitchen apron, like in the video -- but only 70 were made.
		*Among Us* (2004). In this generally unfunny mockumentary, a low-budget filmmaker and his pals are hunted in the woods by Bigfoot, spoofing the cabin-in-the-woods horror genre. Bigfoot attacks a guy in a campground toilet stall, and then he attacks a girl in the shower. The fictional filmmaker's previous fictional creations are Hunger of Bigfoot, Bride of Bigfoot, Gladiator Bigfoot and Bigfoot House Party.
		*Bigfeet* (2004). A public-access-quality comedy in which a hoax Bigfoot film is produced in the hopes of collecting a $50,000 reward. Bigfoot is simply a a guy in a red-haired orangutan costume, but he accidentally gets shot by someone who mistakes him for the real Bigfoot. Dumb.
		*Harry Knuckles and the Pearl Necklace* (2004). A campy spy/adventure flick shot in Canada on grainy film and using deliberately poor over-dubbing, combining elements from James Bond, martial-arts and Santo films. A bionic Bigfoot with insanely long arms and legs and massive hands to crush people's skulls steals a museum's pearl necklace, which Super-spy Harry Knuckles must recover. Knuckles meets Bigfoot in the woods and they fight. Knuckles recovers the necklace from inside Bigfoot's circuitry, sapping him of his strength, and then Knuckles throws Bigfoot off a cliff to his death. Later he gives the necklace back to Bigfoot, restoring his power and bringing him back to life.
		*The Venture Bros.* (Cartoon Network; August 21, 2004). "Home Insecurity," an episode in this Adult Swim series, spoofs the The Six Million Dollar Man episodes described above. Sasquatch happens across Brock Samson on a camping trip. Samson throws a knife at Sasquatch which stabs him, and then he grapples with Sasquatch, and then he grapples with Steve Somers, a Steve Austin-like character on AWOL from his Army duties. Samson learns that the reclusive Sasquatch has joined Somers as his male inter-species lover. Samson sneaks the disguised couple past an Army checkpoint to freedom -- Sasquatch is shaven to look like a man, and Somers wears a wig and mustache made from Sasquatch's hair.
		*Clawed: The Legend of Sasquatch* (2005). Some poachers are killed by Bigfoot, so four horny high-schoolers set out on a camping trip to see if they can find him. It's explained that Bigfoot once coexisted peacefully with the Native Americans, but became vengeful when non-natives started destroying the environment. There are shots from Bigfoot's point of view as he spies on people in the woods, but the movie shows only fleeting glimpses of Bigfoot himself.
		*Dayhike* (2005). An amateurish 45-minute home video made by and starring some teenage boys in a comedic search for Bigfoot in the California wilderness. Two boys suspect their flaky Bigfoot guide simply puts on an ape costume pretending to be Bigfoot, but in the end, Bigfoot seems to be real, as he kills one of the boys. But it was all a bad dream... Or was it? Um, well, it didn't quite make sense, but still gets an "A" for effort.
		*Sasquatch Hunters* (2005). A small party of forest rangers and paleontoligists tracks down Bigfoot in a Pacific Northwest forest, only to find a whole mess of Bigfoot creatures attacking them. The creatures, all with big fangs and vicious gorilla faces, are mostly CGI, resulting in an effect similar to Ang Lee's CGI Hulk.
		*Stomp! Shout! Scream!* (2005). Gidget meets Jaws meets Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. When the all-girl rock trio the Violets have their car break down in Florida, they run into the Skunk Ape, the Bigfoot of the Everglades. The Skunk Ape has run amok, killing people and attempting to kidnap the Violets's lead singer as they perform their rendition of "Go Go Gorilla." Deliberate camp; Bigfoot is just a guy in a gorilla costume.
		*Abominable* (2006). In his third Bigfoot movie (following 1994's Bigfoot: The Unforgettable Encounter and 1995's Little Bigfoot), Matt McCoy plays a wheelchair-bound guy who keeps tabs on his neighbors through his binoculars, much like Hitchcock's Rear Window. He witnesses Bigfoot kill people in gory fashion in nearby mountain cabins. Also stars Dee Wallace Stone (the mom from E.T.), and Lance Henricksen in his second Bigfoot movie (following 2002's Sasquatch).
		*Penn & Teller: Bullshit!* (Showtime; April 24, 2006). "Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster are complete bullshit!" So say Penn & Teller, who spend this half-hour episode raking "craptozoologists" over the coals. As an experiment, they put a 6-foot-7 guy in a rented Bigfoot costume and shoot blurry footage of him hiking through some tall grass. Then they put it online with some bogus backstory, which generates lots of feedback. The responses are presented by a guy in the studio dressed in a Bigfoot costume and glasses, thoughtfully "reading" the letters that the video inspired. Among them are offers for radio and print interviews, including one from a self-proclaimed Bigfoot expert who offers P&T $6,000 for an interview and rights to the video. Elsewhere, this guy from the American Museum of Natural History demands hard evidence beyond footprints and blurry videos to prove Bigfoot's existence. Predictably, the show concludes that Bigfoot is bullshit.
		*Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny* (2006). John C. Reilly reprises his uncredited role as Sasquatch from Tenacious D's HBO series. Jack Black eats some psychaedelic mushrooms and hallucinates that Sasquatch is his father. They romp through a Day-glo, Peter Max-inspired landscape, flying through the air like Superman and riding innertubes down the Strawberry River. Black, whose Bigfoot makeup looks like something out of Cats, sings a Bigfoot song with nonsensical lyrics before he snaps out of his trip.
		*Weeds* (Showtime; October 2, 2006). In "MILF Money," a prudish city councilwoman arranges for "Sober the Sasquatch" to deliver a brief anti-drug speech to a grammar-school classroom: "Arr! Arr!" yells Sober. "Drugs are wrong! Arr! I'm putting my big foot down on drugs!" (Sober emphatically stomps on floor.) "My big foot!" After removing her mask, the woman inside Sober's stuffy costume observes, "My sweat smells like peanuts!" Episodes later, it's revealed that one of the kids in the class, whose mom is the protagonist weed dealer, has stolen Sober's costume.
		*Sasquatch Mountain* (2007). In his third Bigfoot movie (following 2002's Sasquatch and 2006's Abominable, Lance Henriksen has shot the infamous "Jackson Footage," in which Bigfoot killed his wife. The "edgy" horror movie is a mess of saturated colors, Arizona state police, hunters, bankrobbers in gorilla masks, a sexy hostage, and retarded editing, as if the creators were overly inspired by Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie and Rob Zombie. Mostly just a bunch of running around in the woods, with little gore and few frights. Bigfoot gets shot to death at the end... Side note: While the DVD cover art says Sasquatch Mountain, the opening credits bill the film as Devil on the Mountain.
		Stay tuned -- many more Bigfoot movies are on the horizon.