Bigfoot in popular culture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bigfoot or Sasquatch,has had a demonstrable impact as a cultural phenomenon. Closely related genres such as yeti fiction have also appeared.
Contents |
[edit] Advertising
The meanings of the words, "Bigfoot" or "Sasquatch", are quickly understood by most people (at least in North America) and have been used in advertising and applied to many products or services, such as pizzas, beef jerky, skateboards, skis, an Internet search engine, computer hard drive series, gas stations, Kokanee beer, a monster truck, and the mascot of the basketball team, the Seattle SuperSonics.[1]
Jack Link's brand beef jerky has produced a series of commercials entitled, "Messin With Sasquatch." In the commercials, men appearing to be hikers play tricks on Sasquatch (such as unscrewing the top of a salt shaker, causing salt to spill all over when bigfoot goes to pour some on the food he is cooking). The end of the commercials usually show Sasquatch reacting angrily to the pranks, chasing and sometimes picking up the hikers and throwing them into the air, nearly killing them or injuring them.
[edit] Conventions
There are annual Bigfoot-related conventions, and the creature plays a role in Pacific Northwest tourism, such as the annual "Sasquatch Daze" held for several years in Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia. Napier writes, "Bigfoot in some quarters of North America has become big business ... It can no longer be considered simply as a natural phenomenon that can be studied with the techniques of a naturalist; the entrepreneurs have moved in and folklore has become fakelore".[2]
[edit] Films
- The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972)
- Snowbeast (1977)[3]
- The Capture of Bigfoot (1979)[4]
- Revenge of Bigfoot (1979)[5]
- Bigfoot (1987) [6]
- Harry and the Hendersons (1987)
- A Goofy Movie (1995)
- Drawing Flies (1996), A movie produced by Kevin Smith. Starring My Name Is Earl's own Jason Lee as the character Donner who wants to find Sasquatch.[7]
- Little Bigfoot (1997)[8]
- Little Bigfoot 2: The Journey Home (1997)[9]
- Sasquatch Hunters (1997)[10]; Sasquatch Hunters (2005)[11]
- Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999) While Deuce is walking downtown with Tina, the giant woman, a man yells "Holy shit it's Bigfoot!"
- Ape Canyon (2002)[12]
- The Untold (2002) [13]
- Bigfoot (2006) [14]
- The Unknown (2005)[15]
- Abominable (2006)
- Sasquatch Mountain (2006), A Original Sci-Fi movie seen on the Sci-Fi Channel.
- Bigfoot <3 Hi-C (2007), Cryptozoologist named Stephen B. Copely has concluded that Bigfoot actually enjoys Slimer' Hi-C beverages.
- Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny (2006)
- The Sasquatch Gang (2007)
- Strange Wilderness (2008)
[edit] Games
- In the computer game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas various reports posted on various message boards claimed to spot Bigfoot in a random section of the fictional state San Andreas Bigfoot is a mod for the game.
- In the Monster in My Pocket game for the NES, Bigfoot is the boss of stage 2 of the video game, wandering about in the freezer until struck, after which he charges. In the video game and most other Monster in My Pocket materials other than the comic book, Bigfoot has white fur.
- The adventure game Sam & Max Hit the Road involves a search for a sasquatch that had escaped from a traveling freak show.
- In Zoo Tycoon, you can buy bigfoots and yetis.
- In The Sims 2: Bon Voyage, Bigfoot can be found on a hidden lot in the Three Lakes area.
- In The Sims 2 for Nintendo DS, Bigfoot can be found in the Secret Warhouse in the basement.
- In Tony Hawk's Underground 2, when unlocked, Bigfoot can be a playable character.
- In Destroy All Humans 2, one of the tasks is to defeat a yeti like creature in Russia.
- In the Darkstalkers series, Sasquatch (Bigfoot) is a playable character and lives in a village full of other Sasquatches.
- In the game Mischief Makers there is an ape/sasquatch-like boss named Tauros, who also drives a tank known as the Sasquatch β.
- In the game Downhill Domination for Playstation 2, 7 Bigfoots can be seen in the British Columbia levels, and 7 yetis can be seen in the Mt.Zorkovaska levels.
[edit] Sports
- Quatchi, one of three mascots for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, is portrayed as a "young sasquatch who comes from the mysterious forests of Canada."[1]
[edit] Internet
Several Internet cartoons created by Adam Phillips contain a Bigfoot, and its child who features in its own episode: Littlefoot. The Littlefoot is an inquisitive creature and the parent is a protective caring animal who comes to its child's rescue when threatened. Both live in the fictional forest of Brackenwood.
Bigfoot is a character on the web-series Sanctuary For All. Sanctuary (Webseries) Played by Bigfoot himself, he is a "Manservant" to Dr. Helen Magnus played by Amanda Tapping. He is roughly 7-8 feet tall and has lots of hair and one deformed foot. Before meeting Dr. Magnus he was "mad...[and]...enjoyed scaring kids"Webisode 4. He scared Will Zimmerman as a child (played by Darien Provost) and later apologizes to the Adult Will Zimmerman (played by Robin Dunne) saying "I know its a long time coming but, no hard feelings? **Will and Bigfoot shake hands**" Webisode 4. More to come!
Bigfoot, or sasquatch, is also the first episode in the We Are Documentary Google Video documentary series, along with many other cryptids.
[edit] Literature
Many have written on the subject, demonstrating a broad spectrum of approaches from lurid tabloids to a small body of serious scholarly work. The Weekly World News occasionally runs a story on the mysterious creature.
- The novel Monster describes the capture of a woman by a group of bigfoot, who are being chased by a similar animal later revealed be the product of a science experiment).
- A Bigfoot was depicted as a relentless and brutal killer in the graphic novel Bigfoot by Steve Niles and Rob Zombie.
- The short story "Dissertation" by Chuck Palahniuk (found in his book Haunted) is about a tribe of people who carry a genetic trait that transforms them into sasquatches.
- John Prufrock, the hero of the comic book Proof, is a Bigfoot who works for a secret agency that hunts and captures other cryptids. The comic, an ongoing series, is written by Alex Grecian and illustrated by Riley Rossmo. The first issue was published by Image Comics in October 2007.[2]
- Bigfoot was used as the cover story for werewolves in the 2008 Zenescope comic Willow Creek from graphic novelist/screenwriter Christian Beranek, Denny Williams and artist Josh Medors.
[edit] Law
Regarding Sasquatch, Skamania County, Washington passed a law in 1969 that "any willful, wanton slaying of such creatures shall be deemed a felony", subject to substantial fine and/or imprisonment. The fact that this legislation was passed on April 1 did not escape notice, but County Commissioner Conrad Lundy said that "this is not an April Fool's Day joke ... there is reason to believe such an animal exists" (Pyle, 278). Hunter and Dahinden record their own "speculation that Skamania County authorities had their ears tuned much more to the music of a publicity bandwagon than to any song of distress" for Bigfoot (Hunter and Dahinden, 135-136). Notwithstanding, the ordinance was amended in 1984 to preclude an insanity defense and to consider such a killing homicide if the creature was proven by the coroner to be humanoid (Pyle, 279).
[edit] Music
"The Bigfoot Song", [3] also known as "I Still Believe in Bigfoot" written and recorded by Bigfoot proponent and satirist Danny Freyer, is somewhat of an underground anthem of Bigfoot supporters, and has been used to introduce Bigfoot-related talk and pop culture shows and news segments on CNN, late night talk radio, and even in on BBC Radio in London.
"Sasquatch", written and sung by Tenacious D describes sasquatch as a creature, who in their video series in discovered in a cave playing a set of drums.
In the Beastie Boys' music video for "Triple Trouble", it was mentioned that the Beastie Boys have been known to be kidnapped by a Sasquatch.
New Orleans funk-rock band Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes have begun to include references to bigfoot in their live shows and their most recent album, "The Big Awesome."
[edit] Television
- There was a short-lived television series based on Harry and the Hendersons, with the same title.
- Bigfoot and Wildboy was a recurring segment in the 1970s children's program The Krofft Supershow produced by Sid and Marty Krofft.
- In The Goodies episode Bigfoot, Bigfoot is revealed to be Tim Brooke-Taylor
- In the episode "The Legend of the Satchmo" of the children's television series Rugrats, Grandpa tells the children the legend of Sasquatch, a Bigfoot-like creature that lives in the hills. The children mishear the name Sasquatch as "Satchmo", the name of a trumpet player.
- Bigfoot appears in the "Spanish Fry" episode of Futurama.
- In an episode of "The Invisible Man", Darien Fawkes- the title character- learns that the chemical Quicksilver that makes him invisible was actually taken from the body of a deceased Bigfoot; nobody has ever been able to find Bigfoot because he can turn invisible whenever somebody comes close.
- Bigfoot appears in several episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man - "The Secret of Bigfoot" Parts 1 and 2, "The Return of Bigfoot" Part 1, and "Bigfoot V", plus one episode of The Bionic Woman - "The Return of Bigfoot" Part 2 (a crossover from the show's parent program). In the context of the two series, Bigfoot is depicted as an intelligent android created by a group of extra terrestials living on earth. The creature was portrayed initially by professional wrestler Andre the Giant, with character actor Ted Cassidy taking over the role in subsequent appearances. The 2004 telefilm Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of 'Charlie's Angels' includes a scene that recreates the fight sequnce between Steve Austin and Bigfoot, with Ben Browder filling the shoes of actor Lee Majors as Austin, and Canadian actor John DeSantis portraying Andre the Giant-as-Bigfoot.
- In an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, the movie The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek, Part II was lampooned under the title Boggy Creek II: And The Legend Continues.
- In an episode of the Canadian comedy Trailer Park Boys, the characters Ricky and Bubbles mistake a fur blanket-covered Julian for a "Samsquantch" (in Bubbles' words) or "Saskatchewan" (in Ricky's term) and attack him with baseball bats.
- In an episode of X-Men:Evolution, Beast is mistaken for Bigfoot.
- In the episode "I Never Met the Dead Man" of Family Guy, Peter tries to put attention away from him by pointing out Bigfoot's existense. Bigfoot responds that Peter cannot wiesel his way out of his troubles.
- In the third season of MacGyver, in the episode "Ghost Ship," Bigfoot appears several times trying to kill MacGyver. The creature is actually a man in a gorilla suit with a mechanism connect to the ship's PA. MacGyver unmasked and knocks out the man and later states "... The guy had me going for a while." In the very end of the episode, Bigfoot like calls are heard coming from the forest.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ NBA Media Ventures, LLC (2006). Squatch, The Sonics Mascot.
- ^ Pyle, 160.
- ^ Snowbeast at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ The Capture of Bigfoot at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Revenge of Bigfoot at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Bigfoot (1987) at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Drawing Flies (1996)
- ^ Little Bigfoot at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Little Bigfoot 2: The Journey Home at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Sasquatch Hunters at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Sasquatch Hunters (2005) at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ Ape Canyon at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ The Untold at the Internet Movie Database(also released in the U.S. as Sasquatch)
- ^ Bigfoot at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ The Unknown at the Internet Movie Database
