Finding Bigfoot
#stagingabigfootsighting #squatch
I wouldn’t say I’m hooked on Animal Planet, but after watching “My Cat From Hell,” I figured I just couldn’t miss “Finding Bigfoot.”
The show is pretty simple. Four “experts” in a group known as the Bigfoot Field Research Organization go to places where a Sasquatch has been “seen” and investigate, trying to find “proof” of sightings, or the Bigfoot itself. (Three sarcastic quotation marks in one sentence? Yup.)
The team consists of Matt Moneymaker, Bobo, Ranae and Cliff.
Moneymaker, with his balleriffic name, is the leader. He also seems to be the easiest one to convince that a real Sasquatch sighting occurred. I bet that if I wore a gorilla mask through downtown Standish at night and someone saw me, he would tell them that he thinks they saw a Bigfoot.
I might try that actually. #stagingabigfootsighting
Matt’s claim to fame in the world of Bigfooting is that he was the first person to discover that sasquatches knock on trees to respond to a call. (This, apparently, is pretty controversial. If you visit the show’s website page where it describes The Team, you can see the Facebook RSS feed. A lot of people call Moneymaker out on it, and claim that the “knocking theory” is common knowledge)*
* If your show is about trying to prove the existence of a creature that probably 85 percent of the world doesn’t believe in, you shouldn’t show what people say on Facebook about it right on the show’s website.
Bobo is pretty much a Bigfoot himself. He also serves as the comedy relief for the show. Which backs up my theory that really tall, overweight, ogre-ish people with long hair and low voices are never really taken seriously, even if they could snap a grown man in two like a twig, unless they happen to be Andre the Giant or the Big Show. (I know the Big Show is bald now wrestling fanatics, calm down.)
Cliff is the heartthrob, ladies’ man, closest thing to normal looking on the team when it comes to the three guys. I don’t think I’ve seen him in two episodes without shades on. He’s pretty cool, you know, besides the whole “dedicated his life to finding Sasquatch” thing.
Last but not least is the token female/token skeptic — Ranae.
Here’s where I kind of get lost. If someone doesn’t believe in Bigfoot, why would they be in the Bigfoot Field Research Organization? My guess is that the producers and creators hired Ranae to provide a little bit of credibility. Of course, while the rest of world sees Ranae as realistic and credible, the BFRO sees her as a pessimistic bitch. Reality is a strange place for those of us living here.**
** This phrase was unofficially trademarked by me in a column published in Northern Michigan in October 2010. Take a look. It’s funny.
During the episodes, we get inundated with sasquatch knowledge — we hear calls (Bobo, Cliff and Matt screaming and bellowing loudly), we see all the fancy equipment needed to hunt Bigfoot (infrared scanners and night vision cameras probably have no greater purpose in the world, right?), we hear from eyewitnesses (I could’ve used more quotation marks around “eyewitnesses”) and or course, we get in on the lingo.
Just today, while watching the second episode On Demand, I learned that sasqueetch (I just made that up as the plural for sasquatch) in Florida are known as Skunk Apes because they smell like shit. I also learned that insiders commonly call a Sasquatch a “squatch.” (Another unpopular topic on the Facebook feed that IS LITERALLY ON THE SHOW’S PROMOTIONAL WEBSITE, SO ANYONE CAN SEE HOW MUCH SHIT IS BEING TALKED ABOUT THIS SHOW!)
In all seriousness, though, the word squatch is awesome. #squatch
As you would probably expect, there has been no official, on-camera Bigfoot sighting on “Finding Bigfoot” in the first two episodes. I’m betting that this will be the case all season.
But I’ll be watching. Just in case.
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