Skunk Ape Confidential

Posted by: Craig Woolheater on October 5th, 2006

PopMatters, a pop culture website, published a fictional interview with Bigfoot on Thursday. Here is some of their "wit."

He is truly a lost icon of the ‘70s, a celebrated figure who, along with his sea serpent buddy Nessie and that everpresent pack of ancient astronauts, helped define the era’s obsession with monsters, myths and legends. For over a decade, he provided a kind of escapist excuse to focus on the environment while giving low budget filmmakers fodder for dozens of minor motion picture excursions. Today, he is viewed in the same slightly camp light as Earth shoes, space food sticks, and Avocado colored kitchen appliances. But in his day, nothing could compete with his humongous hair covered frame, elephantine shoe size, and infamous decaying cabbage stench.

Call him a figment of some mountain man’s imagination or a Halloween costume gone horribly wrong, but this month, The OutrĂ© Oeuvre got a chance to sit down with Bigfoot, aka Sasquatch, aka The Fouke Monster, aka Funk-Master B-Footy, to get some insights into his career, his sudden rise to stardom, and his equally rapid decline into cultural obscurity. Seated comfortably in his home somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, our host was candid about his inadvertent celebrity, interspecies excesses and the legitimate professional missteps he made along the way.

OO (interviewer): Tell us a little about how you got started in show biz?

BF: Well, I was always around, you know? Hanging in the forests, minding my own prehistoric bee’s wax? Sure, the Native Americans had been singing my spiritual existence for eons, and I was frequently glimpsed by the surrounding indigenous population. But it was those biological buttinskis, Roger Patterson and Robert Gimiln. It’s all their fault. They’re the ones who permanently took my privacy and flushed it down the proverbial composting toilet.

OO: How so?

BF: The film, man! The film. You know, that clip of me from 1967? You see, I was just wondering around my favorite patch of forest, looking for some unexplored terrain to ‘mark’, when these two thrill seekers – Patterson and Gimlin – come barreling in, Bolex in hand, and start shooting. The paparazzi of today have nothing on these two. It was like they were stalking me, waiting for the right moment to capture my quintessence in its natural element. Next thing I know – there I am. Lumbering around like some opportunist in a fake animal fur. After that, the woods became crowded with such pathetic publicity hounds.

When the "interview" was initially published, it wasn’t the Fouke Monster, it was the Faulk Monster referenced in the article. That is, until Andrew Griffin let them know of their foible in their comments section. Andrew is an old friend of the Texas Bigfoot Research Center back from his days of covering the Bigfoot news for the Alexandria (LA) Town Talk.

And what is PopMatters you ask? Here is what they have to say about themselves:

PopMatters is an international magazine of cultural criticism. Our scope is broadly cast on all things pop culture, and our content is updated daily, Monday through Friday. We provide intelligent reviews, engaging interviews, and in-depth essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, sports, theatre, the visual arts, travel, and the Internet.

PopMatters cultivates smart writers from the world-at-large. Our staff ranges from the multiple-degreed and/or well traveled, to young writers of high caliber, to ‘seasoned’ folks who punch the 9-5 clock, regardless of what type of degree, if any, they may hold. PopMatters recognizes that creative, compassionate intellectuals reside in all levels of society, in all types of societies, and we value their ability to provide intelligent, entertaining cultural criticism in the form of thoughtful, magazine-style essays. Many of our writers are called upon for their opinion by notable members of the media such as the BBC, NPR, MSNBC, Radio Australia, and VH1. Publications such as USA Today.com, Alternet.org, and Movies.com regularly pick up links to PopMatters articles and post quotes from PopMatters writers.

I guess that this was one of their engaging interviews? I don’t know about engaging, but I certainly found it to be a knee-slapper…not! 

 

About Craig Woolheater
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005. I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films: OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.


8 Responses to “Skunk Ape Confidential”

  1. MountDesertIslander responds:

    Bigfoot wanders around I’m sure. But the fact that he wonders around is a revelation. I always wondered if he wondered while he wandered.

  2. OKCurious responds:

    That is actually pretty funny! I enjoy crypto humor. There ought to be more, just to keep us smiling!

  3. skunkape_hunter responds:

    I have to agree, I did not find it all that funny.

  4. Sky King responds:

    Hardy. Har. Har.

    Man, that is one stinky piece of writing, stinkier than Skunk Ape and Cabbage Stew. If that’s indicative of the writing there, then they’ve REALLY got an overblown opinion of themselves. THE ONION they’re not…

  5. UberKyle responds:

    I was definitely expecting something much longer, and much more humorous… the idea has a lot of potential – although I did pull something away from this — Funk Master B-Footy, I laughed.

  6. Jeremy_Wells responds:

    Wow, so you know, if Funk Master B-Footy is the cat in the PG film, was he cross dressing at the time his image was captured?

    Wow man, the 70s really were a time for crazy experimentation, weren’t they?

  7. ilexoak responds:

    A Bolex, wasn’t it really a rented Kodak Cine 16 and do females mark? Isn’t this 2006 and aren’t there more people interested in the big guy than ever?

    Wayne

  8. kittenz responds:

    Well it IS sort of funny in a lame kind of way. Kind of like a skit written by a junior high class.

    Or hey, maybe that juvenile Bigfoot that Perez sold has decided to try its hand at humor!

    Nah! Even a baby Bigfoot would do better than this.

    BTW, what ever happened with ole Perez, anyhow?

Sorry. Comments have been closed.

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