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MythBusters become MythMakers
| If we don't have our facts straight here, please correct
us by emailing us at Home@BFRO.net or leaving a message at 949-278-6403
There are television commercials running, in heavy rotation, on Discovery Channel Networks (Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Science Channel, Travel Channel, etc.) which show an actor in a bigfoot costume. "Bigfoot" has a French-Canadian accent. The costumed actor bemoans the looming threat posed by the MythBusters. The inference is that "Bigfoot" will be "busted" by the MythBusters ... so "Bigfoot" has a lot to worry about. But the commercial does not announce an upcoming episode directed at the bigfoot subject. Rather, it is a commercial promoting the series in general. Why would they do this? It is possible they have an episode on the subject finished and ready to broadcast, or in production, but there's no available information to suggest there is an episode (completed, in progress, or even planned). Moreover, the producers of the show previously stated they weren't going to do any more episodes on "oogie-boogie monsters" because it didn't fit with their format. In other words, there was no clever experiment they could conduct to objectively dispel the legend. In the early part of 2005, some bigfoot enthusiasts tried to initiate an email campaign to encourage the producers of MythBusters to debunk the myth that the bigfoot/sasquatch mystery had been debunked ... That myth held that "the guy who started the whole thing admitted on his deathbed that it was all a hoax". The myth arose from confusion with a deathbed confession related to a famous Loch Ness photo. It carried over to the bigfoot subject, and was helped along by various "confessors" who "came forward," to claim they were "the man in the costume" in the Patterson footage. Subsequently, the adult children of a deceased maker of cheesey track replicas (which he sold for years in a roadside tourist shop), claimed their father "started the whole thing" by faking the first tracks found and cast in Northern California in the 1950's. It was very easy for bigfoot researchers to show the falseness of that claim, because the wooden shoes the family displayed were clearly different in shape from the actual track casts obtained by Jerry Crew in the 1950's. Later the family admitted that their father, Ray Wallace, never actually claimed on his deathbed that he faked the first tracks, but they "just know he did it" ... The email campaign urged the MythBusters to bust the myth that the legend had been debunked. They did not urge the MythBusters to bust the legend. The producers allegedly responded and made it clear they weren't going to do anything on the subject, because there was no practical way to approach it. The many emails may have demonstrated to the MythBuster producers that IF there was an episode wherein the MythBusters busted the "myth" of "Bigfoot", lots of people would tune in. So it now appears that even though the MythBusters are not going to look into the subject at all, they still want the ratings boost they would receive if they were going to look into it. The irony is that they are creating and propagating an urban legend themselves, in a sense. They are creating the false impression that they are going to debunk the whole bigfoot mystery: all of the sightings, all of the witnesses, all of the tracks, all of the hairs, all the recordings, all of the footage, etc. It appears to be a ratings gimmick. They're not going to touch the subject, as far as anyone knows. They do know, however, that it will boost their ratings if they can keep people guessing about that, and tuning in to find out when their bigfoot episode will air. Very clever. Very television. |