This original footage shot by Roger Patterson has become a permanent part of the American pop culture, almost as famous as the Zapruder film. The difference between the two, of course, is that Zapruder captured a genuine occurrence, as opposed to blurry shots of a man stomping around the woods in a cobbled-together fur coat. Still, for decades "cryptozoologists" (people claiming to be experts on bizarre animals) and conspiracy theorists of all sorts have carefully examined this film (and the many, many pseudo-documentaries such as THE LEGEND OF BIGFOOT, IN SEARCH OF BIGFOOT, THE MYSTERIOUS MONSTERS, all 1976, that re-used this footage or did recreations) and declared it to be absolutely genuine ("100% verified by all available methods of scientific testing" is the general phrasing that Bigfoot enthusiasts seem to cling to). They insist that there has never been any proof that Bigfoot doesn't or couldn't reasonably exist. Unfortunately, they only they do this is by ignoring or dismissing the good amount of proof to the contrary that IS out there.
Some of this evidence is scientific, such as the propagation limits of any species. For a group of Bigfoot-type creatures to survive year after year, for example, they would have to be breeding in great enough numbers to be spotted FREQUENTLY by forest rangers and the general public, not just by the infrequent storytellers who carry on the myth. The Patterson Bigfoot in specific, however, has been more specifically debunked by more traditionally investigative evidence. It has been two years since the release of Greg Long's book THE MAKING OF BIGFOOT, which goes into the details behind the hoax (not terribly elaborate) that Roger Patterson created with his Bigfoot film. Among other documentation, it contains interviews from a couple of important/involved parties. The first of these is Philip Morris, a maker of sideshow gorilla suits (in 1967 one of the ONLY makers) who admits to selling Patterson a suit shortly before the Bigfoot film was shot, as well as giving the man instructions on how to customize it to give the suit longer arms, broader shoulders, etc. (not knowing what Patterson's plans were). The second, more confessional account comes from Bob Heironimus, a man Patterson hired (although he never actually paid the man his promised $1000) to wear the suit. Also in the book is the testimony of several people who saw Heironimus in possession of the suit (since then Heironimus has also passed a lie detector test in order to solidify his claims).
Consider this: In 1967 Roger Patterson, a man deep in debt, rents a camera and tells friends that he's going into the wilderness to find irrefutable proof of the existence of the Bigfoot creature. He then returns ALMOST IMMEDIATELY with footage of the beast casually strolling past his camera. Conveniently enough, though, the film is just a little out of focus and at enough of a distance that the grainy image, four decades later, still has true believers arguing that they see a beast "500 pounds" with "clearly delineated muscle movement that isn't possible from a man wearing a suit" and "pendulous breasts that obviously denote it as a female of the species". They insist that what is on screen could "never be recreated by even the most skilled Hollywood special effects craftsmen", and when various documentary filmmakers produce similar results using materials that would have been available in the late 60s, the believers then shout out that the suits don't look "at all like the real thing; look at how fake the fur looks!" (not acknowledging, even to themselves, that the modern video cameras that shoot the new suits have not been "dumbed down" to photograph them with as LITTLE detail as the original film showed)
How much evidence, how much testimony is needed to dissuade the true believers? Answer: No amount will ever be enough. Some die-hards still demand, for example, "100% accurate evidence" (sic) that this creature doesn't exist, two years after the hoax has been thoroughly debunked. For that matter, it has been THREE years since the family of Ray Wallace (the man inadvertently responsible for turning a set of vaguely related man-beast myths into one giant myth) admitted after his death that he TOO had hoodwinked the public (back in 1958) by originally planting dozens of fake Bigfoot prints. Just as there are people who are absolutely convinced that John F. Kennedy is alive and hidden on a private island, and that Elvis still shows up occasionally at Burger King, there will always be people who will insist that "no suit has been produced to prove Bigfoot is fake" or "no human's arms could be extended to flex the way the creature's do in the film". This is how it is now, and this is how it will be decades after the rest of humanity has filed the Bigfoot phenomenon away with such "mysteries" as the Loch Ness Monster and Pyramid Power.
BIGFOOT, the original short film, is at best a pop culture icon, a reminder of a more innocent, pre-Watergate age when the American people accepted what they saw or were told without question. At the least it's an amusing diversion, and one that has given the Hollywood B-movie community another creative outlet. Some fun results have been SNOWBEAST (TV movie, 1977), the incredibly bad BIGFOOT (MANY films used this generic title; this one is bikers vs. Bigfoot, 1970) or any of the inept but harmless BOGGY CREEK entries. Each and every one of these flicks is ultra-cheesy, which makes sense, really. Bigfoot flourished during the drive-in era; it is only appropriate that he find his greatest tribute there. Any one of these above-mentioned films should rightly be shown on a drive-in screen, perhaps preceded by Roger Patterson's original BIGFOOT movie. It could be a "nature short subject", just before the dancing boxes of popcorn paraded across the screen to tempt people to run to the concession building, before the beginning of the main feature.
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