May 11, 2025 • 52 mins
Karen joins Blake to discuss the influential 2-part episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man that introduced a generation of kids to Bigfoot, and the idea that the creature might be interconnected with space aliens living inside a California mountain.
This is part one of a two-part special edition.
The patron edition has extended footage and no modern commercials.
Extensive show notes available here:
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Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.
This is part one of a two-part special edition.
The patron edition has extended footage and no modern commercials.
Extensive show notes available here:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/128686370?forSale=true
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/monstertalk--6267523/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
That's where the two geologic plates meet. It's one of
(00:02):
the largest and longest fault lines in the world, the.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
San Madrian Fault. That's really impressive, pretty powerful.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
It's been responsible for most of the major earthquakes in California,
including San Francisco in nineteen six. Our geologist friends Ivan
and Marlene Becky have already planted twenty two of their
new earthquakes.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Since there's all along the San Madrian, we're Marlene and
Ivan there now. Yeah, they're working along the Angelo.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
That's a tributary fault line about sixty miles from our
base camp.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
It's really fast.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Has anybody lived down there, Steve, No, except for Ivan
and Marlene. It's completely uninhabited.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
What do you think a huge grizzly town.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
No, No, not a cat, not a grisly No, what
is it? There's only one thing in the mountains that
leaves a tract like this. The creature of legend that
roams the timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call
him Bigfoot?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Do you still think bigfoots a hoax?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I don't know what to think.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Well, I'll tell you what I think.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I think these tracks lead to Marlene Becky.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Where else do they lead Steve? Where else?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
There's only one way to find out. Ducks good a
run Roger maybe at art foote On Okay, the girt.
Speaker 5 (01:21):
Landing rocket arm pudget On, Here come Donald duget breakers in.
Speaker 6 (01:25):
We have Submary In Barton out mort and they're on
coming born with Besides.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Nick looks good right, I'm gonna blow out number.
Speaker 7 (01:33):
Three, get your out again to direction.
Speaker 8 (01:37):
Alcohol is off track, collectors and margin bla colic can't
hold you breaking up.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Break Steve Austin astronaut, a man barely alive, gentlemen, we
can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the
(02:03):
capability to make the world's first bionic man.
Speaker 7 (02:17):
As I recently hinted to our Patreon supporters, I'm trying
to get back into recording the special podcast within a
podcast I call big Footage.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
It's a show that drills down into important encryptid theme media.
So far, I've mostly focused on bigfoot.
Speaker 7 (02:31):
In YETI theme films, but I certainly plan to get
into lakes and jungles for more diversity. Of course, patrons
will be able to unlock that content earlier in most cases,
but kicking the rust off this series and getting back
into the ring. I decided to make this one open
to the public. We're covering the two parter from season
three of ABC series The Six Million Dollar Man, titled
(02:53):
The Secret of Bigfoot. We'll get more into why this
was such a powerfully influential show in part two, but
check the show notes for lots of links to help
give this context to its time and importance. The writing
in this show hints that the paranormal and mystical legends
of Mount Shasta, the classic Bigfoot sightings of the nineteen fifties,
the Native American legend angle, and the paranormal elements of
(03:16):
aliens that are probably best known from the work of
researcher Stan Gordon in the Pennsylvania wave of cryptids and
UFOs that were especially notable in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
The format here is a little different from a regular
monster Talk episode, but let's dive in.
Speaker 7 (03:32):
So, Karen, I think I'm not sure, but I think
this is the first time we've tried to do one
of these big footage episodes together, and I'm excited about.
Speaker 9 (03:40):
It may too and rather daunted at the same time.
Speaker 7 (03:45):
Because this is I think maybe one of the most
important documents in Bigfooting outside of the Parison Gimblin film,
which sounds ridiculous, but I'm going to make a case.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
That this is really important.
Speaker 9 (04:00):
Yeah, I think it's an interesting fine and I think
you can back it up with twenty three pages of notes.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Is Yeah, this is a little more than we normally do.
Speaker 7 (04:12):
But when I'm working so loo, I get really obsessed
with trying to get all the information in there. We'll
see how we do. So we're talking today about the
two part special. It wasn't It was just released normally
within the context of the TV series The Six Million
Dollar Man. But this the two part show, The Secret
of Bigfoot, and this was aired in nineteen seventy six.
(04:36):
February of nineteen seventy six, that was America's by centennial.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
I was just a little guy.
Speaker 7 (04:43):
I was seven, I guess, and Jimmy Carter had just
taken office. We were still as a country, you know,
reeling from the Watergate scandal.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
We had a recession going on. It was it was
a lot.
Speaker 7 (04:55):
As we go through this, I'm going to do some
edit and put in some additional information and sound stuff
that I think will sort of give you a picture
of what it was like if you were a kid
in the nineteen seventies and being exposed to Bigfoot here
through this show.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Now I was a monster nerd. That'll be a big shock.
Speaker 7 (05:13):
So this looms large in my world because most of
the monster stuff I knew was from me reading monster
books in the elementary school library. So, but this is
also nineteen seventy six is the year two really influential Bigfoot.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Movies came out, so it was all happening, yeah Bigfoot.
We didn't. We've already covered both of these on the big.
Speaker 7 (05:35):
Footage sort of series within a series. Those are Sasquatch,
The Legend of Bigfoot and the Creature from Black Lake.
So that's a Lyle Blackburn's favorite Bigfoot movie, and I
think maybe Sasquatch the Legend of Bigfoot maybe mine.
Speaker 9 (05:49):
Well, I want to put a call out too, just
to the previous episode, because when we originally spoke about this,
you said watch episodes I think sixteen and seventeen, and
so mad I started watching episode sixteen and we didn't
get to finish it. I think we will go back
and revisit it though, but it seemed very interesting that
was involving magic, and so I thought, oh, okay, this
(06:11):
is going to be about magic and big Foot. And
so then watching these episodes, it was Bigfoot and something
else that we'll get to in a minute. But yeah,
I was surprised at the degree of paranormal things in
this Yeah, because I never watched it. My dad used
to watch it, but I was a little too young.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
It's okay, so this was the I mean, from the
time I was a kid.
Speaker 7 (06:35):
Rewatching these episodes were really the first time I had
revisited the show since I was a child. Again, funnily again,
not nocking my mother, especially not given that she's actually
very likely to die this year. She's anyway, that's a
different story. But she Yeah, she didn't like this show.
She had a lot of reasons for not like the shows,
(06:56):
but this one she hated because in the intro they
talk about Steve Austin, a man barely alive. We can
build him, we can rebuild him better and stronger and faster,
and she felt like that was hubris against the Lord
God Almighty to say that you could make a person better.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Now, I don't know how, She's just a phrase.
Speaker 10 (07:14):
We have the science, Well, yeah, we have the science
with the technology and you know, and the technology, and
this two parter is really about the sort of sort
of conflict between technology and humanity.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
It's really.
Speaker 7 (07:29):
It's shockingly relevant to the world we live in right now.
But they had introduced this character of Jamie Summers and
she was about to get her own spinoff series.
Speaker 9 (07:40):
She does make that cameo in this episode and then
later on in that memory recall, and so Matt and
I watching it with thinking that she was going to
somehow be a part of this and that was it.
So that was a bit.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, it's very peculiar.
Speaker 7 (07:54):
It's literally like a cameo because they're kind of reminding you, hey,
we got a new show on ABC.
Speaker 9 (08:00):
There we go, because it just seemed like she was
going to sweep in and save them exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Just I'll say up at the top here.
Speaker 7 (08:07):
This show is written by Kenneth Johnson, who turns out
to be incredibly influential on my childhood because he also
developed The Incredible Hulk into a TV show, and in
the eighties he did the TV series v oh Okay Yeah,
which both of those shows were huge nerd joyfests. Oh
and he also I don't know who else watched this,
(08:30):
but I happen to know that both Carl Mehmer and
I Karl Mehmer of the conspiracy skeptics, we loved this
nineteen seventy nine series called Cliffhangers, which was on NBC,
I believe, and it had this gimmick of it was
hopping between three storylines. In each episode they would do
a cliffhanger, so you want to watch it next week? Okay,
only they canceled the show and left us, you know.
Speaker 9 (08:52):
A cliff yeah, cliff.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (08:56):
It had one sort of melodrama, and then it had
a Dracula show, and then it had a sort of
an homage to.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
The nineteen thirties and forties serials.
Speaker 11 (09:08):
You know.
Speaker 7 (09:08):
So it's a pretty pretty wild show, but didn't really
work anyway. I think with all that sort of context,
let's hop in to.
Speaker 9 (09:17):
The first context.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, you know, that's how culture is, though it was
just all kind of lean.
Speaker 7 (09:23):
We don't when you're a seven or eight year old kid,
you're not synthesizing all this stuff into a big picture
of culture. You just happen to know that these things
are cool and these things are cool, and when you
grow up you sort of put it all together.
Speaker 9 (09:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (09:36):
Again, that's actually a topical and appropriate content comment to make,
because this show itself represents a kind of syncretic amalgam
of a lot of different ideas that were out there culturally,
and so we're going to hop in there and find
out what.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
It's all about.
Speaker 9 (09:51):
Yeah, let's do this.
Speaker 8 (09:58):
On a big Foot new from Kenner and the six
Million Dollar.
Speaker 7 (10:04):
Man You'll Never Be Si.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Yeah, this stock Iconic Circuit.
Speaker 12 (10:14):
Gives up.
Speaker 13 (10:17):
Big Bigfoot new from Kenner six Million Dollar Man sold separately.
Speaker 7 (10:31):
This brings us to part one of the Secret of Bigfoot,
and we open up uh with Lee Majors.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Uh.
Speaker 7 (10:39):
He's playing Steve Austin, the Astronaut, and he's with Oscar Goldman.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
They're in a helicopter and they're.
Speaker 7 (10:44):
Going to lay out the holes what this episode's about,
which is a geological survey or.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
They're there.
Speaker 7 (10:53):
They're plenty to put some kind of high tech ground
sensors into the ground so that they can to predict
when earthquakes are coming because they're concerned there might be
a big one coming.
Speaker 9 (11:04):
Well, yeah, and San Madrian that exists because I know
there are so many fault lines around there, and San Andreas.
Is that the BigGAN But I just wondered if that
was fictional or real.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, it's it's sort of a fictionalized version of the
San Andreas. It's interesting that I don't know why.
Speaker 9 (11:22):
They used use THET but.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
They made it up. So's it's a make them up
and I you know that that's all right. It works
very well. It's pretty obvious what's going on. They show
maps this.
Speaker 7 (11:34):
I mean from a technology perspective, my presumption is many
of the things they were talking about make logical sense,
Like the way they're doing the sensors, they're sending information
back to the USGS over a microwave. Then it's got
computers talking to each other.
Speaker 9 (11:52):
This would be the day.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
It was a legit. It was extraordinarily high tech for
the day.
Speaker 7 (11:59):
Like I mean, you know, we never got to the
world so far of bionics like they have in the show,
which come out of cybernetics.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Uh, this idea of melding machines and humans.
Speaker 7 (12:09):
But you know, it's a lot of this technology is real,
Like we use network censors now in real life all
the time, and to share that information.
Speaker 9 (12:17):
Well, speaking of that, just watching the credits, so that
this was adapted from a story called Cyborg.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yeah, so Cyborg is the original novel that the series
is based on.
Speaker 9 (12:33):
The entire series, right, yeah, specific one, and.
Speaker 7 (12:36):
It uses like Oscar Goldman and Steve Austin the real
the names of the characters in the book.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
A lot of things change.
Speaker 7 (12:42):
I mean, he's much more human looking in the TV
show and apparently, you know, when he punches people.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
In the book, his cybernetic arm.
Speaker 7 (12:48):
Will just kill people because it's you know, and but
here they've they made it more gentle. He's got more
superpowers like jumping, and in his eye. In the book,
the eyes like a camera, but he can't see out
of it, But here they've got it tied into his
nervous system, so all those special features.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
He doesn't have to take his eye out well and
put it onto a USB for.
Speaker 9 (13:09):
Well. So Steve Austin then, does he have a background
in seismology or they just kind of have him going
out doing field work on all these kinds of things
and just picking out well.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
So he works for this group called the OSI, and
they are involved in all kinds of scientific insecurity endeavors.
They're not the CIA, they're not the NSA, they're not
the FBI, but they do all kinds of special projects
around you know, high tech, high risk, sometimes spying, sometimes
you know, stopping bad agents, all kinds of adventures. But yeah,
(13:44):
it does seem a little bit out of his office
character sheet for him to suddenly just tell you all
about geology and what they're doing on this project, except
that he's friends with the two geologists behind this program.
So there are married couple of geologists and this is
their big project. So I assume they have grant money.
(14:05):
And then yeah, that we actually see them for just
a second, because boy, don't they seem weirdly aggressively horny
and science.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
See at the same.
Speaker 9 (14:18):
Time, they kind of made an allusion to second honeymoon
or something. Yeah, yeah, so I don't know how recently
they were married, but I thought he seemed a bit
older than her, but he does.
Speaker 7 (14:29):
Yeah the actually yeah, yeah, but but boy, they're they're
into it, but they they are staying focused on the science.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And then then they the Steve she is, yeah, she
she keeps him on task exactly. Steve and Oscar go
and land at a base.
Speaker 7 (14:47):
Camp, which is interestingly a mix of civilians and what
look like military personnel, which is kind of funny for.
Speaker 9 (14:54):
A uh oh yeah vibes.
Speaker 7 (14:56):
Yeah yeah, including some footage of some Vietnam are helicopters
they've taken there for some reason, which would era for
them is like you know, three years ago.
Speaker 9 (15:07):
Yeah, but news. Yeah.
Speaker 7 (15:11):
And then they meet another geologist named Tom Raintree, who's
a Native American scientist.
Speaker 9 (15:18):
Yes you can tell by his necklace.
Speaker 7 (15:21):
Yes, he has that sort of uh it looks you know,
very tribal or you know, Native American athist.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
He did in some way it really.
Speaker 7 (15:30):
Struck me like immediately that I guess if this had
aired today, there would be people who would complain this
show is too woke, you know, because he says he
says very distinctly Native American, and Raintree is like, yes,
full blooded and proud of it. And but yet, but yet,
Raintree is presented as a scientist and a clear thinker.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
He does not panic.
Speaker 9 (15:52):
It's a bit of a tracker. I think that he's
got that kind of I don't know that allusion to
he has this this kind of almost paranormal ability.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
In our fens writing with magical Native American ideas here.
Speaker 9 (16:04):
Yeah, they are like the mysticism, but also Steve kind
of makes some comment about oh, you're a real Native,
huh yeah, And so I think that there'd be people
who would complain about that too. Well today, they would
from both ends, people saying it's too woken, people saying
it's not considerate enough.
Speaker 7 (16:22):
Why this is significant historically is because this is three
years after the famous incident where Marlon Brando refused his
oscar and he sent a woman named Sashine or Sashine
Little Feather in his place, and basically you called out
(16:42):
Hollywood for constantly stereotyping Native Americans. And also that same
year there was this indigenous rights activism which led to
a lot of skirmishes between you know, the federal government
and the Bureau, the Indie Bureau, and the media was there,
and there was this big incident at a place called
(17:04):
Wounded me which was being occupied, and so this push
for better rights for Indigenous people and for representation to
be improved was really in the cultural mind.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
At the time.
Speaker 9 (17:17):
So I feel like interesting, I think.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
For the time, I think it does a good job.
Speaker 7 (17:21):
I don't know how it was received within the Native
American communities, but I liked it.
Speaker 9 (17:28):
You know, it was good that they were trying. And
I didn't know that about Malon Brando. I mean he
was a mixed bag.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Was well he was Well, it's even more complicated because
so she a little feather.
Speaker 7 (17:37):
She just passed away a couple of years ago, and
right after she died, her sisters came out and said, oh,
by the way, she's not a Native American, she's a
big phony.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
And it's like, well, what do you do with that?
Speaker 7 (17:49):
You know, when someone works really hard for representation, but
maybe they were there for their ego, or maybe they
misunderstood who they were or you.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Know, like, I don't know, it's complicated.
Speaker 9 (18:01):
That's difficult to comment on. Just immediately makes me think
of Misclear, even though that's an entirely different thing.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Back to the plot, So, so they go over what
they're going to be doing in this episode.
Speaker 7 (18:12):
They are their whole point is they're going to be
planning that these seismograph sensors, are these geological sensors all
over this rural area because it's associated with a supplementary
fall line that plugs into this made up when the
Sam Madrian or Madrian and the two geologists are out
(18:32):
there thirty or forty miles they say, from the nearest person,
So I assume that includes or it should include this,
this base camp, but it can't because that I don't know.
I don't know how close it is or how far
they fly to it by helicopter at some point, you know,
they're not driving over there, so it must be pretty
far away.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
So maybe they're right. I don't know.
Speaker 7 (18:51):
But we suddenly see, like if this were a monster movie,
it kind of is. You suddenly see Bigfoot vision and
the monster is observing these these two and he suddenly
comes out of the trees in this amazing lens flare
covered shot, so he's partially obscured for a lot of
this episode. But he growls, and of course Marlene gets
(19:12):
on the radio and so Steve Austin is listening, and
here's her screaming, Oh, it's good.
Speaker 9 (19:16):
Stuff to see him that first time. Does he bigfoot?
He looks like he had kind of zombie features with
his eyes, and then at the same time when he
opens his mouth, it looked more like a vampire with
those teeth.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Yeah, he's had big fangs.
Speaker 9 (19:31):
Yeah, yeah, So he was a bit of a mash up.
But then as he got closer, I thought Jerry Garcia.
Speaker 7 (19:37):
Ah, yeah, that's Andre the Giant playing Bigfoot in this episode.
Speaker 9 (19:43):
Was saying, Oh, that's Andrea the Giant. He was a wrestler, exactly.
He's a wrestler. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
No, no, he's passed away, but yeah, he's a wrestler
and an actor. You probably would know.
Speaker 7 (19:54):
Him best from The Princess Bride, where he and I
have not seen that. No, you're fired, that's inconceivable, Karen.
I just made a bunch of I just made a
bunch of people laugh.
Speaker 9 (20:07):
But I'm surprised that you had seen it.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Oh my gosh, I love The Princess Bride is fantastic.
Speaker 9 (20:14):
Yeah, I seen it.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
It came out like in eighty seven. I saw it
with myself. I just loved it.
Speaker 7 (20:21):
It is a fantastic It's based on a William Goldman story,
which is really funny because it's like The Prince's Bride
as a book, but it's.
Speaker 11 (20:30):
Like the.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Edited version cutting out all the boring parts.
Speaker 7 (20:34):
So it's like William Goldman pretending he's retelling his favorite book,
but he's skipping all the parts that suck, and it's
just just an extraordinary book.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
And then in the movie they have it with a
framing story where it's it's.
Speaker 7 (20:47):
Peter Falk telling a story to his grandson and it
keeps hopping back and forth to them, the kid rejecting
the whole idea of the story, yet falling into love
with the story.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
No, you will not live. You will not waste your time.
If you watch that movie, it is a joy.
Speaker 9 (21:03):
It's so good about thirty behind, thirty years behind on
pop culture. So I think I'm right on track to
watch it.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
So yeah, I mean we're doing this in the right order.
Speaker 7 (21:11):
You get, you get your big foot Steve austin In first,
and then you watch the Prince's breadth.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
That's right, Steve Austin.
Speaker 11 (21:23):
On Mars your Radio Signals week, the new six million
Dollar Man with Bionic Grip and new Mission Tomar's Adventure
set sold separately.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Use this bionic guy. The radio tower fell, We'll fix
it using his bionic grip. Careful, Steve grip it hold
on Mission accomplished.
Speaker 11 (21:45):
Kenner's New six million Dollar Man with Bionic Grip. Mission
Tomar's Adventure set sold separately.
Speaker 7 (21:58):
So the search party is out looking for the missing geologists.
They know that they've been something Bad's happened, and so
what do they find? But this gigantic track.
Speaker 9 (22:12):
Just one but there's no mud or anything else around there.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
It says a lot. Now, I now you make a
good point.
Speaker 7 (22:20):
If I were writing like an IMDb, you know, gaffs
or continuity areas or something like, he's standing on normal soil,
why would he make that big of a footprint. But remember,
what we're later going to discover is this is not
a normal bigfoot. This is a mechanically enhanced bigfoot, and
he may very well weigh way more than a normal bigfoot.
(22:40):
Whatever that is exactly there is a normal big exactly
A lot. We'll have a lot more questions about that
by the.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Time, a lot more so so that footprint that they show.
Speaker 7 (22:53):
Multiple sources say that that is actually Andre the Giant's
footprint slightly enhanced, like they made the heel a little bigger,
so that when they did their plaster cast later in
the episode, it'll look more like a big footprint.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
But I don't know if that's true or not, but
it seems completely plausible.
Speaker 9 (23:10):
Yeah, yeah, I just thought it was interesting that it
was just kind of dry grass all around and then
this big, muddy footprint in the middle just is it is.
Speaker 7 (23:19):
But the dialogue here is so laughable because I feel
so bad because Oscar Goldman is like, they're looking at
a giant human shaped footprint, and Oscar Goldman is like,
what is.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
It, Mountain Lion? Is this your first day out? Like
if you're if you're never.
Speaker 9 (23:41):
The office line's backside. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
So there's a little speculation.
Speaker 7 (23:46):
But then Tom Raintree is like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Now,
this is definitely a Bigfoot.
Speaker 9 (23:52):
He's the expert that's too big.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
What do you think a huge grizzly Tom?
Speaker 3 (23:57):
No, no, not a cat, not a christ What is it?
There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a
track like this, a creature of legend that roams the
timber line. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him Bigfoot.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
So I guess the next thing we should hop into.
Speaker 7 (24:22):
We get the first viewing of the sort of antagonists
in this episode, which.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Really is a Bigfoot.
Speaker 9 (24:30):
It's really strange, it really does.
Speaker 7 (24:34):
We see this weird hexagonal viewscreen which much like Star Trek,
and there's a lot of little connections to Star Trek
in here.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
What's like Star Trek yes, you can see.
Speaker 7 (24:45):
This thing can show you footage from anywhere, like they're
hoping all over the viewpoints. They can get audio must yeah,
the past. They can read minds. It's some very advanced technology.
Speaker 9 (25:00):
We need one of those.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Yeah, they're doing that thing where they don't give you
clear footage of what's going on.
Speaker 7 (25:06):
We're in part one of a two parts shadowy, blurry, hazy.
Uh you know, yes, yeah, like Bigfoot. I mean yes,
even as we should be normally. Uh but yeah, there's
like the walls are glowing. There's clear indications that something's
(25:27):
unusual about this, and yet there's also indications through underground. Yes, yeah,
so there's some kind of subterranean base.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Of some sort.
Speaker 7 (25:38):
Uh yeah, but we we aren't really understand. We don't
know why what's going on with that? And then again
we've we have already seen uh Steve do his first
bionic move. Now, remember nobody's supposed to know he's bionic.
So when when he's alone, he can do all kinds.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Of super things.
Speaker 7 (25:55):
But if he's out in front of other people, he's
a top secret technology himself.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
He's not supposed to sort of demonstrate his power.
Speaker 9 (26:03):
So oh I didn't know that, so like Bewitched.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, he's he's a little bit.
Speaker 7 (26:07):
He's a little bit like the Uh that would be
a vulgar display from Yeah, well I was gonna say
from the Exorcist, But you're right, Samantha two exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Yes, same trope. It's the same trope. I have extraordinary powers,
but I have to keep it to myself.
Speaker 7 (26:20):
So he's showing off like crazy out here. He jumps
thirty feet up into a tree, and the aliens are watching,
and we well, I'll just spoilers. They're aliens, uh, but
oh my god, they are so into this. This is
like the greatest thing they've ever seen. They're basically watching
a whole movie.
Speaker 9 (26:39):
The woman, what kind of being jumps thirty feet straight up?
Speaker 14 (26:44):
It must slur him on and find out more about
it this idea. He may I also have some information
about those senses. Oh right, let's give him some fate.
Speaker 9 (26:57):
She's paying particular attention.
Speaker 7 (26:59):
Yeah, she really, really really seems entertained by this and
will find out why. Although that works on multiple levels.
But we also get some bigfoot antics as well, but
mostly bionic stuff here.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
But we hear bigfoot roar, and that is one of
those it's iconic.
Speaker 7 (27:22):
They don't use like the Sierra sounds here, but the
roar that they use is solid indicator that whatever's going
on out there.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Is not a normal American animal. Where is she stay?
Speaker 8 (27:37):
I don't know.
Speaker 7 (27:43):
Goldman is heading up this search to find these missing geologists.
They do mention that he's interested in finding them, but
he's also wants to get those sensors back because they
too are a classified technology.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Which brings us to Tom showing back up.
Speaker 7 (28:02):
And now he somehow he's taken the time to make
a plaster cast of this bigfoot footprint that they showed earlier.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
And again this.
Speaker 7 (28:10):
Cast becomes important in other properties because it gets moved
around as a reused set item in other fictional properties.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
But it's allegedly really Andre's foot, so that's kind of cool.
Speaker 9 (28:24):
Yeah, good trivia.
Speaker 7 (28:25):
Yeah, And this is also where Tom tells his story
about his grandfather. When he was a kid, his grandfather
told him that one day his great a story within
a story, his grandfather had met a guy who had
been missing, and when they found him, he had seen
the Sasquatch and it completely changed him forever. And then
later on he sees a guy who's seen the Sasquatch.
(28:47):
It's like it is just as my grandfather said. And
I'm like, well, that's a that's a very detailed story.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
He must have told you.
Speaker 7 (28:56):
Bigfoot suddenly comes into the sort of milliterized geology camp
and just starts knocking over everything and like just blowing
stuff up and you know, tearing equipment apart. Yep, very
well said that is exactly the right word.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
But I guess I don't.
Speaker 7 (29:19):
So, you know, it's a TV show, right. Some of
these stunts that Lee Majors does, he does himself, like
you could. There's a point where he like jumps over
a big rock and probably falls, you know, six or
eight feet, lands on his feet. That's that's Lee Majors.
I mean, I look at that right now, and I'm wondering,
how are his knees doing it? Because I haven't done
anything like that, and my knees are killing me in
(29:40):
my fifties, you know. And he's like eighty two now,
So I just I hope he's doing okay. But holy
cow that he tacks his body for the show. But
so did Andre, although it might not be Andre. So
here's the thing, because Andrea's wearing a suit. We can't
tell in the dark whether it's really Andre doing these stunts,
which he would have been well equipped to do as
a wrestler. They know how to do this kind of stuff.
(30:02):
But it could have also been a stunt man. And
because it shot at night, you wouldn't have seen that
the scale's wrong, because good lord, maybe they did not
have a stuntman besides of Andre the Giant.
Speaker 9 (30:13):
Yeah, well, I want to say too. I remember there
was a scene where Steve bowlds back and just onto
on a shrubbery or something, and Matt said, oh, did
you say that that was someone else? That wasn't him?
And so we eat it and watched it again. So yeah,
it's it's very likely they might have had someone else
had pots anyway.
Speaker 7 (30:32):
Yeah, it's amusing because later on Lee Majors goes on
to star na show about stuntman called the fall Guy.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Man.
Speaker 9 (30:41):
Oh that's a good name.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Yeah, they just did it. They just made a movie
version of it with Ryan Gosling. But Ryan Gosling is
no Lee Majors.
Speaker 7 (30:51):
But it was like he was a stuntman who also
did bounty hunting because it's hard to make money as
a stuntman all the time. You can't be acting all
the time, so he just huh exactly. So it's pretty funny. Anyway,
let's get back to this this.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Plot here here up to the Army is going to
report to to to gold.
Speaker 7 (31:11):
Oscar Goldman in Steve Austin that the camp was attacked.
They're out looking for Marlene and the report says we
didn't see anything, but also some people were reporting it
was a giant beast and like Steve Boss is like
a giant beast, go on, right?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Then Steve uses his.
Speaker 7 (31:31):
Bionic powers to look for Marlene and it was really cool.
But this is so funny because Kathleen, my wife, was like,
why did people think this was good?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
I'm like, shut up, this is really good.
Speaker 9 (31:45):
But that sounds like some of the comments. IM, that's it.
Will You've got to think of the time and there
were a lot of kids were really controlled by this
and inspired by this.
Speaker 7 (31:54):
So oh, oh my god, Karen, if you if you could,
like if you could take a time machine you're your
own and go back at time and look at playgrounds.
When this show was on, all the boys are running
around a slow motion going no no, no, no, no no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 9 (32:11):
Hearing that as a kid, I guess with repeats that
they had, but I was saying that he was he
was Matt Austin.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Yeah, that's hilarious.
Speaker 7 (32:21):
But while Steve's out running around, he finally runs into
Andre excuse me, Bigfoot for the first time. And this
is such an iconic scene. I will try to get
together Samana Madey Gifts to put into the show notes
because there's several moments in here that are just really stunning.
John's a big dude, like whenever they're together. Steve Austin
(32:42):
looks like a tiny guy, and I think think Lee
majors Is.
Speaker 9 (32:44):
He was pretty big too.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Yeah, Roder and the jackt could throw him around like
a doll. It was amazing.
Speaker 9 (32:50):
So yeah, it was a good choice for Bigfoot for sure.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Yeah, so you do that close up of Bigfoot's eyes.
Then they cut to a commercial.
Speaker 8 (33:00):
Colonel Steve Austin, the six million dollar Man and the
new bionic transport.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
And repair station. It's crashing.
Speaker 15 (33:07):
Put him in the buyer repair station.
Speaker 11 (33:09):
We can rebuild them, well, replace the modules in the
biotic garden.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Go joy here.
Speaker 15 (33:15):
We'll have to check this side.
Speaker 11 (33:17):
Buyer on a guy Hey, okay, sixty dollar Man ready.
Speaker 8 (33:21):
Crashing new bionic transport and repair station sold separately the
six million dollar Man new from Kenneron.
Speaker 7 (33:38):
So Steve Austin faced with Bigfoot. I absolutely, I'm gonna
have to put a clip in here.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I love this. It's so funny. And you understand me?
Are you a man.
Speaker 8 (33:53):
Now?
Speaker 2 (33:53):
I never heard it? Ask se. He's very open minded
about this hairy fellow, you know.
Speaker 7 (34:00):
So in the in the aliens are watching all this
and they start they literally start talking about placing bets
on who's going to win this fight between these two creatures.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Yeah, and again, this is my first time to revisit
the show since I was a kid.
Speaker 7 (34:15):
I cannot frigging believe the sound effects they used because
every time Steve Austin gets thrown, they play missiles flying
through the air sound effects.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
It's like like you can sound an incoming missile. But
what in the world?
Speaker 9 (34:40):
It just sounded cool, it really did.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
I mean, I mean I loved it when I was
a kid. I mean, what can you say? So, So
here's what happens next. Steve, Steve in the fight, pulls
Bigfoot's arm off of.
Speaker 7 (34:55):
Him, which I mean, you know, he's he's pacifist, but
he did disarm his foe.
Speaker 9 (35:03):
And you know, I was thinking the Black Knight from
Monty Python. Yeah, holy grail.
Speaker 5 (35:10):
Yeah, now stand aside Worth, the adversary is but a scratch,
a scratch your arms off?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Now it isn't. But what's that then, shoe come on
you pansy.
Speaker 9 (35:25):
Fish wound.
Speaker 7 (35:26):
It's so it's so cool because Bigfoot like looks at
his arms, like he picks up.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
He's like, I gotta go to tech support runs.
Speaker 9 (35:34):
But Matt saw of I guess Andrea's arm in the
kind of tucked into the suit.
Speaker 7 (35:41):
Yes, yes, it's really hard to hide something that enormous,
even if it's just been tucked inside exactly. Yeah, you
also see wires hanging out of it, which is the
first indicator that this is. This may be Bigfoot, but
it's either also bionic or he's some kind of robot.
By the way, either one of those possibilities as possible
(36:01):
given the previous episodes of the show. So there's bionics,
but there's also evil robot makers who are trying to
replace humans for various plot purposes.
Speaker 9 (36:10):
So yeah, gotta be careful.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Remember, have you seen the Austin Powers movies.
Speaker 9 (36:14):
Yes I have.
Speaker 7 (36:15):
Remember this is the second one where they had the fembots. Yes, yeah,
well those come from this show. I mean that they
they have male they have man bots and fembots.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, so well there you go. Interesting, pretty crazy.
Speaker 9 (36:30):
I didn't know that because I hadn't seen this.
Speaker 7 (36:32):
So yeah, yeah, we're really helping our audience get some
foundational American culture here in addition to Big Foo culture.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
So what happens here?
Speaker 7 (36:41):
Austin follows Bigfoots tracks, which are extremely easy to follow,
and it leads into a cave and uh, inside the cave,
they've hidden the interest behind a rock wall. Steve Austin
uses his bionic eye and spots the cave interest and
just crushes the stone with his bare hands and pulls
(37:03):
it off and reveals the doorway to the.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Secret alien base, which is pretty impressive. Yeah, and so
he's going in and looking around. There's some classic sound effects.
Speaker 7 (37:13):
You've got these this cool dark sets with weird you know,
it looks like now I say, led lighting, but it's
very everything's kind of mysterious and glowy and shadowy. But
there's this moment where they find this passageway that goes
through a long tube and there's a flat platform and
(37:34):
then the around it is a rotating tube with very
disorientating uh sort of visuals.
Speaker 9 (37:40):
And yes, that was playing havoc with my vestibular issues. Yes,
it also kind of reminded me of those viewing platforms
when you go to an aquarium and you can see
you know, the shocks, oh yeah, yeah, other creatures, and
it has that kind of disorienting.
Speaker 7 (37:56):
Well, I know there's a there's a sort of science
museum in Pigeon Forge that has one of these. When
you walk in and they're like, you're about to pass
through this tunnel. If you have you know, if your
pone to dizzyness, if they give you a big list
of warnings, then you could basically walk around and just
go through door to get to the other part.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
But it is, it's very dis warning and even in this,
even in TV, this thing messes with me. It's astonishingly effective.
Speaker 9 (38:23):
It doesn't. My tendency in situations like that is to
look at the floor.
Speaker 11 (38:26):
Yep.
Speaker 9 (38:26):
And if you looked at the floor, they kind of
cheaked down. I don't know if you saw they had.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
I sure did.
Speaker 7 (38:31):
Yeah. Later later on they had like when they're hauling
Steve Austin through it, and they're all the actors are
like looking at Steve Austin.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Not the walls.
Speaker 8 (38:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (38:43):
The following bit of internet scholarship comes from no less
authoritative source than the Bionic Fandom website. For this episode,
a unique set was utilized a rotating ice tunnel. At
the time, it was a brand new addition to the
Universal Studios tour call called the Glacier Avalanche, and was
inspired by the Clint Eastwood picture The Eiger Sanction. It
(39:07):
remained an integral part of the tour for over twenty
years and could be glimpsed in the eighteen episode Steel
the Night Writer episode Fright Night in the nineteen eighty
five movie Misfits of Science. In nineteen ninety seven, the
ice tunnel was renovated to become the Dante's Peak Volcano,
and again in two thousand and one to tie him
(39:28):
with the Universal's The Mummy film franchise. It then became
part of a tomb the tour passed through. It now
has a tan color service with no backlighting. Kenneth Johnson
in the DVD featurette The Search for Bigfoot, recalls that
he incorporated the ice tunnel into his script and had
to convince a dubious studio official that the ice tunnel
(39:49):
wouldn't need to be built from scratch, as it already
existed on the studio tour, so they.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Didn't have to build it for this show.
Speaker 7 (39:59):
And it was how they were able to get the
budget cheaper because one of the many things, yeah, they
used that, they used stock footage.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Here and there.
Speaker 7 (40:07):
They do a lot of things to save money on
this episode. Yeah, I mean it does not come across
as cheap.
Speaker 9 (40:13):
Oh no, no, I think just the way they did
the floor or but I don't think everyone would notice it.
But it's one of those things where I'm trained to
just look down.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Oh yeah, yeah, no, it's definitely your feet are your
friends in that kind.
Speaker 9 (40:25):
Of scenario, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 7 (40:27):
And then here's where that weird Jamie Summers interjection. She's
the bionic woman, which you would have known at the
time because boy, they were advertising the hell out of it,
But she really has nothing to do with this episode
except to remind you, Hey, if this is your first
time to watch this show, there's another bionic person and
they're a lady kick it out.
Speaker 9 (40:44):
Yeah, So yeah, well a role model for girls.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
But absolutely, yeah, she really was. I mean, you know,
I mean I think so.
Speaker 7 (40:55):
I think boys continued to watch this show even though
they made a show about girls that It's different if
you look at the like he Man, which was in
the eighties, when they added shera Princess in Powers, Princess
of Power, it kind of cut down on he Man's
popularity because all of a sudden there was this powerful
girl with her own show.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
It's like, oh, man, I thought we thought we I
thought we were cool. No, no, but we were cool though. Yeah.
Speaker 9 (41:20):
But anyway, when they did show her, we thought, oh,
she's going to make an appearance. She's going to swoop
in and save everyone. But no, I guess it was
just a nod to her show.
Speaker 7 (41:28):
It was because Oscar's like, no, we don't need you,
and she like that's really if you watch that show,
she's always ignoring him and doing stuff anyway, but like
in this show's like, okay, it's like she.
Speaker 9 (41:38):
Seemed offended, So yeah, she's going to turn up.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
And she totally should have. There's no reason she except
I guess that's not how I mean.
Speaker 7 (41:47):
It was like probably an insert shot off at a
different because they it's a phone call, so they didn't
even have to shoot at the same.
Speaker 9 (41:52):
Time, right, So we're going to mention her again in
a minute with that other scene.
Speaker 7 (41:56):
After recording the sery with Karen, I went and listened
to this borg podcast coverage of these two episodes of
The six Million Dollars Man. It's a very informed, very
funny podcast. I really enjoyed listening to it. I don't
think I would do the whole series, but I really
enjoyed this. And they mentioned that this footage actually comes
from a specific episode of Biotic Woman and a scene
(42:19):
that was cut, and so they were able to basically
use that existing footage of Jamie talking on the phone
and intercut it with Oscar in this episode to make
it seem like it was relevant to hear. So this
is not the only time we're going to see her.
She's going to show up again in part two, but
also in footage that's not actually shot for this show.
(42:39):
What is revealed here is that this is an alien
base and they capture Steve Austin. They put a little
thing on his head that paralyzes him, and then they
proceed to talk.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Don't they talk? Like he ain't there, and he.
Speaker 7 (42:56):
Can he's clearly listening and watching, but they put him
through all these rigorous tests. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it really
is like it's like a like an alien abduction dream.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
It really is. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 12 (43:11):
I didn't the communion, no, thankfully, but I they show
a scene with him, like his shirt kind of appears
and disappears throughout the series, some continuity problems, but when.
Speaker 7 (43:22):
His shirt's off, I couldn't help but think, Oh, look
it's Steve Austin, a man Haraily alive.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
He is a Harry dude.
Speaker 9 (43:34):
Yeah. I didn't pay too much attention, but yeah.
Speaker 7 (43:37):
But she is the woman alien here is named Chelan,
there's Fallon and Shalon, I guess. And she's played by
uh just super megastar beauty Stephanie Powers, who is probably
best known because she played the spouse Jennifer Hart alongside
(43:57):
Robert Wagner in that TV show Heart to Heart, which
would not premiere for a few more years.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
That was seventy nine when it came out.
Speaker 9 (44:03):
Oh okay, so this predated that.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Okay, right, Her hair is a lot better. Look, this
is like she got a big old I don't know
if that's a weird.
Speaker 7 (44:11):
I hope, I hope it was a weird, because it's enormous,
Like she looks like her head's like really tiny with
this giant wig thing on. And just for the record,
she's about thirty four here, she's eighty two now, still alive.
Lee Majors is about three years older Lee Majors. By
the way, Stephanie last I think she was last.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Working on like twenty twenty one. Lee Majors was working
like really recently.
Speaker 9 (44:36):
That's impressive, that's cool.
Speaker 7 (44:37):
I would be remissing my duties as a horror fan
if I didn't mention that. In the TV show Ash
Versus the Evil Dead, which spins off of Sam Raimi's
Evil Dead series, Ash's father is played by is a
character named Brock Williams, and he's played by Lee Majors,
which is really funny. Brock Williams is a funny name
because Brock's kind of unusual. And in the TV you know,
(45:00):
The Venture Brothers, there's a character named Brock Sampson who
there's an episode where he encounters Steve Austin and the Bigfoot,
who are now living as a romantic couple out in
the wilderness.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
And I got you guys something too.
Speaker 11 (45:14):
I'm afraid art therapy isn't really my bag, but the
least I can do to thank you for all your help.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
It's beautiful, well cherish.
Speaker 11 (45:22):
It always send me a postcard if I make it,
and you stay away from those campers.
Speaker 8 (45:28):
Huh.
Speaker 11 (45:28):
I don't want to see you on YouTube again.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
I'll put a link to that in the show notes.
It's extremely funny.
Speaker 9 (45:33):
It all comes together.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Everything's connected, man, It's all connected.
Speaker 7 (45:37):
So, but you know, when I was a kid, I
did not want to see Steve Austin in this puppy
dough ied alien romancing each other. They keep sizing each
other up. I swear to god, They're like eating each
other up with their eyes. It's so it's so over
the top, and I just I wanted bigfoots.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Yeah exactly, it was Ikey. It was Ikey. So she
uses her tech to examine him very thoroughly. Yeah, she does.
Speaker 9 (46:07):
That was unprofessional for an alien.
Speaker 7 (46:09):
Yeah, he's paralyzed alliens and gives him a big old smooch,
and I'm like, hey, uh, I don't If that was
gender reversed, a lot of people would be very upset.
Speaker 9 (46:33):
It was unethical.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
She really wants, it really wants. She's going to lose
her alien medicine license at this rate.
Speaker 7 (46:40):
And then we cut back to the Geological Survey folks,
and that's when we get this hell of a cliffhanger,
because they reveal that an incredibly devastating earthquake is going
to hit San Francisco and devastate San Francisco all the
way down to San Diego.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
The Geological Service made computers confirm our findings. The census
predict a major quake along the Sand Madrian within fifteen hours.
Speaker 5 (47:05):
The whole fault all the way down the coast, all the.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
Way down San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, a holocaust.
Speaker 15 (47:16):
The computer also came up with something else. There may
be a way to weaken or actually prevent that major quake,
prevent it. Maybe the sensor showed that if an earlier
quake could be triggered along the smaller tributary fault, it
might relieve sufficient pressure from the Sand Madrian.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
Perhaps an explosion.
Speaker 6 (47:36):
Tom what if we brought in an underground nuclear device
that could trigger an earlier quake along the smaller fault.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
I think that might work, all right, Get.
Speaker 6 (47:45):
Out call a Penticon use our top priority coachs no
white And one more thing, What smaller fault do you
want to explode?
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Tom DeAngelo?
Speaker 15 (47:54):
The one that starts right here and runs back into
the mountains.
Speaker 4 (47:58):
What Marlene Becky is in those matters?
Speaker 8 (48:01):
And so I was kind of.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
Lost on it, Oscar, there's not much time.
Speaker 15 (48:06):
Do I have your authorization to order up that nuclear device?
Speaker 8 (48:09):
Go ahead?
Speaker 3 (48:13):
This is geologic survey based on Angelo. Patch me through
to the Pentagon comm link.
Speaker 4 (48:21):
Steve, where are you.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Again?
Speaker 7 (48:42):
My argument is that this is one of the most
influential pieces of fiction to impact the the sort of
air quote fact based world of Bigfoot. I mean, it
was just it basically created a generation of kids who
would go on to expect that the woods had Bigfoot
in him.
Speaker 6 (49:02):
Right.
Speaker 9 (49:02):
I just want to say this. I was on Facebook
group for monster Talk. Someone posted a cartoon and it
says at the bottom, well, that certainly clears up by
we find very little of their scats. And if you
look at the picture, you've got the woods and a
couple of kids just peering through trees, and there's an
enormous bigfoot and he is being walked. He's got a
(49:24):
leash and He's been walked on a leash by an alien.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Really, it is very funny. That's rue.
Speaker 5 (49:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (49:33):
Well, the other thing I wanted to say is this
idea of alien, super intelligent, inscrutable entities living inside a
mountain in California is not created by the writer of
this episode. This has to be an allusion to all
(49:55):
the paranormal stories about Mount Shasta. He's basically mashing up
the Melt Shasta, which was really becoming quite popular in
pop culture at the time in the New Age world.
And also the third thing is the episode talks about earthquakes,
and earthquakes were on everybody's mind in the seventies, so
(50:17):
there was an earthquake movie.
Speaker 13 (50:21):
Universal has given Earthquake its maximum effort, starting with a
story on screenplay written by George Fox and Mario Puzzo,
author of The Godfather, Universal has enriched this fascinating drama
of interwoven lives with a superb cast.
Speaker 5 (50:34):
Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, George Kennedy, Lauren Green, Geneviev Boujold,
Richard Roundree, mar Joe Gordner, Barry Sullivan, plus the city
of Los Angeles.
Speaker 7 (50:47):
He's really grabbing all this real zeitgeist material to make
this hybridized, syncretized fictional narrative, and boy, I just don't
think you can overstate how influencialll But we will talk
more about that.
Speaker 9 (51:01):
In part two, Really jam packed monster.
Speaker 7 (51:05):
You've been listening to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters.
I'm Blake Smith and I'm Karen Stoltner. You just heard
the first of our two part series covering the six
million dollar episodes titled The Secret of Bigfoot.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
Tune in next week for part two.
Speaker 7 (51:22):
This is a special hybrid presentation, but patrons get extended
coverage and no modern commercials. Thanks to our patrons for
providing the financial support that truly makes this show possible.
We love making Monster Talk, but the reality is we
couldn't afford to do it without the financial support of
our backers. Monster Talk's theme music is by Pete Stealing Monkeys.
(51:44):
Stay tuned for next week when we'll hear shell On say,
I don't seem to have the proper instrument.
Speaker 9 (51:51):
I need one like this, only curved.
Speaker 4 (51:53):
I suppose you want to unassik and as garments too.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Of course, Kah, this has been a Monster House presentation
That's where the two geologic plates meet. It's one of
(00:02):
the largest and longest fault lines in the world, the.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
San Madrian Fault. That's really impressive, pretty powerful.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
It's been responsible for most of the major earthquakes in California,
including San Francisco in nineteen six. Our geologist friends Ivan
and Marlene Becky have already planted twenty two of their
new earthquakes.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Since there's all along the San Madrian, we're Marlene and
Ivan there now. Yeah, they're working along the Angelo.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
That's a tributary fault line about sixty miles from our
base camp.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
It's really fast.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Has anybody lived down there, Steve, No, except for Ivan
and Marlene. It's completely uninhabited.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
What do you think a huge grizzly town.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
No, No, not a cat, not a grisly No, what
is it? There's only one thing in the mountains that
leaves a tract like this. The creature of legend that
roams the timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call
him Bigfoot?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Do you still think bigfoots a hoax?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I don't know what to think.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Well, I'll tell you what I think.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I think these tracks lead to Marlene Becky.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Where else do they lead Steve? Where else?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
There's only one way to find out. Ducks good a
run Roger maybe at art foote On Okay, the girt.
Speaker 5 (01:21):
Landing rocket arm pudget On, Here come Donald duget breakers in.
Speaker 6 (01:25):
We have Submary In Barton out mort and they're on
coming born with Besides.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Nick looks good right, I'm gonna blow out number.
Speaker 7 (01:33):
Three, get your out again to direction.
Speaker 8 (01:37):
Alcohol is off track, collectors and margin bla colic can't
hold you breaking up.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Break Steve Austin astronaut, a man barely alive, gentlemen, we
can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the
(02:03):
capability to make the world's first bionic man.
Speaker 7 (02:17):
As I recently hinted to our Patreon supporters, I'm trying
to get back into recording the special podcast within a
podcast I call big Footage.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
It's a show that drills down into important encryptid theme media.
So far, I've mostly focused on bigfoot.
Speaker 7 (02:31):
In YETI theme films, but I certainly plan to get
into lakes and jungles for more diversity. Of course, patrons
will be able to unlock that content earlier in most cases,
but kicking the rust off this series and getting back
into the ring. I decided to make this one open
to the public. We're covering the two parter from season
three of ABC series The Six Million Dollar Man, titled
(02:53):
The Secret of Bigfoot. We'll get more into why this
was such a powerfully influential show in part two, but
check the show notes for lots of links to help
give this context to its time and importance. The writing
in this show hints that the paranormal and mystical legends
of Mount Shasta, the classic Bigfoot sightings of the nineteen fifties,
the Native American legend angle, and the paranormal elements of
(03:16):
aliens that are probably best known from the work of
researcher Stan Gordon in the Pennsylvania wave of cryptids and
UFOs that were especially notable in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
The format here is a little different from a regular
monster Talk episode, but let's dive in.
Speaker 7 (03:32):
So, Karen, I think I'm not sure, but I think
this is the first time we've tried to do one
of these big footage episodes together, and I'm excited about.
Speaker 9 (03:40):
It may too and rather daunted at the same time.
Speaker 7 (03:45):
Because this is I think maybe one of the most
important documents in Bigfooting outside of the Parison Gimblin film,
which sounds ridiculous, but I'm going to make a case.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
That this is really important.
Speaker 9 (04:00):
Yeah, I think it's an interesting fine and I think
you can back it up with twenty three pages of notes.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Is Yeah, this is a little more than we normally do.
Speaker 7 (04:12):
But when I'm working so loo, I get really obsessed
with trying to get all the information in there. We'll
see how we do. So we're talking today about the
two part special. It wasn't It was just released normally
within the context of the TV series The Six Million
Dollar Man. But this the two part show, The Secret
of Bigfoot, and this was aired in nineteen seventy six.
(04:36):
February of nineteen seventy six, that was America's by centennial.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
I was just a little guy.
Speaker 7 (04:43):
I was seven, I guess, and Jimmy Carter had just
taken office. We were still as a country, you know,
reeling from the Watergate scandal.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
We had a recession going on. It was it was
a lot.
Speaker 7 (04:55):
As we go through this, I'm going to do some
edit and put in some additional information and sound stuff
that I think will sort of give you a picture
of what it was like if you were a kid
in the nineteen seventies and being exposed to Bigfoot here
through this show.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Now I was a monster nerd. That'll be a big shock.
Speaker 7 (05:13):
So this looms large in my world because most of
the monster stuff I knew was from me reading monster
books in the elementary school library. So, but this is
also nineteen seventy six is the year two really influential Bigfoot.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Movies came out, so it was all happening, yeah Bigfoot.
We didn't. We've already covered both of these on the big.
Speaker 7 (05:35):
Footage sort of series within a series. Those are Sasquatch,
The Legend of Bigfoot and the Creature from Black Lake.
So that's a Lyle Blackburn's favorite Bigfoot movie, and I
think maybe Sasquatch the Legend of Bigfoot maybe mine.
Speaker 9 (05:49):
Well, I want to put a call out too, just
to the previous episode, because when we originally spoke about this,
you said watch episodes I think sixteen and seventeen, and
so mad I started watching episode sixteen and we didn't
get to finish it. I think we will go back
and revisit it though, but it seemed very interesting that
was involving magic, and so I thought, oh, okay, this
(06:11):
is going to be about magic and big Foot. And
so then watching these episodes, it was Bigfoot and something
else that we'll get to in a minute. But yeah,
I was surprised at the degree of paranormal things in
this Yeah, because I never watched it. My dad used
to watch it, but I was a little too young.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
It's okay, so this was the I mean, from the
time I was a kid.
Speaker 7 (06:35):
Rewatching these episodes were really the first time I had
revisited the show since I was a child. Again, funnily again,
not nocking my mother, especially not given that she's actually
very likely to die this year. She's anyway, that's a
different story. But she Yeah, she didn't like this show.
She had a lot of reasons for not like the shows,
(06:56):
but this one she hated because in the intro they
talk about Steve Austin, a man barely alive. We can
build him, we can rebuild him better and stronger and faster,
and she felt like that was hubris against the Lord
God Almighty to say that you could make a person better.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Now, I don't know how, She's just a phrase.
Speaker 10 (07:14):
We have the science, Well, yeah, we have the science
with the technology and you know, and the technology, and
this two parter is really about the sort of sort
of conflict between technology and humanity.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
It's really.
Speaker 7 (07:29):
It's shockingly relevant to the world we live in right now.
But they had introduced this character of Jamie Summers and
she was about to get her own spinoff series.
Speaker 9 (07:40):
She does make that cameo in this episode and then
later on in that memory recall, and so Matt and
I watching it with thinking that she was going to
somehow be a part of this and that was it.
So that was a bit.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, it's very peculiar.
Speaker 7 (07:54):
It's literally like a cameo because they're kind of reminding you, hey,
we got a new show on ABC.
Speaker 9 (08:00):
There we go, because it just seemed like she was
going to sweep in and save them exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Just I'll say up at the top here.
Speaker 7 (08:07):
This show is written by Kenneth Johnson, who turns out
to be incredibly influential on my childhood because he also
developed The Incredible Hulk into a TV show, and in
the eighties he did the TV series v oh Okay Yeah,
which both of those shows were huge nerd joyfests. Oh
and he also I don't know who else watched this,
(08:30):
but I happen to know that both Carl Mehmer and
I Karl Mehmer of the conspiracy skeptics, we loved this
nineteen seventy nine series called Cliffhangers, which was on NBC,
I believe, and it had this gimmick of it was
hopping between three storylines. In each episode they would do
a cliffhanger, so you want to watch it next week? Okay,
only they canceled the show and left us, you know.
Speaker 9 (08:52):
A cliff yeah, cliff.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (08:56):
It had one sort of melodrama, and then it had
a Dracula show, and then it had a sort of
an homage to.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
The nineteen thirties and forties serials.
Speaker 11 (09:08):
You know.
Speaker 7 (09:08):
So it's a pretty pretty wild show, but didn't really
work anyway. I think with all that sort of context,
let's hop in to.
Speaker 9 (09:17):
The first context.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, you know, that's how culture is, though it was
just all kind of lean.
Speaker 7 (09:23):
We don't when you're a seven or eight year old kid,
you're not synthesizing all this stuff into a big picture
of culture. You just happen to know that these things
are cool and these things are cool, and when you
grow up you sort of put it all together.
Speaker 9 (09:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (09:36):
Again, that's actually a topical and appropriate content comment to make,
because this show itself represents a kind of syncretic amalgam
of a lot of different ideas that were out there culturally,
and so we're going to hop in there and find
out what.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
It's all about.
Speaker 9 (09:51):
Yeah, let's do this.
Speaker 8 (09:58):
On a big Foot new from Kenner and the six
Million Dollar.
Speaker 7 (10:04):
Man You'll Never Be Si.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Yeah, this stock Iconic Circuit.
Speaker 12 (10:14):
Gives up.
Speaker 13 (10:17):
Big Bigfoot new from Kenner six Million Dollar Man sold separately.
Speaker 7 (10:31):
This brings us to part one of the Secret of Bigfoot,
and we open up uh with Lee Majors.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Uh.
Speaker 7 (10:39):
He's playing Steve Austin, the Astronaut, and he's with Oscar Goldman.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
They're in a helicopter and they're.
Speaker 7 (10:44):
Going to lay out the holes what this episode's about,
which is a geological survey or.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
They're there.
Speaker 7 (10:53):
They're plenty to put some kind of high tech ground
sensors into the ground so that they can to predict
when earthquakes are coming because they're concerned there might be
a big one coming.
Speaker 9 (11:04):
Well, yeah, and San Madrian that exists because I know
there are so many fault lines around there, and San Andreas.
Is that the BigGAN But I just wondered if that
was fictional or real.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, it's it's sort of a fictionalized version of the
San Andreas. It's interesting that I don't know why.
Speaker 9 (11:22):
They used use THET but.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
They made it up. So's it's a make them up
and I you know that that's all right. It works
very well. It's pretty obvious what's going on. They show
maps this.
Speaker 7 (11:34):
I mean from a technology perspective, my presumption is many
of the things they were talking about make logical sense,
Like the way they're doing the sensors, they're sending information
back to the USGS over a microwave. Then it's got
computers talking to each other.
Speaker 9 (11:52):
This would be the day.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
It was a legit. It was extraordinarily high tech for
the day.
Speaker 7 (11:59):
Like I mean, you know, we never got to the
world so far of bionics like they have in the show,
which come out of cybernetics.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Uh, this idea of melding machines and humans.
Speaker 7 (12:09):
But you know, it's a lot of this technology is real,
Like we use network censors now in real life all
the time, and to share that information.
Speaker 9 (12:17):
Well, speaking of that, just watching the credits, so that
this was adapted from a story called Cyborg.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yeah, so Cyborg is the original novel that the series
is based on.
Speaker 9 (12:33):
The entire series, right, yeah, specific one, and.
Speaker 7 (12:36):
It uses like Oscar Goldman and Steve Austin the real
the names of the characters in the book.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
A lot of things change.
Speaker 7 (12:42):
I mean, he's much more human looking in the TV
show and apparently, you know, when he punches people.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
In the book, his cybernetic arm.
Speaker 7 (12:48):
Will just kill people because it's you know, and but
here they've they made it more gentle. He's got more
superpowers like jumping, and in his eye. In the book,
the eyes like a camera, but he can't see out
of it, But here they've got it tied into his
nervous system, so all those special features.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
He doesn't have to take his eye out well and
put it onto a USB for.
Speaker 9 (13:09):
Well. So Steve Austin then, does he have a background
in seismology or they just kind of have him going
out doing field work on all these kinds of things
and just picking out well.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
So he works for this group called the OSI, and
they are involved in all kinds of scientific insecurity endeavors.
They're not the CIA, they're not the NSA, they're not
the FBI, but they do all kinds of special projects
around you know, high tech, high risk, sometimes spying, sometimes
you know, stopping bad agents, all kinds of adventures. But yeah,
(13:44):
it does seem a little bit out of his office
character sheet for him to suddenly just tell you all
about geology and what they're doing on this project, except
that he's friends with the two geologists behind this program.
So there are married couple of geologists and this is
their big project. So I assume they have grant money.
(14:05):
And then yeah, that we actually see them for just
a second, because boy, don't they seem weirdly aggressively horny
and science.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
See at the same.
Speaker 9 (14:18):
Time, they kind of made an allusion to second honeymoon
or something. Yeah, yeah, so I don't know how recently
they were married, but I thought he seemed a bit
older than her, but he does.
Speaker 7 (14:29):
Yeah the actually yeah, yeah, but but boy, they're they're
into it, but they they are staying focused on the science.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And then then they the Steve she is, yeah, she
she keeps him on task exactly. Steve and Oscar go
and land at a base.
Speaker 7 (14:47):
Camp, which is interestingly a mix of civilians and what
look like military personnel, which is kind of funny for.
Speaker 9 (14:54):
A uh oh yeah vibes.
Speaker 7 (14:56):
Yeah yeah, including some footage of some Vietnam are helicopters
they've taken there for some reason, which would era for
them is like you know, three years ago.
Speaker 9 (15:07):
Yeah, but news. Yeah.
Speaker 7 (15:11):
And then they meet another geologist named Tom Raintree, who's
a Native American scientist.
Speaker 9 (15:18):
Yes you can tell by his necklace.
Speaker 7 (15:21):
Yes, he has that sort of uh it looks you know,
very tribal or you know, Native American athist.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
He did in some way it really.
Speaker 7 (15:30):
Struck me like immediately that I guess if this had
aired today, there would be people who would complain this
show is too woke, you know, because he says he
says very distinctly Native American, and Raintree is like, yes,
full blooded and proud of it. And but yet, but yet,
Raintree is presented as a scientist and a clear thinker.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
He does not panic.
Speaker 9 (15:52):
It's a bit of a tracker. I think that he's
got that kind of I don't know that allusion to
he has this this kind of almost paranormal ability.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
In our fens writing with magical Native American ideas here.
Speaker 9 (16:04):
Yeah, they are like the mysticism, but also Steve kind
of makes some comment about oh, you're a real Native,
huh yeah, And so I think that there'd be people
who would complain about that too. Well today, they would
from both ends, people saying it's too woken, people saying
it's not considerate enough.
Speaker 7 (16:22):
Why this is significant historically is because this is three
years after the famous incident where Marlon Brando refused his
oscar and he sent a woman named Sashine or Sashine
Little Feather in his place, and basically you called out
(16:42):
Hollywood for constantly stereotyping Native Americans. And also that same
year there was this indigenous rights activism which led to
a lot of skirmishes between you know, the federal government
and the Bureau, the Indie Bureau, and the media was there,
and there was this big incident at a place called
(17:04):
Wounded me which was being occupied, and so this push
for better rights for Indigenous people and for representation to
be improved was really in the cultural mind.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
At the time.
Speaker 9 (17:17):
So I feel like interesting, I think.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
For the time, I think it does a good job.
Speaker 7 (17:21):
I don't know how it was received within the Native
American communities, but I liked it.
Speaker 9 (17:28):
You know, it was good that they were trying. And
I didn't know that about Malon Brando. I mean he
was a mixed bag.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Was well he was Well, it's even more complicated because
so she a little feather.
Speaker 7 (17:37):
She just passed away a couple of years ago, and
right after she died, her sisters came out and said, oh,
by the way, she's not a Native American, she's a
big phony.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
And it's like, well, what do you do with that?
Speaker 7 (17:49):
You know, when someone works really hard for representation, but
maybe they were there for their ego, or maybe they
misunderstood who they were or you.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Know, like, I don't know, it's complicated.
Speaker 9 (18:01):
That's difficult to comment on. Just immediately makes me think
of Misclear, even though that's an entirely different thing.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Back to the plot, So, so they go over what
they're going to be doing in this episode.
Speaker 7 (18:12):
They are their whole point is they're going to be
planning that these seismograph sensors, are these geological sensors all
over this rural area because it's associated with a supplementary
fall line that plugs into this made up when the
Sam Madrian or Madrian and the two geologists are out
(18:32):
there thirty or forty miles they say, from the nearest person,
So I assume that includes or it should include this,
this base camp, but it can't because that I don't know.
I don't know how close it is or how far
they fly to it by helicopter at some point, you know,
they're not driving over there, so it must be pretty
far away.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
So maybe they're right. I don't know.
Speaker 7 (18:51):
But we suddenly see, like if this were a monster movie,
it kind of is. You suddenly see Bigfoot vision and
the monster is observing these these two and he suddenly
comes out of the trees in this amazing lens flare
covered shot, so he's partially obscured for a lot of
this episode. But he growls, and of course Marlene gets
(19:12):
on the radio and so Steve Austin is listening, and
here's her screaming, Oh, it's good.
Speaker 9 (19:16):
Stuff to see him that first time. Does he bigfoot?
He looks like he had kind of zombie features with
his eyes, and then at the same time when he
opens his mouth, it looked more like a vampire with
those teeth.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Yeah, he's had big fangs.
Speaker 9 (19:31):
Yeah, yeah, So he was a bit of a mash up.
But then as he got closer, I thought Jerry Garcia.
Speaker 7 (19:37):
Ah, yeah, that's Andre the Giant playing Bigfoot in this episode.
Speaker 9 (19:43):
Was saying, Oh, that's Andrea the Giant. He was a wrestler, exactly.
He's a wrestler. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
No, no, he's passed away, but yeah, he's a wrestler
and an actor. You probably would know.
Speaker 7 (19:54):
Him best from The Princess Bride, where he and I
have not seen that. No, you're fired, that's inconceivable, Karen.
I just made a bunch of I just made a
bunch of people laugh.
Speaker 9 (20:07):
But I'm surprised that you had seen it.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Oh my gosh, I love The Princess Bride is fantastic.
Speaker 9 (20:14):
Yeah, I seen it.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
It came out like in eighty seven. I saw it
with myself. I just loved it.
Speaker 7 (20:21):
It is a fantastic It's based on a William Goldman story,
which is really funny because it's like The Prince's Bride
as a book, but it's.
Speaker 11 (20:30):
Like the.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Edited version cutting out all the boring parts.
Speaker 7 (20:34):
So it's like William Goldman pretending he's retelling his favorite book,
but he's skipping all the parts that suck, and it's
just just an extraordinary book.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
And then in the movie they have it with a
framing story where it's it's.
Speaker 7 (20:47):
Peter Falk telling a story to his grandson and it
keeps hopping back and forth to them, the kid rejecting
the whole idea of the story, yet falling into love
with the story.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
No, you will not live. You will not waste your time.
If you watch that movie, it is a joy.
Speaker 9 (21:03):
It's so good about thirty behind, thirty years behind on
pop culture. So I think I'm right on track to
watch it.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
So yeah, I mean we're doing this in the right order.
Speaker 7 (21:11):
You get, you get your big foot Steve austin In first,
and then you watch the Prince's breadth.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
That's right, Steve Austin.
Speaker 11 (21:23):
On Mars your Radio Signals week, the new six million
Dollar Man with Bionic Grip and new Mission Tomar's Adventure
set sold separately.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Use this bionic guy. The radio tower fell, We'll fix
it using his bionic grip. Careful, Steve grip it hold
on Mission accomplished.
Speaker 11 (21:45):
Kenner's New six million Dollar Man with Bionic Grip. Mission
Tomar's Adventure set sold separately.
Speaker 7 (21:58):
So the search party is out looking for the missing geologists.
They know that they've been something Bad's happened, and so
what do they find? But this gigantic track.
Speaker 9 (22:12):
Just one but there's no mud or anything else around there.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
It says a lot. Now, I now you make a
good point.
Speaker 7 (22:20):
If I were writing like an IMDb, you know, gaffs
or continuity areas or something like, he's standing on normal soil,
why would he make that big of a footprint. But remember,
what we're later going to discover is this is not
a normal bigfoot. This is a mechanically enhanced bigfoot, and
he may very well weigh way more than a normal bigfoot.
(22:40):
Whatever that is exactly there is a normal big exactly
A lot. We'll have a lot more questions about that
by the.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Time, a lot more so so that footprint that they show.
Speaker 7 (22:53):
Multiple sources say that that is actually Andre the Giant's
footprint slightly enhanced, like they made the heel a little bigger,
so that when they did their plaster cast later in
the episode, it'll look more like a big footprint.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
But I don't know if that's true or not, but
it seems completely plausible.
Speaker 9 (23:10):
Yeah, yeah, I just thought it was interesting that it
was just kind of dry grass all around and then
this big, muddy footprint in the middle just is it is.
Speaker 7 (23:19):
But the dialogue here is so laughable because I feel
so bad because Oscar Goldman is like, they're looking at
a giant human shaped footprint, and Oscar Goldman is like,
what is.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
It, Mountain Lion? Is this your first day out? Like
if you're if you're never.
Speaker 9 (23:41):
The office line's backside. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
So there's a little speculation.
Speaker 7 (23:46):
But then Tom Raintree is like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Now,
this is definitely a Bigfoot.
Speaker 9 (23:52):
He's the expert that's too big.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
What do you think a huge grizzly Tom?
Speaker 3 (23:57):
No, no, not a cat, not a christ What is it?
There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a
track like this, a creature of legend that roams the
timber line. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him Bigfoot.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
So I guess the next thing we should hop into.
Speaker 7 (24:22):
We get the first viewing of the sort of antagonists
in this episode, which.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Really is a Bigfoot.
Speaker 9 (24:30):
It's really strange, it really does.
Speaker 7 (24:34):
We see this weird hexagonal viewscreen which much like Star Trek,
and there's a lot of little connections to Star Trek
in here.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
What's like Star Trek yes, you can see.
Speaker 7 (24:45):
This thing can show you footage from anywhere, like they're
hoping all over the viewpoints. They can get audio must yeah,
the past. They can read minds. It's some very advanced technology.
Speaker 9 (25:00):
We need one of those.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Yeah, they're doing that thing where they don't give you
clear footage of what's going on.
Speaker 7 (25:06):
We're in part one of a two parts shadowy, blurry, hazy.
Uh you know, yes, yeah, like Bigfoot. I mean yes,
even as we should be normally. Uh but yeah, there's
like the walls are glowing. There's clear indications that something's
(25:27):
unusual about this, and yet there's also indications through underground. Yes, yeah,
so there's some kind of subterranean base.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Of some sort.
Speaker 7 (25:38):
Uh yeah, but we we aren't really understand. We don't
know why what's going on with that? And then again
we've we have already seen uh Steve do his first
bionic move. Now, remember nobody's supposed to know he's bionic.
So when when he's alone, he can do all kinds.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Of super things.
Speaker 7 (25:55):
But if he's out in front of other people, he's
a top secret technology himself.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
He's not supposed to sort of demonstrate his power.
Speaker 9 (26:03):
So oh I didn't know that, so like Bewitched.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, he's he's a little bit.
Speaker 7 (26:07):
He's a little bit like the Uh that would be
a vulgar display from Yeah, well I was gonna say
from the Exorcist, But you're right, Samantha two exactly.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Yes, same trope. It's the same trope. I have extraordinary powers,
but I have to keep it to myself.
Speaker 7 (26:20):
So he's showing off like crazy out here. He jumps
thirty feet up into a tree, and the aliens are watching,
and we well, I'll just spoilers. They're aliens, uh, but
oh my god, they are so into this. This is
like the greatest thing they've ever seen. They're basically watching
a whole movie.
Speaker 9 (26:39):
The woman, what kind of being jumps thirty feet straight up?
Speaker 14 (26:44):
It must slur him on and find out more about
it this idea. He may I also have some information
about those senses. Oh right, let's give him some fate.
Speaker 9 (26:57):
She's paying particular attention.
Speaker 7 (26:59):
Yeah, she really, really really seems entertained by this and
will find out why. Although that works on multiple levels.
But we also get some bigfoot antics as well, but
mostly bionic stuff here.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
But we hear bigfoot roar, and that is one of
those it's iconic.
Speaker 7 (27:22):
They don't use like the Sierra sounds here, but the
roar that they use is solid indicator that whatever's going
on out there.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Is not a normal American animal. Where is she stay?
Speaker 8 (27:37):
I don't know.
Speaker 7 (27:43):
Goldman is heading up this search to find these missing geologists.
They do mention that he's interested in finding them, but
he's also wants to get those sensors back because they
too are a classified technology.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Which brings us to Tom showing back up.
Speaker 7 (28:02):
And now he somehow he's taken the time to make
a plaster cast of this bigfoot footprint that they showed earlier.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
And again this.
Speaker 7 (28:10):
Cast becomes important in other properties because it gets moved
around as a reused set item in other fictional properties.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
But it's allegedly really Andre's foot, so that's kind of cool.
Speaker 9 (28:24):
Yeah, good trivia.
Speaker 7 (28:25):
Yeah, And this is also where Tom tells his story
about his grandfather. When he was a kid, his grandfather
told him that one day his great a story within
a story, his grandfather had met a guy who had
been missing, and when they found him, he had seen
the Sasquatch and it completely changed him forever. And then
later on he sees a guy who's seen the Sasquatch.
(28:47):
It's like it is just as my grandfather said. And
I'm like, well, that's a that's a very detailed story.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
He must have told you.
Speaker 7 (28:56):
Bigfoot suddenly comes into the sort of milliterized geology camp
and just starts knocking over everything and like just blowing
stuff up and you know, tearing equipment apart. Yep, very
well said that is exactly the right word.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
But I guess I don't.
Speaker 7 (29:19):
So, you know, it's a TV show, right. Some of
these stunts that Lee Majors does, he does himself, like
you could. There's a point where he like jumps over
a big rock and probably falls, you know, six or
eight feet, lands on his feet. That's that's Lee Majors.
I mean, I look at that right now, and I'm wondering,
how are his knees doing it? Because I haven't done
anything like that, and my knees are killing me in
(29:40):
my fifties, you know. And he's like eighty two now,
So I just I hope he's doing okay. But holy
cow that he tacks his body for the show. But
so did Andre, although it might not be Andre. So
here's the thing, because Andrea's wearing a suit. We can't
tell in the dark whether it's really Andre doing these stunts,
which he would have been well equipped to do as
a wrestler. They know how to do this kind of stuff.
(30:02):
But it could have also been a stunt man. And
because it shot at night, you wouldn't have seen that
the scale's wrong, because good lord, maybe they did not
have a stuntman besides of Andre the Giant.
Speaker 9 (30:13):
Yeah, well, I want to say too. I remember there
was a scene where Steve bowlds back and just onto
on a shrubbery or something, and Matt said, oh, did
you say that that was someone else? That wasn't him?
And so we eat it and watched it again. So yeah,
it's it's very likely they might have had someone else
had pots anyway.
Speaker 7 (30:32):
Yeah, it's amusing because later on Lee Majors goes on
to star na show about stuntman called the fall Guy.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Man.
Speaker 9 (30:41):
Oh that's a good name.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Yeah, they just did it. They just made a movie
version of it with Ryan Gosling. But Ryan Gosling is
no Lee Majors.
Speaker 7 (30:51):
But it was like he was a stuntman who also
did bounty hunting because it's hard to make money as
a stuntman all the time. You can't be acting all
the time, so he just huh exactly. So it's pretty funny. Anyway,
let's get back to this this.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Plot here here up to the Army is going to
report to to to gold.
Speaker 7 (31:11):
Oscar Goldman in Steve Austin that the camp was attacked.
They're out looking for Marlene and the report says we
didn't see anything, but also some people were reporting it
was a giant beast and like Steve Boss is like
a giant beast, go on, right?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Then Steve uses his.
Speaker 7 (31:31):
Bionic powers to look for Marlene and it was really cool.
But this is so funny because Kathleen, my wife, was like,
why did people think this was good?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
I'm like, shut up, this is really good.
Speaker 9 (31:45):
But that sounds like some of the comments. IM, that's it.
Will You've got to think of the time and there
were a lot of kids were really controlled by this
and inspired by this.
Speaker 7 (31:54):
So oh, oh my god, Karen, if you if you could,
like if you could take a time machine you're your
own and go back at time and look at playgrounds.
When this show was on, all the boys are running
around a slow motion going no no, no, no, no no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 9 (32:11):
Hearing that as a kid, I guess with repeats that
they had, but I was saying that he was he
was Matt Austin.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Yeah, that's hilarious.
Speaker 7 (32:21):
But while Steve's out running around, he finally runs into
Andre excuse me, Bigfoot for the first time. And this
is such an iconic scene. I will try to get
together Samana Madey Gifts to put into the show notes
because there's several moments in here that are just really stunning.
John's a big dude, like whenever they're together. Steve Austin
(32:42):
looks like a tiny guy, and I think think Lee
majors Is.
Speaker 9 (32:44):
He was pretty big too.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Yeah, Roder and the jackt could throw him around like
a doll. It was amazing.
Speaker 9 (32:50):
So yeah, it was a good choice for Bigfoot for sure.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Yeah, so you do that close up of Bigfoot's eyes.
Then they cut to a commercial.
Speaker 8 (33:00):
Colonel Steve Austin, the six million dollar Man and the
new bionic transport.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
And repair station. It's crashing.
Speaker 15 (33:07):
Put him in the buyer repair station.
Speaker 11 (33:09):
We can rebuild them, well, replace the modules in the
biotic garden.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Go joy here.
Speaker 15 (33:15):
We'll have to check this side.
Speaker 11 (33:17):
Buyer on a guy Hey, okay, sixty dollar Man ready.
Speaker 8 (33:21):
Crashing new bionic transport and repair station sold separately the
six million dollar Man new from Kenneron.
Speaker 7 (33:38):
So Steve Austin faced with Bigfoot. I absolutely, I'm gonna
have to put a clip in here.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I love this. It's so funny. And you understand me?
Are you a man.
Speaker 8 (33:53):
Now?
Speaker 2 (33:53):
I never heard it? Ask se. He's very open minded
about this hairy fellow, you know.
Speaker 7 (34:00):
So in the in the aliens are watching all this
and they start they literally start talking about placing bets
on who's going to win this fight between these two creatures.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Yeah, and again, this is my first time to revisit
the show since I was a kid.
Speaker 7 (34:15):
I cannot frigging believe the sound effects they used because
every time Steve Austin gets thrown, they play missiles flying
through the air sound effects.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
It's like like you can sound an incoming missile. But
what in the world?
Speaker 9 (34:40):
It just sounded cool, it really did.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
I mean, I mean I loved it when I was
a kid. I mean, what can you say? So, So
here's what happens next. Steve, Steve in the fight, pulls
Bigfoot's arm off of.
Speaker 7 (34:55):
Him, which I mean, you know, he's he's pacifist, but
he did disarm his foe.
Speaker 9 (35:03):
And you know, I was thinking the Black Knight from
Monty Python. Yeah, holy grail.
Speaker 5 (35:10):
Yeah, now stand aside Worth, the adversary is but a scratch,
a scratch your arms off?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Now it isn't. But what's that then, shoe come on
you pansy.
Speaker 9 (35:25):
Fish wound.
Speaker 7 (35:26):
It's so it's so cool because Bigfoot like looks at
his arms, like he picks up.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
He's like, I gotta go to tech support runs.
Speaker 9 (35:34):
But Matt saw of I guess Andrea's arm in the
kind of tucked into the suit.
Speaker 7 (35:41):
Yes, yes, it's really hard to hide something that enormous,
even if it's just been tucked inside exactly. Yeah, you
also see wires hanging out of it, which is the
first indicator that this is. This may be Bigfoot, but
it's either also bionic or he's some kind of robot.
By the way, either one of those possibilities as possible
(36:01):
given the previous episodes of the show. So there's bionics,
but there's also evil robot makers who are trying to
replace humans for various plot purposes.
Speaker 9 (36:10):
So yeah, gotta be careful.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Remember, have you seen the Austin Powers movies.
Speaker 9 (36:14):
Yes I have.
Speaker 7 (36:15):
Remember this is the second one where they had the fembots. Yes, yeah,
well those come from this show. I mean that they
they have male they have man bots and fembots.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, so well there you go. Interesting, pretty crazy.
Speaker 9 (36:30):
I didn't know that because I hadn't seen this.
Speaker 7 (36:32):
So yeah, yeah, we're really helping our audience get some
foundational American culture here in addition to Big Foo culture.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
So what happens here?
Speaker 7 (36:41):
Austin follows Bigfoots tracks, which are extremely easy to follow,
and it leads into a cave and uh, inside the cave,
they've hidden the interest behind a rock wall. Steve Austin
uses his bionic eye and spots the cave interest and
just crushes the stone with his bare hands and pulls
(37:03):
it off and reveals the doorway to the.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Secret alien base, which is pretty impressive. Yeah, and so
he's going in and looking around. There's some classic sound effects.
Speaker 7 (37:13):
You've got these this cool dark sets with weird you know,
it looks like now I say, led lighting, but it's
very everything's kind of mysterious and glowy and shadowy. But
there's this moment where they find this passageway that goes
through a long tube and there's a flat platform and
(37:34):
then the around it is a rotating tube with very
disorientating uh sort of visuals.
Speaker 9 (37:40):
And yes, that was playing havoc with my vestibular issues. Yes,
it also kind of reminded me of those viewing platforms
when you go to an aquarium and you can see
you know, the shocks, oh yeah, yeah, other creatures, and
it has that kind of disorienting.
Speaker 7 (37:56):
Well, I know there's a there's a sort of science
museum in Pigeon Forge that has one of these. When
you walk in and they're like, you're about to pass
through this tunnel. If you have you know, if your
pone to dizzyness, if they give you a big list
of warnings, then you could basically walk around and just
go through door to get to the other part.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
But it is, it's very dis warning and even in this,
even in TV, this thing messes with me. It's astonishingly effective.
Speaker 9 (38:23):
It doesn't. My tendency in situations like that is to
look at the floor.
Speaker 11 (38:26):
Yep.
Speaker 9 (38:26):
And if you looked at the floor, they kind of
cheaked down. I don't know if you saw they had.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
I sure did.
Speaker 7 (38:31):
Yeah. Later later on they had like when they're hauling
Steve Austin through it, and they're all the actors are
like looking at Steve Austin.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Not the walls.
Speaker 8 (38:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (38:43):
The following bit of internet scholarship comes from no less
authoritative source than the Bionic Fandom website. For this episode,
a unique set was utilized a rotating ice tunnel. At
the time, it was a brand new addition to the
Universal Studios tour call called the Glacier Avalanche, and was
inspired by the Clint Eastwood picture The Eiger Sanction. It
(39:07):
remained an integral part of the tour for over twenty
years and could be glimpsed in the eighteen episode Steel
the Night Writer episode Fright Night in the nineteen eighty
five movie Misfits of Science. In nineteen ninety seven, the
ice tunnel was renovated to become the Dante's Peak Volcano,
and again in two thousand and one to tie him
(39:28):
with the Universal's The Mummy film franchise. It then became
part of a tomb the tour passed through. It now
has a tan color service with no backlighting. Kenneth Johnson
in the DVD featurette The Search for Bigfoot, recalls that
he incorporated the ice tunnel into his script and had
to convince a dubious studio official that the ice tunnel
(39:49):
wouldn't need to be built from scratch, as it already
existed on the studio tour, so they.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Didn't have to build it for this show.
Speaker 7 (39:59):
And it was how they were able to get the
budget cheaper because one of the many things, yeah, they
used that, they used stock footage.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Here and there.
Speaker 7 (40:07):
They do a lot of things to save money on
this episode. Yeah, I mean it does not come across
as cheap.
Speaker 9 (40:13):
Oh no, no, I think just the way they did
the floor or but I don't think everyone would notice it.
But it's one of those things where I'm trained to
just look down.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Oh yeah, yeah, no, it's definitely your feet are your
friends in that kind.
Speaker 9 (40:25):
Of scenario, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 7 (40:27):
And then here's where that weird Jamie Summers interjection. She's
the bionic woman, which you would have known at the
time because boy, they were advertising the hell out of it,
But she really has nothing to do with this episode
except to remind you, Hey, if this is your first
time to watch this show, there's another bionic person and
they're a lady kick it out.
Speaker 9 (40:44):
Yeah, So yeah, well a role model for girls.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
But absolutely, yeah, she really was. I mean, you know,
I mean I think so.
Speaker 7 (40:55):
I think boys continued to watch this show even though
they made a show about girls that It's different if
you look at the like he Man, which was in
the eighties, when they added shera Princess in Powers, Princess
of Power, it kind of cut down on he Man's
popularity because all of a sudden there was this powerful
girl with her own show.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
It's like, oh, man, I thought we thought we I
thought we were cool. No, no, but we were cool though. Yeah.
Speaker 9 (41:20):
But anyway, when they did show her, we thought, oh,
she's going to make an appearance. She's going to swoop
in and save everyone. But no, I guess it was
just a nod to her show.
Speaker 7 (41:28):
It was because Oscar's like, no, we don't need you,
and she like that's really if you watch that show,
she's always ignoring him and doing stuff anyway, but like
in this show's like, okay, it's like she.
Speaker 9 (41:38):
Seemed offended, So yeah, she's going to turn up.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
And she totally should have. There's no reason she except
I guess that's not how I mean.
Speaker 7 (41:47):
It was like probably an insert shot off at a
different because they it's a phone call, so they didn't
even have to shoot at the same.
Speaker 9 (41:52):
Time, right, So we're going to mention her again in
a minute with that other scene.
Speaker 7 (41:56):
After recording the sery with Karen, I went and listened
to this borg podcast coverage of these two episodes of
The six Million Dollars Man. It's a very informed, very
funny podcast. I really enjoyed listening to it. I don't
think I would do the whole series, but I really
enjoyed this. And they mentioned that this footage actually comes
from a specific episode of Biotic Woman and a scene
(42:19):
that was cut, and so they were able to basically
use that existing footage of Jamie talking on the phone
and intercut it with Oscar in this episode to make
it seem like it was relevant to hear. So this
is not the only time we're going to see her.
She's going to show up again in part two, but
also in footage that's not actually shot for this show.
(42:39):
What is revealed here is that this is an alien
base and they capture Steve Austin. They put a little
thing on his head that paralyzes him, and then they
proceed to talk.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Don't they talk? Like he ain't there, and he.
Speaker 7 (42:56):
Can he's clearly listening and watching, but they put him
through all these rigorous tests. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it really
is like it's like a like an alien abduction dream.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
It really is. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 12 (43:11):
I didn't the communion, no, thankfully, but I they show
a scene with him, like his shirt kind of appears
and disappears throughout the series, some continuity problems, but when.
Speaker 7 (43:22):
His shirt's off, I couldn't help but think, Oh, look
it's Steve Austin, a man Haraily alive.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
He is a Harry dude.
Speaker 9 (43:34):
Yeah. I didn't pay too much attention, but yeah.
Speaker 7 (43:37):
But she is the woman alien here is named Chelan,
there's Fallon and Shalon, I guess. And she's played by
uh just super megastar beauty Stephanie Powers, who is probably
best known because she played the spouse Jennifer Hart alongside
(43:57):
Robert Wagner in that TV show Heart to Heart, which
would not premiere for a few more years.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
That was seventy nine when it came out.
Speaker 9 (44:03):
Oh okay, so this predated that.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Okay, right, Her hair is a lot better. Look, this
is like she got a big old I don't know
if that's a weird.
Speaker 7 (44:11):
I hope, I hope it was a weird, because it's enormous,
Like she looks like her head's like really tiny with
this giant wig thing on. And just for the record,
she's about thirty four here, she's eighty two now, still alive.
Lee Majors is about three years older Lee Majors. By
the way, Stephanie last I think she was last.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
Working on like twenty twenty one. Lee Majors was working
like really recently.
Speaker 9 (44:36):
That's impressive, that's cool.
Speaker 7 (44:37):
I would be remissing my duties as a horror fan
if I didn't mention that. In the TV show Ash
Versus the Evil Dead, which spins off of Sam Raimi's
Evil Dead series, Ash's father is played by is a
character named Brock Williams, and he's played by Lee Majors,
which is really funny. Brock Williams is a funny name
because Brock's kind of unusual. And in the TV you know,
(45:00):
The Venture Brothers, there's a character named Brock Sampson who
there's an episode where he encounters Steve Austin and the Bigfoot,
who are now living as a romantic couple out in
the wilderness.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
And I got you guys something too.
Speaker 11 (45:14):
I'm afraid art therapy isn't really my bag, but the
least I can do to thank you for all your help.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
It's beautiful, well cherish.
Speaker 11 (45:22):
It always send me a postcard if I make it,
and you stay away from those campers.
Speaker 8 (45:28):
Huh.
Speaker 11 (45:28):
I don't want to see you on YouTube again.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
I'll put a link to that in the show notes.
It's extremely funny.
Speaker 9 (45:33):
It all comes together.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Everything's connected, man, It's all connected.
Speaker 7 (45:37):
So, but you know, when I was a kid, I
did not want to see Steve Austin in this puppy
dough ied alien romancing each other. They keep sizing each
other up. I swear to god, They're like eating each
other up with their eyes. It's so it's so over
the top, and I just I wanted bigfoots.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Yeah exactly, it was Ikey. It was Ikey. So she
uses her tech to examine him very thoroughly. Yeah, she does.
Speaker 9 (46:07):
That was unprofessional for an alien.
Speaker 7 (46:09):
Yeah, he's paralyzed alliens and gives him a big old smooch,
and I'm like, hey, uh, I don't If that was
gender reversed, a lot of people would be very upset.
Speaker 9 (46:33):
It was unethical.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
She really wants, it really wants. She's going to lose
her alien medicine license at this rate.
Speaker 7 (46:40):
And then we cut back to the Geological Survey folks,
and that's when we get this hell of a cliffhanger,
because they reveal that an incredibly devastating earthquake is going
to hit San Francisco and devastate San Francisco all the
way down to San Diego.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
The Geological Service made computers confirm our findings. The census
predict a major quake along the Sand Madrian within fifteen hours.
Speaker 5 (47:05):
The whole fault all the way down the coast, all the.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
Way down San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, a holocaust.
Speaker 15 (47:16):
The computer also came up with something else. There may
be a way to weaken or actually prevent that major quake,
prevent it. Maybe the sensor showed that if an earlier
quake could be triggered along the smaller tributary fault, it
might relieve sufficient pressure from the Sand Madrian.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
Perhaps an explosion.
Speaker 6 (47:36):
Tom what if we brought in an underground nuclear device
that could trigger an earlier quake along the smaller fault.
Speaker 2 (47:43):
I think that might work, all right, Get.
Speaker 6 (47:45):
Out call a Penticon use our top priority coachs no
white And one more thing, What smaller fault do you
want to explode?
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Tom DeAngelo?
Speaker 15 (47:54):
The one that starts right here and runs back into
the mountains.
Speaker 4 (47:58):
What Marlene Becky is in those matters?
Speaker 8 (48:01):
And so I was kind of.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
Lost on it, Oscar, there's not much time.
Speaker 15 (48:06):
Do I have your authorization to order up that nuclear device?
Speaker 8 (48:09):
Go ahead?
Speaker 3 (48:13):
This is geologic survey based on Angelo. Patch me through
to the Pentagon comm link.
Speaker 4 (48:21):
Steve, where are you.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
Again?
Speaker 7 (48:42):
My argument is that this is one of the most
influential pieces of fiction to impact the the sort of
air quote fact based world of Bigfoot. I mean, it
was just it basically created a generation of kids who
would go on to expect that the woods had Bigfoot
in him.
Speaker 6 (49:02):
Right.
Speaker 9 (49:02):
I just want to say this. I was on Facebook
group for monster Talk. Someone posted a cartoon and it
says at the bottom, well, that certainly clears up by
we find very little of their scats. And if you
look at the picture, you've got the woods and a
couple of kids just peering through trees, and there's an
enormous bigfoot and he is being walked. He's got a
(49:24):
leash and He's been walked on a leash by an alien.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Really, it is very funny. That's rue.
Speaker 5 (49:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (49:33):
Well, the other thing I wanted to say is this
idea of alien, super intelligent, inscrutable entities living inside a
mountain in California is not created by the writer of
this episode. This has to be an allusion to all
(49:55):
the paranormal stories about Mount Shasta. He's basically mashing up
the Melt Shasta, which was really becoming quite popular in
pop culture at the time in the New Age world.
And also the third thing is the episode talks about earthquakes,
and earthquakes were on everybody's mind in the seventies, so
(50:17):
there was an earthquake movie.
Speaker 13 (50:21):
Universal has given Earthquake its maximum effort, starting with a
story on screenplay written by George Fox and Mario Puzzo,
author of The Godfather, Universal has enriched this fascinating drama
of interwoven lives with a superb cast.
Speaker 5 (50:34):
Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, George Kennedy, Lauren Green, Geneviev Boujold,
Richard Roundree, mar Joe Gordner, Barry Sullivan, plus the city
of Los Angeles.
Speaker 7 (50:47):
He's really grabbing all this real zeitgeist material to make
this hybridized, syncretized fictional narrative, and boy, I just don't
think you can overstate how influencialll But we will talk
more about that.
Speaker 9 (51:01):
In part two, Really jam packed monster.
Speaker 7 (51:05):
You've been listening to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters.
I'm Blake Smith and I'm Karen Stoltner. You just heard
the first of our two part series covering the six
million dollar episodes titled The Secret of Bigfoot.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
Tune in next week for part two.
Speaker 7 (51:22):
This is a special hybrid presentation, but patrons get extended
coverage and no modern commercials. Thanks to our patrons for
providing the financial support that truly makes this show possible.
We love making Monster Talk, but the reality is we
couldn't afford to do it without the financial support of
our backers. Monster Talk's theme music is by Pete Stealing Monkeys.
(51:44):
Stay tuned for next week when we'll hear shell On say,
I don't seem to have the proper instrument.
Speaker 9 (51:51):
I need one like this, only curved.
Speaker 4 (51:53):
I suppose you want to unassik and as garments too.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Of course, Kah, this has been a Monster House presentation
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