Does it matter?  Not to Frisch’s Big Boy, he’s earning a wage and filling up the franchised camping trips thanks to the hour-long disinfomercials.  Does it matter to  Animal Planet?  Not much.  Viewership dipped after the 2nd season premier, rebounded, then dipped, but the ad dollars are still coming in and profits made.  Does it matter to the long in tooth BFRO members who predate the pay to play camping trips?  Yes, their free work continues to line someone else’s pocket, in fact rumblings behind the scenes are like when the camping franchise was launched.  But fear and loyal political officers continue to prowl looking for discord, and it is dealt with severely.  The post exile rants from das über cheese continue to be classics of smear.

Tomorrow’s Ohio episode should be very telling on the downward spiral of quality.  On deck are a questionable, wanna be attention getter and a snowy video that is clearly a hoax.  A well documented debunk was done matching pant colors of the videohoaxer’s son and the creature of question and filming only human boot prints in the area.   When confronted the videohoaxer even confessed, actually it was more of an excuse “I released the video and said it was the real deal as a test of the research skills of my viewers”.  Naturally that video is now missing and the snowy video is in lower definition, and ironically the wannabe to be featured did the debunk video that is no longer up on his youtube channel.  Having it both ways is bigfootery gold.

Now that the show is set for air it will be hard to change the content beyond the post briefings and other spins.  If any one of the four stars conclude ”squatchy” it will be yet another dark mark upon the hard-working volunteers, especially those that earned their way in instead of sending a check and going to camp snipe hunt.  It will also prove either a total lack of research upon the producers and stars, the destitute poverty of content for the show or the povery of ethics that prevail there.  Either way Finding Bigpuffery is runnin on fumes.  It depends upon how you measure if one can conclude it is successful.

A little more slipped in references to the camping trips during the infomercial, with Wally taking away the allowance gotta generate cash somewhere else.

About the same amount of dishonest editing;  inserting sounds, strategic cuts, allusion and illusion for joe public.

A great deal more of huckstering to generate an audience.

Based on less than stellar numbers for the P&G extravaganza a few months ago, fewer, yet(i) enough, viewers.

First levels will love it, higher levels are either burnt out or have to praise it to keep the access and per diems flowing.

1. Way too much content.  Between Twits, Facebookers and Youtubin bigfooters, one could spend far too many hours a day reading it all.  We don’t care  where you are getting your tacos, that your favorite sports team won or your next bigfootery promotion.
2. It is yet another entry point and soap box for folks that know little but speculate and BS more.  More churn resulting in expert du mois.
3. Throwing up a website or promotional site becomes easier, this leads to awful spots like the Facebook bigfoot page.  These charlatans act like experts and have identified a startling gross of legit bigfoot videos.

Three things we love:

1. One can reconnect with people long-lost and it is an easy way to communicate.
2. For some reason people can get quite crass and really put some heat to each other.  This can often result in bigfootery gold.
3. Some of the carnival barkers cannot help but make pronouncements as part of their ongoing need and wish to gather attention, promote and generally favor us all with their knowledge.  This can also lead to bigfootery gold.

As a case in point we quote a twit from Frisch’s Big Boy, aka Matt Moneymaker:

While #FindingBigfoot in Cache County UT #BFRO got definite return howls in a canyon E of Logan on 11/29. Sobe Bomb is legit! It’s a squatch.

Here’s the bigfootery gold of this particular statement.  Big Boy is wrong, he obviously watched a lower resolution version of the video, was overcome with squatch fever or is carnival barking – or any combination of all three.  In higher resolution the grey blob is a kid in a v-neck shirt.  The Facebook bigfoot folks did the same pronouncing multiple points of confirming evidence(their words not ours).  Beyond another Moneymaker misidentification there is this.   When this episode of Finding Bigpuffery (dba Finding Bigfoot) airs will they reverse stream and show/tell the truth?  Is it too late in the production process to change what is surely a warm endorsement of the film?  Do they even care, or will they just shove more crap down the wire?  Shades of the Ga cop cam episode.  Even if they get it right for the show, ol’Matty is again endorsing something as the real deal that is clearly not.  More CROW for the FRO.  Here’s the better quality clip, kids don’t be getting any ideas:

As we talked about this development around the BFE virtual water cooler we attempted to come up with an idea for a hypothesis that might be testable.  One must understand the underpinnings of most of the staff around here, engineers deal with testable hypothesis that are practical and a bit mundane.  Questions like will this fail under the following environmental factors?,  can this design attain __X__ levels of performance, things like that.  We are certainly not the best suited to deal with DNA, pure academic science or biology.  But those factors rarely inhibit greater bigfootery, so here goes.

Hypothesis:

A sample of DNA collected from contemporary primates across the United States (the submitted samples) will exhibit greater variation than DNA from historical native americans.

The reason we thought this would be a good null hypothesis is that intuitively one would think it provable.  If it was not provable, then one has to consider the sample and how variation is similar or less than those of native americans, especially with a wide geographic representation.  What we are getting at is the idea that if there are sasquatch their mobility, shall we say their mating range,  is far less than modern humans and closer to historical native americans.

And that’s that.  We admit a lack of biological and academic science, so shoot us down if you wish.  Maybe there is a thread that someone could tease into something better than what we put forth.  If you want to build something, we can probably be of more  help.

The town hall-style meeting is becoming a mainstay of the show.  It provides a nice introduction to a few of the characters that become the focus of the episode, the so called locals, and we are not speaking of Powell’s Locals.  Like American Idol, it is a cattle call for talent.  Some of that talent is cultivated well before the town hall event, but a shill is a mainstay of bigfootery, no surpise there.  But some of that talent is not cultivated, it simply shows up and takes advantage of an open meeting.  One can count on at least one, if not a hand-full, of goof balls showing up and adding their own particular and peculiar flavor to the event.  Sadly, those folks are edited out, casualties of trying to trim the fringe off of a clearly fringe interest.

So, the idea is this.  One already has the footage of these eccentrics in the can and some footage of the reactions of the cast and other attendees as they were subjected to these folks.  Why not use it in the way that Idol uses the failed auditions?  With just some more production time, one would certainly have an entertaining extra episode without the extensive costs of going to an extra locale.  We suggest another bonus episode exclusively made up of the goof balls that came, talked and had us scratching our head and chuckling quietly from the back of the room.  Who knows, bigfootery’s William Hung could be born by Finding Bigpuffery, perhaps even a spin-off.

You’re welcome for the content idea, and on second thought we will call it intellectual property so get in contact if you want to negotiate.

A few observations from being back for a few weeks:

• A visit to the bigfootery message boards confirms that the ally of shady “bigfoot researchers”, churn, continues unabated.  We’ll chalk that one up to Finding Bigpuffery.  New, uninformed blood is the life spring of the carnival barkers, re-inventing oneself and having a new audience to snooker.
• Doc Meldrum, doctor foot, claims something smelled in Russia and it wasn’t an Almasty.  We also noted that one commenter spun his ministrations in Pa. to include  leave the effort to the trained scientists, ironic given his audience a gathering of non-scientifically trained laymen.  Speaking of lay men, we wonder if…ahhh, never mind no reason to get those granny panties in a bunch.
• We noticed that the Squatch Detective lived up to his self anointed moniker of late.  He sussed out the new author of the Bigfoot Buster Researcher Blog, a cheap near Canadian import of this fine establishment.  The saga is pure bigfootery gold, the first author of the blog (TT of the ABS) shut it down when he was found out months ago.  But then one of the targets of the original blog, which seemed to have a particular burr for youtube bigfooters, swipes the banner and relaunched the blog.  That lasted about a week until Kulls tracked a google ads account back to a group of websites authored by Tim Fasano, we like to call him Lego man as he reminds us of the kids Lego men when they do not have their hats on.  Do your own google comparison if you don’t get it.  Timmy was tryin to really complete a swerve on bigfootery, piggybacking on an old site that put some smack down on him to put some smack on some other targets.  Mad bigfootery genius that was short-lived.
• We’ve figured for a while that ol Frisch’ Big Boy Matt and Paulides would be at odds, we like what Paulides had to say about Finding Bigpuffery , dba Finding Bigpuffery, though he does not name names, everyone knows what he is referring to:              NABS has received several inquiries from visitors about why we haven’t done a documentary or TV series. We won’t participate in an effort where we don’t have editorial authority over the final product. We won’t allow our research to be manipulated or edited to the point of bending the truth. We won’t enter into a contract where the audience is taken into the woods and the effort doesn’t produce an educational experience for the viewer and researcher. There are too many shows where the audience is manipulated, lied to and there is NO RESEARCH occurring on screen, we won’t be a party to this type of production and we won’t allow this topic to be used as humor. How can we make these promises, because we know we can continually produce an educational experience based on specific locations we are studying.
• And finally, can’t exactly remember where this little nugget of bigfootery gold was unearthed but it is certainly gold to us.  Bobo and Steve Steuwfart are going to lunch with Bob Gimlin, right before walking in to the restaurant Bobo pleads, don’t be going all Dan (Danny) Perez on Bob.  Now THAT is funny.

Coming soon our second attempt to launch a viral music video and two lengthy reports, one on OOPS and one on I2I&S.

We would also like to recommend to all the aspiring “bigfoot researchers”  that wander on to this blog and think WTF, you gotta be inside to get some of it.  But in the meantime do read our tongue in cheek, and yet hauntingly right, guide to moving through the various levels of bigfootery.  We are going to gather up some of the past content that might be of use to the new to the fielders and some practical advice for you folks soon.

First the live version.

And now a more unusual and yet as entertaining version.

Sorry, it won’t embed, here’s the link.

Thanks to the last two storms,  the corps is already dumping at 4,000 cubes and the Meadow is throwing another 500+ into the mix.  Add all the little tribs and it looks like some big water and added days or volume at this point.

To make the post remotely bigfoot related, we will make this offer to the Finding Bigpuffery, aka Not Finding Bigfoot, dba Finding Bigfoot shoooo.  Come down to wild and wonderful, we’ll take you on an overnight, share some scary tales, hoot up the canyon and make you some of our famous dutch oven bigfoot beans and snausage.  If we find you agreeable in camp, just maybe we will break out a friend’s helmet cam footage from Deckers.  Its at least as good as what Big Boy has been pimping so far, taint no bear,  climbs out of the mini canyon and through the rhodie like no person we can think of.  Well, a tweaker might be able to do it.   I think his price is $500 a second, and that’s for the running time on the show and not the running time of the clip.  Send Boo Boo to close the deal, he has little use for carnival barkers.  On second thought, the offer is withdrawn.   I think a long swim and some soggy gear would likely result and at least this author has reached the age where there is enough action without causing some on the side.