Episode 24: Harry and the Hendersons (1987)

Regular listeners know how much we love bigfoot, so we’re very excited to be reviewing Harry and the Hendersons (1987), the story of a family of hunters who accidentally befriend a sasquatch and have to protect him from an obsessed cryptozoologist (and the rest of human society as well). What will it take to scientifically prove bigfoot exists? Probably more than we can ethically afford, but at least we can enjoy movies about it!

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In this episode:

Bigfoot hunter Jacques LaFleur is loosely based on Swiss-Canadian bigfoot researcher Rene Dahinden: http://lorencoleman.com/archives/rene-dahinden/

Rene Dahinden was briefly the spokesperson for Kokanee Beer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29SoakYhHNA

John Green, Canadian Sasquatch researcher (pdf): https://www.isu.edu/media/libraries/rhi/essays/Green_Tribute_revised.pdf

John Green’s exhaustive Bigfoot sighting database: https://github.com/jameskbride/sasquatch-data-json

Fahrenbach (1998) Sasquatch Dimensions and Traits. Cryptozoology 13, 47-75: http://www.bigfoot411.com/uploads/2/6/9/7/26977415/bf411-physiology-1998-fahrenbach_wolf-size-scaling-statistics.pdf

Scientist Grover Krantz risked it all… chasing bigfoot: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/scientist-grover-krantz-risked-it-all-chasing-bigfoot-180970676/

The truth behind “Birds aren’t Real”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK1dXuMEpT0

Is it legal to kill bigfoot? https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/87148/it-legal-shoot-bigfoot

Gregory Forth (2022) Between Ape and Human: An Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Hominoid: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Between-Ape-and-Human/Gregory-Forth/9781639361434

Mike Morwood (2009) A New Human: The Startling Discovery and Strange Story of the “Hobbits” of Flores, Indonesia https://www.routledge.com/A-New-Human-The-Startling-Discovery-and-Strange-Story-of-the-Hobbits/Morwood-Oosterzee/p/book/9781598744149

Can humans hybridize with other apes? https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/is-it-possible-for-humans-and-chimpanzees-to-interbreed/

Allen et al. (2020). A mitochondrial genetic divergence proxy predicts the reproductive compatibility of mammalian hybrids. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 287(1928), 20200690. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2020.0690