What can you say about Penn & Teller? They left no sacred cryptids untouched by their silence and their profanity. Bottomline, you did not miss much “science” (despite their claims) if your cable system doesn’t get Showtime and you did not watch Penn & Teller’s April 24th show on “Cryptozoology.”
Let’s see, Penn & Teller made fun of Scott Norman, head of CryptoSafari. And they satirized the search for the Loch Ness Monsters via Richard Freeman and Jon Downes of the Centre for Fortean Zoology (“the world’s best mystery animal research group”).
Scott’s hat, his photos of his days in Mokele-Mbembe land, and his dinosaur “toys” were all the butt of Penn & Teller’s jokes. That Scott would believe native tales is ridiculed, needless to say, in loud profanity, by Penn & Teller.
Richard and Jon looked for Nessie with a small digital camera and a bag of fish heads. Penn & Teller had a good time with the souvenirs, the guys’ leather jackets, beards, and Nessie hats.
Clever editing and the setups they picked made cryptozoology look like the “craptozoology” that Penn & Teller wanted it to appear to be. As we have already discussed in the days leading up to this airing, Penn & Teller have made an entertainment show presenting itself as science, but it is more about ridiculing people than being logical. You can try to find the humor here, but one does have to look hard to get a laugh out of this show. It is a biting satire with no giggling, as far as can be seen from viewing it twice. Of course, I’m bias. I’ll admit that.
Concerning the Sonoma footage, Penn & Teller clearly show how they had taped it, and what suit they used. This should be another lesson in caution for the less than critical thinking Bigfoot hunting webmasters and Bigfooters, in general. Penn & Teller pulled it off, to their satisfaction. There’s always two sides to such investigations, but they can feel good in landing some marks with their gaff.
Penn & Teller’s production company, for the fake Sonoma video, appear to have employed a now widely available Bigfoot/Sasquatch costume from McAvene Designs of North Hollywood, California. The suits are fitted for muscular actors of the correct size (6’7″) for this show, and the looks of this one mirrors what appears on the Penn & Teller program.
Penn & Teller’s fake creators also made up “Mark Nelson,” and suckered in two “cryptozoologists,” one labeled “A****** #1″ and the other labeled “A****** A.” These two people, among many who contacted “Mark Nelson,” wanted to steer the fake “Nelson” through interviews, website exposure, and getting paid for his footage and interviews.
Penn & Teller would not identify these guys because their lawyer was afraid, but it is clear whom one of them is. This person wanted to assist “Mark Nelson” with getting his footage licensed for $5000 a showing, and get $6000 for an interview.
We now know the Sonoma footage was definitely faked by the Penn & Teller people and they used a big guy in a suit they showed. Okay, some people were fooled. We weren’t, as we’ve mentioned on Cryptomundo, and called this the “So-no-no-ma video.”
But the person who might come off the worst on this show, perhaps, is the one who positioned himself (or was manipulated and edited to do so) to eat his own, the former “cryptozoologist” Richard Ellis, who is shown as arrogant, elitist, and obnoxious. Here we have Ellis, the only one who gets to push his books, with huge full book cover shots, and he’s the one being displayed saying things like…most people in cryptozoology are just “in it for the fame,” doing this to “get on television” and get “big book contracts.”
Ellis is a nice guy, and like Scott Norman, I think some post-production editing has made Richard look like the devil. Watchers beware.
Penn & Teller may be problematic, with their tone, naked people on a cryptozoology show, swearing, yelling, lame jokes, creation of fakes, and weird sense of humor. Who will be the next new patsy for programs like Penn & Teller to interview?
Allen Foster, a bigfoot hobbyist from northern California wrote the following and wanted me to share this with you. It is his “right after watching” Penn & Teller-remarks, a sort of first reaction and stream of consciousness view of the show:
Just got done watching the show on Cryptozoology. It started out searching for the Loch Ness Monster with two “World Renowned Cryptozoologists.” I don’t remember who they were. I guess they’re not that world renowned.
Then they cut to the Sonoma Bigfoot video and claimed they shot it. They wrote the back story and posted it on the Internet. A sample of the e-mails that people wrote were read by a “Bigfoot” with glasses on. They then proceeded to debunk Bigfoot with the standard Ray Wallace story and an ape expert.
Back to Loch Ness with their two experts. Saying Nessie is a big giant eel. They dressed up like the two experts and said it was “bullsh*t”. Next they went to Lake Michigan to talk to an eel expert to see if an eel could grow that big. The expert used playdough (because this is a “family show”) to descibe how an eel or Nessie could not grow that big. They then described how Nessie couldn’t exist using “Bigfoot” holding cue cards with the reasons why.
They next interviewed a professor from UCLA to tell how people see things that aren’t real.
Back to the Sonoma video. They showed them filming it and the guy putting the suit on and walking around. They said it took them about twenty minutes to shoot it. They then descibed two Bigfoot experts as “A**hole 1″ and “A**hole A”. A**hole A sounded like Matt Moneymaker but they wouldn’t identify him other that he has a Bigfoot website and said that they could make about $5,000 for the footage and wanted to set up a meeting.
In the end it was pretty much made to make every Bigfoot expert or Crytozoologist look stupid. The last scene was the guy in the Sonoma bigfoot costume talking on the cell phone telling his girlfriend/wife that he was going to be late because he was still out in the woods.
BugsBunny writes: “Why haven’t remains of deceased Bigfoot ever been discovered? Are their several Loch Ness Monsters or is the single “monster” in the lake, several hundred/thousand years old? How come no Loch Ness Monster remains have ever been discovered (assuming there have been many)? Why isnt‚ there a single piece of real scientific evidence ever found to suggest the existance of Bigfoot? A hair? A bone? Some DNA? Why isn’t there the sort of gigantism you associate with either Bigfoot or Loch Ness Monster exhibited among any other life form?”
Of course, these questions appear to demonstrate a level of defensiveness for Penn & Teller without looking at the basic demeaning techniques of personal attacks used by P & T that was the foundation of the critical view above.
Nevertheless, I’m not afraid to answer questions…even if they may be more revealing of the questioner than anything else…
Why deceased Bigfoot are not found in the woods have much to do with the same reasons seasoned woodspeople do not find dead bears or cougars in the woods, and a discussion of all of those reasons are contained in my 2003 Bigfoot! book. Hardwood forests, porcupines, other animals eating the remains, and the probable intelligence of the bipedal primates are contributing factors.
Asking the question about a thousands-of-years-old single Nessie is laughable, and something that is answered in elementary discussions on the Loch Ness Monsters – as there are several, they are a breeding population, and so forth. There is not “one” land-locked “monster.” Such a notion has more to do with skeptical wishful thinking than reality.
As to DNA, hair, and other physical evidence for the “existance” (sic) of Bigfoot, yes, of course, there are several forms of physical evidence pointing to the existence of these animals. However, as most books on Sasquatch and other cryptids readily note, without the type specimen, most hair samples, for example, found do not match known animals, and are usually labeled “near human” or “unknown primate.” Until Bigfoot is verified and confirmed, these samples will not have anything to match.
Gigantism? What is Bugs Bunny talking about? I don’t know any serious cryptozoologists that regularly trot out “gigantism” to “explain” Nessie and Bigfoot? Wow. Are other “life forms,” animals large like Bigfoot? Of course, they are. Certainly Pleistocene megafaunal survivors are well-known, and anyone is welcome to come visit my state to view an example out in the woods here…the moose.
The play-dough scientist’s findings of no food in Loch Ness is what is humorous. Tell that to the people who have fished the lake for most of their lives. But he did look like he was having fun with the modeling clay, and it made for one of those memorable moments in the “skeptics-on-television” hall of shame.
Bugs Bunny…I answered above, quickly and perhaps with too much humor. What, a Penn & Teller fan that doesn’t like funny answers? What is the world coming to?
But, okay, to be clear, (I can’t believe I am going to say this…), for “Bugs Bunny,” as Bugs seem to be basing his total thoughts on the food supply with the common misconception that “there are no fish in the lake,” as expressed by the one person who was quoted for P & T and the one boat driver who hasn’t seen Nessie. You are always going to find people who “haven’t” seen cryptids. Or use that old myth about no fish in the Loch. But, be logical, why is there a small fishing industry there? It is because fish pass through Loch Ness.
As to the food supply, the Loch is filled with eels and it has large populations of fish traveling through it. Also, if the Ness animals can transport to and from the ocean, as I think the evidence demonstrates, their food sources would never have to just be in the loch.
But, once again, why do the skeptics think there is a fishing industry and lifestyle there? Loch Ness is very rich in fish life. Brown trout, pike and arctic char live there amongst the thousands of eels. Of the greatest interest to local anglers are the salmon and sea trout which run from the North Sea, up the river Ness, jump the weir and run through the Loch to spawn in the rivers and burns, which feed it. The salmon fishing season historically started on January 15th and ended on October 15th, at Loch Ness. They aren’t fishing for nothing, of course. Supplying salmon has been a source of good income for Loch Ness folks for centuries. The local eating establishments often would charge very high prices for the first salmon caught every season.
The most efficient method for catching salmon is trolling. Think about what that tells us about the fish that live there, the obvious food source for any large cryptids. Salmon are seldom taken out in the deep water of the Loch. The largest salmon caught are generally in the 40 pound range, from near the surface. Quite large sea-trout are often taken while trolling for salmon, as well. Both for salmon and trout fishing in Loch Ness the water needs to be rough.
Good fish are seldom caught in calm waters. Good Monster hunting may be best in the same kind of waters, but good Loch Ness Monsters sightings have traditionally been limited to times of calmer waters. And therein lies the paradox, dear Watson. Humans are on the Loch when the waters are calm, but the Monsters may be there more often when the waters are otherwise.
Yes, just like it was bad luck to not have a verified mountain gorilla or live giant panda available for 60-70 years.
Please read some good books on these topics, as all your cryptozoological questions will be answered.
End of the discussion because this has gotten way off the Penn & Teller topic, and into trying to make a skeptic happy.