You might have this switched around. After the PGF, Ron Olson did a film production of some "Bigfoot hunters" that used an Indian character very much like Gimlin in wig. This was in 1975, and the film was called "Sasquatch, The Legend of Bigfoot". This Indian was named Tekka Blackhawk or Techa Blackhawk.
You can watch a campy trailer for this film here. You can see the Indian guy (looks just like Gimlin in the wig) at 0:22.
Yeah, they used a costumed Bigfoot in the film. It looks very fakey. I guess you could do that and still promote the PGF as real. Well, that's what Olson was doing.
DREW and
WILLIAM PARCHER - In
1969 is when FRANK HANSEN admitted to a newspaper that he'd FAKED his
Minnesota Iceman (a hot melt sculpt made by Howard Ball under the direction of John Chambers after Hansen had called DON POST STUDIO and talked to Vern Langdon regarding how to go about getting himself one of those 'frozen cavemen deals').
According to AL DEATLEY this is when he decided to turn over his four-walling money-maker to RON OLSON (for big cash, of course). Patterson and Olson became partners at this point and set about to make movies on Bigfoot. Some of the early interviews from the first Patterson/Olson endeavor (Fred Beck/Janos Prohaska/Albert Ostman) later was re-used in another Olson documentary that was edited into the ROBERT MORGAN adventure of the summer of '74.
Essentially Patterson's dream was to make movies with Merritt. After failing at making commercials together, Merritt copied CORRIGANVILLE and they began work on a film about cowboys being led by an old miner and a wise Indian tracker on a hunt for Bigfoot. This was a pseudo-documentary. No cowboys ever chased Bigfoot with dogs in any of the legends
but this is what Patterson was filming when he was sued for trespassing on a local ranchers land.
The storyline called for Patterson, his Indian guide (Gimlin in a wig) and the cowboys to recall in flashbacks the stories of Fred Beck and others as they tracked the beast on horseback. Later,after Patterson died, Olson actually made a version of this.
In
1975 Dahinden and Gimlin got involved in lawsuits against Olson, DeAtley, Mrs. Patterson and ALL of the various film companies that Roger had sold THE SAME RIGHTS to. DeAtley and Mrs. Patterson were forced by the court to pay RETROACTIVELY monies owed to Gimlin and Dahinden (since Dahinden had shrewdly bought out the original rights owned by Vilma Radford who had funded the costume for the original film).
Never at any time did the question of whether the film showed a "real Sasquatch" ever get raised by anyone. Only money was at issue. To this date Mrs. Patterson refuses to comment on whether the film is real or not. DeAtley says there is no such thing as Bigfoot. Heironimus has taken numerous lie detector tests from various sources and passed them all. Gimlin refuses to do this and talks to Bigfooters instead, telling them what they want to hear.
BILL MUNNS -- I spoke to BOB BURNS about that 'water bag' comment so often quoted. That was just something CHARLIE GEMORA had told him about making a fluid body part (stomach, breasts, etc) He merely
wondered if that might have been used in the suit IF the breasts were supposed to be moving.
Like KEN PETERSON (an exec in charge of artists drawing Mickey Mouse at Disney who also had never been involved in making creature suits) these quotes are usually taken out of context. Any compliment or kind word may be turned into a confirmation by an "expert" that Patty must be real. You'll find yourself the victim of this before too long.
Once gain for everyone regarding my former co-worker JOHN VULICH and the BBC (please copy and repeat so people get it through their heads for once) ----
Often you'll find out that things quoted by Bigfooters are
revised to fit their agenda. EXAMPLE: Never did anyone from JOHN VULICH and OPTIC NERVE say they were "trying to recreate the PG suit". Quite the opposite.
They loaned a red ape suit that was hanging up in their studio to the producer so that he could show how any hairy suit might look IF filmed using the same camera and method as Patterson. That was the producer's idea. No one paid them to recreate anything. No one ever expected that people would think creature fx artists thought the PG film showed a red ape with black hand-like feet. It's almost too stupid to consider - yet this is what is promoted on the Internet.
Below is the guy wearing the red ape suit. He's talking about how foam pads move. Behind him is a werewolf suit we used on BUFFY. It's more like the PG film so why not use it with an ape head? Because they gave the audience too much credit for intelligence, that's why.
The still photo posted on BFRO and elsewhere is not even the demonstration from Roger's CAMERA POV. Below is that demo. The producer was hoping to show how close Roger was and how he felt the camera was deliberately shaken to obscure details that you can see in the clear still images from the show.
That dark shaking image is from the Roger POV cam. The producer used a suit that DIDN'T resemble Patty on purpose in order to show how ridiculous it was. Yet people didn't get it. He had no idea how attached people were to this thing or the lengths they were willing to go to in order to declare it real.
SO HERE COMES SOME MORE EXPLAINING FOR THOSE INTERESTED...
This is a latex skin kneecap. It's glued to fabric. The fabric is sewn and glued over a foam body suit (the yellow bit you can see at the very bottom). If you continue adding latex skin and add shiny hair you'll get yourself a decent Bigfoot.
This is an old creature suit in the process of being put together many years ago. Like many of the monster suits used on
Lost in Space it is based on a
two section body. At the groin area the top snaps down - just as it did with Patty.
The thigh pad in the middle is what I wrapped the faux fur around in that previous hair animation. This was the first thing I ever did and I had not yet made the "hamstring line" that I later learned was commonly used by Wah Chang and which can be seen on "Patty".
The suit at the top was just some rubber sheets a glued together and painted in imitation of a picture I saw of Patty. The foot at the bottom was the very first foot I ever made. I made it by pressing a shape into Plaster-of Paris (same as used by Patterson) and then pouring bathroom caulk into that. I was imitating the Patterson print shown next to it.
The female bodybuilder on the LEFT shows excellent leg and buttocks development. However, I feel that if I can find the one who has developed the same lines as the bodybuilder on the RIGHT I will then be able to prove that Patty's muscle development is real and not simply a man-inna-suit. Do you know of any?
While the female bodybuilder can't recreate "Patty lines" a guy with foam pads can. This is simply reality. To try to pretend that the suit used for Patty is realistic after seeing this is to delude oneself. How this ability to delude oneself can go on is what I am interested in.
While I'll admit that when I wear rubber feet I make mid-tarsal breaks like the one seen below... that shouldn't mean that Patterson would ever use such a device. We all know cowboys and construction crews are not capable of such trickery.
Above is from JANOS. Below RIGHT is a mold from WAH CHANG. Below LEFT is a 1958 Bigfoot casting.
Below RIGHT is from Bluff Creek 1967. Below LEFT is from Dfoot. It's the mold of the foot I was wearing in the walking animation.
Molds, foam, movable jaws and muscles... all real and constantly in use since the late 1920's. So far NO ONE has ever studied a real Bigfoot. But I can promise you
they have drawn cartoon bones based on fake footprints from both rubber and wooden feet. That is real.
When we finally do have a Sas foot to study we may be surprised at the lack of sideways dermals, or double-balled feet, or tiny pea toes. We may have to reject the Sasquatch foot because it doesn't fit Dr. Meldrum's cartoon. The real Sasquatch (if it exists or existed) isn't Patty or any of the other hoaxes.
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