"Bigfoot & In Search Of TV Series"

By Frank Cali Vice President Team Tracker

With the DVD of Rick Dyer's Bigfoot body coming out soon. I thought it would be nice to remember a show most of us watched in the 1970's. It had alot of Bigfoot shows on it during it run.

If you were living through the 1970's, most likely you know of a show called "In Search Of." The series host was Leonard Nimoy "Spock" from TV's Star Trek. Each week Nimoy presented programs on various subjects such as Bigfoot, The Loch Ness Monster, UFO's, The Yeti , Dracula, Ghosts and The Bermuda Triangle."

The show was produced by documentary producer Alan Landsberg who did such films as Chariots of the Gods, In Search of Ancient Mysteries and The Other Space Connection. The original host was to be Rod Serling of The Twilight Zone. After his sudden death, the producer's next choice was Nimoy.

 

I can still remember the announcer saying "This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture. The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones, to the mysteries we will examine.." I, like most people never missed a show. The show started in 1977, the first year the of the Sony Betamax home video recorder. If you were lucky enough to own one, you could video tape the program and save them. But, in 1977, the video tapes cost $25.00 a piece, so many would use the same tapes over and over.

 

Still from "In Search Of...opening titles

The very first show broadcast in many area's (in some sections of the USA: The Loch Ness Monster was first broadcast) was on Bigfoot. The well know researchers such as the late Dr Grover Krantz , who believed that the only way to prove Bigfoots are real was to shoot one. Krantz said that was the only way science would expect the reality of these beings. In the mid 1980's Krantz tried to formally name Bigfoot by presenting his paper during the session of the International Society of Cryptozoology in Sussex, England,. He tried to assign the name Gigantopithecus black. Now that theory will be proven wrong by Rick Dyer and the team of scientists doing study on the Bigfoot Rick Dyer shot and killed one year ago this month in San Antonio, Texas. More on that later.

 

Dr. Grover Krantz with Gigantopithecus recreation skull

 

 

Also a regular on the series when Bigfoot was the topic was Peter Byrne. He started back in 1957 on an expedition that would total 3 years to try to track down the Yeti. Byrne was funded by Texas oil millionaire Tom Slick. When Slick was killed in a plane crash in 1962 and his funded abruptly stopped , Byrne headed to America and started on his quest to hunt Bigfoot with very little success. He is still active today over 50 years' later.
 

 

Peter Byrne

In 1978, Alan Landsburg produced a Bigfoot documentary using portions of two In Search of... broadcast episodes "The Monster Hunters" and "The Yeti") called Manbeast! Myth or Monster, it was based on his book In Search of Myths and Monsters. Leonard Nimoy had written the forward to Landsburg's book, but he did not narrate this documentary for some reason.

The show stopped protection in the early 1980's and went into syndication, where in most cities it was shown every day. A&E TV started broadcasting the show in the early 1990's and on A&E owned History Channel.

An attempt was made in the 2000's the Sci-Fi Channel (Now called SyFy) to bring the show back with a new host. They signed Mitch Pileggi of "The X Files", but the show lacked the impact of the original and was soon canceled.

You can now catch various episodes of "In Search Of" on YouTube and various other outlets these days. Most of the information presented is outdated and some theory's now proven incorrect, especially regarding Bigfoot as the world will soon discover when Rick Dyer presents the Bigfoot he shot and killed on September 6, 2012. Rick did a special anniversary show for that evening on which he talked about that night and the events following that incredible night. The show will be broadcast on YouTube. Catch it when you can i foyu missed it.
 

 

Leonard Nimoy on the set of "In Search Of"