MonsterQuest cancelled

[William Parcher]

The History Channel program on cryptozoology, MonsterQuest, has been cancelled after 4 years. The producer Doug Hajicek wrote a letter (http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/mqs/) to Cryptomundo.

Like many of you, I am a bit saddened by the official cancellation of MonsterQuest. However, we will continue to produce similar programming in the future as opportunities arise...

The Network has decided to go another direction to assure their future as a powerful force in television.

[desertyeti]

It belongs on ScyFy anyway.
Public interest in bogeymen wanes after years of zero delivery.
Give it a few years and the whole crypto-thing will "reboot."

[William Parcher]

Public interest in bogeymen wanes after years of zero delivery.

Doug said this...

The official end of MonsterQuest did not happen because of any lack of topics or for lack of viewers.

No lack of viewers he says. I guess the HC just drops popular programs?

[RayG]

Not to worry, years from now some alien lifeforms will regard Galaxy Quest MonsterQuest as historical and accurate documentation of bigfoot... kind of like some footers do already.

RayG

[Pure Argent]

It belongs on ScyFy anyway.
Public interest in bogeymen wanes after years of zero delivery.
Give it a few years and the whole crypto-thing will "reboot."

Oh please no. We already have TAPS and GHI. We don't need any more ************.

Please, just give us more Star Trek. 'Cause, y'know, that's actual science fiction.

[Drewbot]

While I think the show was done, not for solving the mysteries, but to hype the idea of monsters in our midst. I was thoroughly entertained by the shows. Especially the lie detector episodes, and the New England Sasquatch one with this dude.

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/4282/scaredz.jpg (http://img442.imageshack.us/i/scaredz.jpg/)

[kittynh]

In my work with abductees, they talk about shows like "Monster Quest" like it's a really deep science program. Someone once told me "I'm self educated about this paranormal stuff, I watch programs like Monster Quest!"

I like to point out if "Monster Quest" ever found any real proof, it wouldn't be at the end of the show. It would be headlining on CNN the day they found it.

They don't seem to GET that at the end of the show they will never have PROOF.

[kittynh]

While I think the show was done, not for solving the mysteries, but to hype the idea of monsters in our midst. I was thoroughly entertained by the shows. Especially the lie detector episodes, and the New England Sasquatch one with this dude.

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/4282/scaredz.jpg (http://img442.imageshack.us/i/scaredz.jpg/)

wait that dude IS our New England Bigfoot (we call him "BIG HEAD" though)

[WinstonCountyWildman]

one of the worst shows of its type ever. Maybe now something better will come along.

[Spektator]

I'm still sort of ticked off because when I sent the MQ staff a detailed analysis of why their "Teddy Roosevelt Encounters a Bigfoot!!!!" was demonstrably inaccurate (even sourcing itself on a nonexistent "journal" supposedly kept by Teddy, while it was actually based on a misreading of two sections of his book Wilderness Hunter) all I got back was a brief email telling me "MonsterQuest is a show that incorporates both entertainment and research."

Humph.

Oh, snap. I posted this in the wrong thread. I meant to put it in the one about the cancellation of the MonsterQuest show. Need more coffee.....

[William Parcher]

So I'm lying in bed, grading research projects, and the TV is on in the background just for noise. "MonsterQuest" comes on, a show about "The American Werewolf" or some such--the Dogman of Michigan. I'm too lazy to put down my grading and find the remote, so I half pay attention to it.

And as part of the show, there's a clip of "the Gable film"--an eight-mm film--kid on a snowmobile, someone chopping wood, then a drive in a truck and then this indistinct beast charges whoever's filming and the last action shot is the thing's gaping maw with big ole teeth chomping on the camera lens. MQ experts weigh in. The film obviously dates from the 1970s. As to the creature, they point out that it's definitely an unknown beastie, not a bear, not a wolf, not a dog, and it couldn't possibly be a guy in a suit because its movements and musculature are clearly inhuman.

But then disc jockey and author Steve Cook appears and identifies the mysterious creature as a gias. That is a guy in a suit. In fact, he was the guy in the suit. Even more, the film was shot not in the seventies, but about 2007, on old equipment. There was even a sequel "investigative film" showing the dead bodies of the thing's victims. But there was also a "making of" film shot at the same time showing Cook in the ghillie suit, doing a quadripedal run (a very good one too), the "dead body" revealed as a guy apparently sprawled on his face but actually standing in a hole and wearing a fake torso that made him look as though he were ripped in half, and so on (I think this was Cook again, in drag and a wig).

Long story short, a fake that for at least a couple of years evidently fooled a lot of experts. So...it can be done, eh?

Got your Gable Creature right here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4vBQskEKEo).

[Brocolis]

thank god.
now they have to stop with the nostradamus 2012 thing

[JFrankA]

thank god.
now they have to stop with the nostradamus 2012 thing

They will within three years.

That's my prediction! I saw it in the number's arua


:D

[Bitter Monk]

all I got back was a brief email telling me "MonsterQuest is a show that incorporates both entertainment and research."


During the roaring days of "Mysterious Encounters" Hajicek knowingly portrayed a squirrel's tail as a possible sasquatch. That should have been the nail in his coffin of credibility right then and there but alas...

[idoubtit]

There was a movement afoot to save it. People, I guess, were sending in lots of suggestions for topics.

http://idoubtit.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/end-of-monster-quest/

I got an email last week from the Ghost Hunters company Pilgrim Films & TV that they are looking for a skeptical ("practical") side of a team for a new series called "Miracle Detectives". 6 episodes have been already ordered for, wait for it, the Oprah Network. :wackyconfused:

I have to call her back. What should I ask?

[Drewbot]

I watched the rest of WEREWOLF Episode.

Gable film was played and analyzed, and the DJ that promoted it came clean as Spektator said. They even had the film maker go through step by step how he made the film. Guess what? He wore an off the shelf Ghillie suit, and he recreated the impossible locomotory gallop that couldn't be done by a human. I'd like to find out if that same film maker was in the Cascades of Washington on a memorial day back in the 90's.

[idoubtit]

See how that Gable film episode played with some believers.

http://www.ghosttheory.com/2010/03/25/monsterquest-gable-film-mystery-solved

Spoiler: not too well. It was overdue for this sham of a show to die.

[Gribble]

RayG wrote "Not to worry, years from now some alien lifeforms will regard Galaxy Quest MonsterQuest as historical and accurate documentation of bigfoot... "

Or maybe years from now some guy will find some old MQ dvds under a rock , eventually decipher them, then found a religious group called "Morons"...

[William Parcher]

Monster Quest Music Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt9dzaS7LPQ)


Under waves of doubt you were haunted
You wanna show them now you were chosen
So you're heading out in the morning
You're gonna track him down and prove it
You'll have a tale to tell them all

Monster Quester where is your evidence?
Prove the skeptics wrong with your defense
Monster Quester tell me what did you find?
With your cameras and sonar combined
The creatures had nowhere to hide

[Drewbot]

JREF member Melissa is in the video at 2:10

But the best part of the video is the guy making the Bigfoot noise at 2:28

What a great video.

[William Parcher]

Our member "tube" (Matt Crowley) is in there too.

[Kilaak Kommander]

But where will we go for our weekly dose of trailcam placing and murky underwater filming?

It's kind of a shame, because this season seemed to have a more skeptical outlook. Joe Nickell's segments were always fun. And my jaw about dropped when they exposed the Gable dogman footage as a hoax.

[Tdoc]

Apologies if this is a derail, but this thread reminded me of a trailer I saw for a show called "Destination Truth". Being mildly familiar with "Monster Quest" it seemed just as, if not more mindless.

[marlborough]

wait that dude IS our New England Bigfoot (we call him "BIG HEAD" though)

I see a strong anatomical similarity among MQ squatch experts. Anyone have a pic of the star expert from Critical Evidence?

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff117/Bite_Me_CR/TreeTrunkNeck-1.jpg

[Maldon]

Drewbot wrote: I watched the rest of WEREWOLF Episode.

Gable film was played and analyzed, and the DJ that promoted it came clean as Spektator said. They even had the film maker go through step by step how he made the film. Guess what? He wore an off the shelf Ghillie suit, and he recreated the impossible locomotory gallop that couldn't be done by a human. I'd like to find out if that same film maker was in the Cascades of Washington on a memorial day back in the 90's.

Is this the MQ Werewolf episode?

[Drewbot]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo4tzrxyXsA&feature=related

A great spoof on Monster quest-like documentaries.

PROBINGS- Monster Parties, Do they Exist?

[RhodyDave]

This is good news. Anytime woo like this is exposed for the bunk it really is can only be a good thing for rational thought.

[Mister Earl]

Isn't Ghost Lab still going though? That's another show that needs to go. They say they conduct "scientific" investigations, when they are anything but.

A shadow on the side of a tree at a large distance, on grainy video? "This is a shadow person."

They take the approach of, "These people are saying this house is haunted. What evidence can we uncover to support that fact?". If it were truly scientific, they would use the approach of "Do ghosts even exist?" or "Are anomalous events happening here? If so, what mechanism is causing it?"

Meh. Even the Science channel is allowing homeopaths to place commercials on their channel.

[dudalb]

MQ died not because of skepticism, but because of Low Ratings.

[RhodyDave]

MQ died not because of skepticism, but because of Low Ratings.

Is it not likely that those low ratings were due to skepticism about laughable "research" and a distinct lack of evidence to back any of the ludicrous claims? I think skepticism is precisely why the show was canceled.

[idoubtit]

I suspect people got bored with the same old format every week. Hype, repeat, speculation, hype, disappoint.

[Monketey Ghost]

Did they ever track down the mysterious gulliBull?

[mike3]

Is it not likely that those low ratings were due to skepticism about laughable "research" and a distinct lack of evidence to back any of the ludicrous claims? I think skepticism is precisely why the show was canceled.

Could you provide the details of just what's wrong with it? From what I can tell, they don't seem to say oh yeah, the monster is really there even when they come back with no hard evidence.

[Monketey Ghost]

Could you provide the details of just what's wrong with it? From what I can tell, they don't seem to say oh yeah, the monster is really there even when they come back with no hard evidence.

I guess you can't expect that they'll end every show with "yeah, again, we found zilch."

But it'd be honest.

Or maybe once in a while, "Why do we keep wasting our time like this?"

But it's precisely the lack of such admissions that keep them going. In this case, it appears their viewership made the admissions for them by not watching.

[valis]

I like to point out if "Monster Quest" ever found any real proof, it wouldn't be at the end of the show. It would be headlining on CNN the day they found it.


That's why the show has never been interesting. You always no the outcome before the show starts.

[Spektator]

I suspect people got bored with the same old format every week. Hype, repeat, speculation, hype, disappoint.

Personally, I think it was another facet of the format: Because each segment of the show began with extensive recapping of what went before, in, say, an hour of watching MQ one would have viewed a grand total of 10-12 minutes of original footage.

[foxholeatheist]

I suspect people got bored with the same old format every week. Hype, repeat, speculation, hype, disappoint.

Flipping nailed it.

One thing that struck me: Wouldn't we hear about a giant ape/relict Plesiosaur being caught on the news long before we get to see it on some lame infotainment "show"?

Don't get me wrong, I love this stuff for some reason. I stick around to the bitter end of each episode I happen to catch.

[GrandMasterFox]

One thing that struck me: Wouldn't we hear about a giant ape/relict Plesiosaur being caught on the news long before we get to see it on some lame infotainment "show"?


That's the exact same argument against conspiracy theories.
"If there was proof about X, wouldn't we hear about it on CNN or something
Rather than some lame infotaiment "show" like Jessee Ventura?


And yet for some reason, people still tun in for those shows.

[atpeace]

MQ lost me when the narrator couldn't even pronounce place names accurately.
ap

[RhodyDave]

Could you provide the details of just what's wrong with it? From what I can tell, they don't seem to say oh yeah, the monster is really there even when they come back with no hard evidence.

No offense, but have you ever watched even just a promo spot for the show (or any like it)? They make it sound like they've discovered some incredible evidence, yet when the show concludes there is nothing. Zippo, zilch, nada, a big goose egg...you get the idea.

[idoubtit]

MQ lost me when the narrator couldn't even pronounce place names accurately.
ap

HA. I noticed that TOO. How hard would it be to check the names first.

I admit, I did enjoy the very last episode - the exposure of the Gable film and *gasp* wolves in Michigan. The lady with the wolves was awesome.

[Drewbot]

The last episode was by far the best MQ. They literally exposed a hoax. I remember people at BFF talking about how no human could run like that, and that it didn't run like a bear or a dog.

[Spektator]

The last episode was by far the best MQ. They literally exposed a hoax. I remember people at BFF talking about how no human could run like that, and that it didn't run like a bear or a dog.
Yeah, but in all fairness, Steve Cook said he had already confessed to the hoax before the show was even shot. The MQ guys (he says) wanted him to play along with the notion that THEY had uncovered the hoax, and he did, just 'cause he's a sweetie at heart.

Oh, and there was money involved.