The movie poster for "Throwback" a Yowie (Australian Bigfoot) monster movie.
"It is the first feature film ever made about Australia’s legendary cryptid." --MrDisgusting, Bloody-Disgusting.com
At the very least this movie gets props for creatively referencing The March of Progress (Rudy Zallinger, 1970), illustration used to visually depict human evolution.
The March of Progress (Rudy Zallinger, 1970)
Just like the illustration, Throwback seems to be in a long line of Bigfoot movies that have only minor differences from it's immediate predecessor, but that would be unfair. Throwback is a pioneer, in fact, according to Bloody-Disgusting.com, it is the first movie about Australia's Yowie.
We get most of Bigfoot movie news from horror websites. This is no different, today (01/04/13) Bloody-Disgusting.com announced the new trailer for the Yowie horror flick, Throwback.
Throwback, which stars Shawn Brack, Anthony Ring, Melanie Serafin and genre film veteran Vernon Wells (The Road Warrior, Commando, Innerspace), is about two modern-day treasure hunters, a female park ranger and an embittered ex-cop who encounter a savage Bigfoot-like monster known as a Yowie in the jungles of Australia’s Far North. It is the first feature film ever made about Australia’s legendary cryptid. The film recently wrapped production in Cairns, Queensland, and is now in post-production.
Two modern-day treasure hunters -- Jack ( Shawn Brack) and Kent (Anthony Ring) -- who go searching for the lost gold of a legendary outlaw in the remote wilds of Far North Queensland. But instead of riches, they find a different kind of legend, a ferocious Australian monster known as a Yowie, Australia's answer to Bigfoot, and a savage battle for survival ensues. Thrown into the mix are a park ranger named Rhiannon and an ex-homicide detective named McNab.
Enjoy the new trailer below, which you have to admit has some amazing cinematography. The composition of some of these shots are breathtaking.
Oliver was known as baby bigfoot, the missing link and even the humanzee
"I still get inquiries about Oliver really being a Bigfoot." -- Loren Coleman
Today in 1976, a newspaper declared the mDNA results of a captured “Baby Bigfoot,” while unique, the Baby Bigfoot was merely a chimpanzee. Oliver (pictured above) was often known as Baby Bigfoot, but a more modern, and perhaps cleverer moniker, was coined in a recent documentary broadcast on the Discovery Channel. This documentary called "Humanzee," featured an upright walking chimpanzee named Oliver. For those who have heard of Oliver before, he's just a chimp according to test results. Chimp or "Humanzee," Oliver was a remarkable, upright walking chimp who appeared to prefer living and behaving as a human being than a chimpanzee for the better part of his life.
At cryptomundo.com Loren Coleman wrote in 2007, "I still get inquiries about Oliver really being a Bigfoot."
Oliver's had a real strange and sordid history. Others have noted Oliver's peculiar smell, eye coloring, bird-like voice and various mannerisms as being very un-chimp-like. And then there is Oliver's sense of himself. The prevailing view is that Oliver is simply a mutant chimp. Could Oliver be the result of clandestine genetic alchemy? A mutant or hybrid chimp? Missing Link perhaps?
BOERNE -- His days on the freak circuit and on tabloid covers as the fabled ``missing link,'' are finally behind him, as are seven lost years in a medical research laboratory. Now, Oliver, a mild-mannered, middle-aged ape that walks upright like a human, is taking a well-deserved Hill Country retirement, but is no less a scientific mystery than he first appeared 25 years ago. "Oliver's had a real strange and sordid history. He was exploited tremendously for his very unusual morphological characteristics,'' said Ken DeCroo, a California anthropologist and animal trainer who owned him a decade ago and, like others, has not forgotten him. "His physical appearance was rather different than most chimps. He's bipedal, which means he walks on two feet, and that is very unusual. And another aspect is his very small head,'' he said. Others have noted Oliver's peculiar smell, eye coloring, bird-like voice and various mannerisms as being very un-chimp-like. And then there is Oliver's sense of himself. "He was not like normal chimps and other chimps didn't get along with him too well. He preferred to be with humans,'' recalled Bill Rivers, another former owner. But Oliver has mellowed with the years. Since May, when he and 11 other chimps were retired from the Buckshire Corp., a research center in Pennsylvania, Oliver has shared a spacious open-air cage with other chimps at Primarily Primates. Wally Swett, director of the primate sanctuary, said his newest celebrity guest is adapting well, and, after years in isolation, has formed an attachment. "He's bonded with one little female,'' said Swett. "And he understands a lot and is quite cooperative. And he's not like other male chimps which can get quite grabby and aggressive,'' he said. Old news accounts assert that Oliver has 47 chromosomes (see results info below), one more than a human, one less than a chimpanzee, but there are no records to confirm it. Quite soon, possibly for the first time, Oliver will undergo sophisticated blood and genetic analysis to resolve, once and for all, exactly who or what he is. "The prevailing view is that Oliver is simply a mutant chimp. Others think he may be a cross between a common chimp and a pygmy chimp, and soon we'll be able to make a determination,'' said Dr. Gordon Gallup, an anthropology professor at the University of New York at Albany. But, said Gallup, who has lectured about Oliver in his evolutionary psychology course, there are other possibilities holding infinitely more complicated implications. "It's difficult to know for sure, but I think there is reason to suspect that Oliver may be a human-chimpanzee hybrid. It turns out that humans and chimps are at least 99 percent identical in terms of basic biological chemistry, and you can get hybrids among much more diverse creatures than that,'' he said. Rumors of such taboo experiments being conducted in China, Italy and the United States have persisted for years, but have never been acknowledged. Could Oliver be the result of clandestine genetic alchemy? The answer may come after a blood sample -- to be taken from Oliver at an upcoming medical examination -- are tested at the University of Chicago, allowing scientists there to finally determine his genetic pedigree. "Let you imagination run wild. It has such mind-boggling implications for things like religion, and whether such a creature would be covered by the Bill of Rights. It could make people think about their relationship to evolution,'' said Gallup. "But until there is some evidence either way, it's simply an academic exercise rather than anything you can take seriously,'' he said. Dr. David Ledbetter, who will do the testing, said genetics technology will allow him to determine if Oliver is a normal or mutant chimp, and if he proves to be a hybrid, his parentage. "It seems a little silly to me to have all this rumor and controversy floating around when its a very straightforward thing to do the chromosome analysis,'' he said. A spokesperson for the Yerkes Primate Center in Atlanta, the most prestigious primate research facility in the country, said scientists there had never heard of Oliver. Oliver surfaced in the early 1970s, when he was acquired as a baby by trainers Frank and Janet Burger whose dog, chimp, pony and pig acts were once regularly featured on the Ed Sullivan Show, at Radio City Music Hall, and once even by dancer Gene Kelly. "He came in from Africa with three other chimps that one of Frank's brothers had sent over from the Congo. But this one we could never use. He was odd and the other chimps would have nothing to do with him,'' recalled Janet Burger, 69. But if Oliver was strange in appearance, and was shunned by other chimps, his intelligence and personality were also quite different from the other apes in the Burgers' entourage. "You could send him on chores. He would take the wheelbarrow and empty the hay and straw from the stalls. And when it was time to feed the dogs, he would get the pans, and mix the dog food for me. I'd get it ready and he'd mix it,'' she said. As he grew older, Oliver also acquired habits normally enjoyed only by humans, including a cup of coffee and a nightcap. "This guy, Oliver, he enjoyed sitting down at night and having a drink, and watching television. He'd mix his own. He'd pour a shot of whiskey and put some Seven-Up in there, stir it and drink it,'' she recalled. Oliver also displayed emotions not normally associated with chimpanzees, including tears of remorse at temporary separations. But ultimately, it was another of Oliver's human like traits that forced the Burgers to sell him. By 1976, when he was approaching sexual maturity, Oliver was turning into a masher. "He had sex on his mind. The old hormones flared up but he didn't care about the female chimps we had, he started trying to have sex with me and any other woman,'' recalled Burger. "I was leery of him. He was as strong as five men, so I told my husband, "I'm not putting up with this. He's going or I'm going," so we sold him to Michael Miller and his partner for $8,000,'' she said. Miller, a New York City lawyer, had seen dollar signs in Oliver, and took him on the road, including Japan, where newspaper accounts report that 26 million Japanese viewed him. In the United States and overseas, breathless speculation raged over the ape with the shaved head. Was he "the baby Bigfoot?'' A mutant or hybrid chimp? Or perhaps a newly discovered primitive African humanoid? Miller also hinted at the unspeakable: An ape-human hybrid. In press accounts of the time, Miller said he intended for Oliver to undergo a full battery of scientific tests to determine his identity, but the results, if any, were never made public. After belonging to Miller for several years, Oliver was owned by a series of West Coast animal trainers, beginning with Ralph Helfer, owner of Enchanted Village in Buena Park, Ca., where Oliver was exhibited as a freak. "They had two or three shows a day. I'd just walk him out on stage while another fellow talked about him. They had theories that he was half-man, half-ape. That was part of the show,'' recalled Bill Rivers, who years later would be the last animal trainer to own Oliver. "It was just like seeing a space alien,'' he said. Oliver later became part of Helfer's menagerie at Gentle Jungle doing occasional television commercials and shows. But when the facility closed he was given to Ken DeCroo who had worked there. DeCroo, an anthropologist and animal trainer, said Oliver was unlike any of the hundreds of chimps he had worked with in both research and commercial settings. "It was very hard to predict what was happening in that brain and generally he acted more human than chimp in a lot of settings,'' recalled DeCroo. "This is the classic example. Very often I would sit him down in the living room with me to drink coffee. And one time he was out of coffee. I never trained him to do this, but maybe he knew it from the past. He got up from the table, walked into the kitchen, picked up the coffee pot, poured coffee into my cup, then into his, and then took the pot back into the kitchen,'' he said. "But here's the chimp part. He's making a terrible mess. His brain is telling him what to do, but his body isn't quite doing it. But he had the awareness. He understood where all the elements fit and that I was out of coffee. It was shocking,'' he said. DeCroo is now struggling to put Oliver down on paper. "I'll tell you how much Oliver has affected me in my life. I'm writing a novel, which is very much fiction, but is very much based on Oliver,'' he said. "It's about researchers in a university that decide to do the experiment: man and ape. This experiment is quite possible, but would you do it?" he asked. "In deciding that, you can imagine the ramifications both ethically and scientifically. And what do you do with the creature in the end? It's quite an adventure and Oliver inspired it,'' he said. DeCroo said in 1986, when he closed his animal compound, he sold Oliver to Bill Rivers with the understanding Oliver would be given a decent retirement. When he heard later Oliver had ended up at a research facility he was remorseful. "He was a good friend and I've always felt guilty. I failed Oliver. I really thought he wasn't going anywhere,'' said DeCroo. But Rivers said he eventually sold Oliver to the Buckshire Corporation, where he languished for almost seven years, when the ape proved too difficult to keep. "He couldn't get along with the other chimps. I was doing a lot of traveling. I really didn't have a place for him,'' said Rivers. According to Buckshire president Sharon Hursh, Oliver showed signs of a rough treatment, but was never used for research. "When we got him, we gave him an entrance physical and it was evident to us he'd had a pretty tough life. Somewhere along the line, he must have been a tough chimp. He had scars that indicated rough handling,'' she said. "We basically purchased him for laboratory research but he was never used. He just sort of ate, kicked back and slept all day,'' she said. Fortunately for Oliver, others did not forget him. Vincent Pace, a concert pianist and circus ochestra leader, met Oliver when the Burgers were traveling with the Vargas Circus in the early 1970's. But when Oliver was put up for sale in 1976, Pace said he was outbid by Miller, the New York lawyer. "I lost track of him totally for 20 years,'' said Pace. "But two years ago I came into a big sum of money and I made a list of things I wanted to do. I wanted to buy a new Rolls Royce, I wanted a face lift and I wanted a new baby chimp. And in searching for a new chimp, I bumped into Oliver at the Buckshire,'' he said. Initially, he said, the Buckshire appeared willing to release Oliver. "I spent $70,000 to build a room on my house here for him. It's all plexi-glass, stainless steel and Formica. He'd have private eating quarters,'' he said. But after his attempt to get Oliver failed, said Pace, he was glad to see him and 11 other Buckshire chimps end up with Primarily Primates in Boerne. "I'd lived without him for so long, I thought getting him out and into anybody's hands would be better than him being where he was,'' said Pace. "Someday I'll go to Texas and see Oliver before he dies. This animal is almost human in his emotions,'' he said. Regardless of the outcome of the genetic testing, Oliver will enjoy a peaceful and permanent refuge in Boerne, said Swett. "He's been dragged around and exploited for over 20 years, but this is his final retirement. He'll never go into research or on exhibit again,'' said Swett. "In terms of significant scientific findings, we'll play it by ear, but never to the point of inconveniencing Oliver,'' he said.
Rough estimate of the New York Times Front Page, Headline accurate
In 2003, January 3rd, The New York Times printed a front page article reporting Ray Wallace's "death bed" confession as the guy wearing a Bigfoot costume in the famous Patterson/Gimlin film. To Bigfooters the Sasquatch in the film is referred to as Patty. Ray Wallace has been claiming he was Patty long before he died, but somehow as a "death bed" confession the story seemed to stick better. He also claimed at one point his wife was in the suit. The testimony of Michael Wallace, Ray's son is the thrust of the article.
''This wasn't a well-planned plot or anything,'' said Michael Wallace, one of Ray's sons.
''All it means is that Ray Wallace is dead, not Bigfoot,'' said Dr. Wolf Henner Fahrenbach, a zoologist in the Portland area who is retired from the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center.
Though some Bigfoot believers had long suspected that Mr. Wallace created the tracks, he kept his secret, and his family never confirmed it until his death.
Michael Wallace said his father had a friend carve the feet. Dr. Fahrenbach has tried to prove -- by DNA analysis of hair samples -- that Bigfoot is a species heretofore unknown to science. ''Sasquatch feet grow in substantial excess of general body dimensions,'' Dr. Fahrenbach wrote in one study. ''Hence the justifiable moniker Bigfoot.''
Filmed in the Six Rivers National Forest in Northern California, not far from where Ray Wallace laid his tracks, the short film shows a bewildered-looking apeman walking upright, while glancing at the camera.
The film has its believers, Dr. Meldrum and Dr. Fahrenbach among them. ''As long as Dad was alive, he was Bigfoot,'' Michael Wallace said
Our favorite part is when Dr. Matthew Johnson get's wrapped into this famous article. Dr. Matthew Johnson is an active leader in the Bigfoot community and a Bigfoot witness who currently offers parenting advice via books, CDs, and conferences. His site Family-Rules.com is one-stop center for "Parenting with a Plan." He also has a popular Facebook Group Team Squatchin' USA.
Dr Matthew Johnson (Dr. J) in the wilderness. In 2003 he was quoted
in the now famous New York Times article about Ray Wallace
Below is the excerpt that includes Dr. Matthew Johnson.
Dr. Meldrum and Dr. Fahrenbach may have some academic investment in Bigfoot, but Dr. Matthew Johnson, a clinical psychologist from Grants Pass, Ore., said his conviction could not be dismissed as scholarly bias.
Dr. Johnson said he was too big - 6 feet 9 inches tall - too educated, and too familiar with the outdoors after living in Alaska for years to be fooled by some guy in an ape suit, or a logger with wooden feet.
"I've never had a U.F.O. encounter and have not seen the Loch Ness monster," he said. "I was just a husband and father out for a hike."
Two years ago, while hiking with his family in the Oregon Caves National Monument, Dr. Johnson said, he ventured off to the side of a trail, looked up to some trees and stared, eye to eye with Bigfoot. He reported his find to the National Park Service.
"Ray Wallace may have indeed hoaxed his own tracks," Dr. Johnson said. "But I can guarantee you that Ray Wallace was not walking around in a nine-foot Bigfoot suit in the Oregon Caves at the age of 82. What I saw was real."
Since the encounter, Dr. Johnson, now president of the Southern Oregon Bigfoot Society, has led numerous outings to feed and track Bigfoot. He leaves bananas and husked corn for the animal.
