Bigfoot Trivia

By @hmsbeefnuts

Happy Sunday to all. I am in a very good mood today as I have managed to convince Geeky Gem that she is much better at Trivia than I am, and that she should do it every week. I also demanded that I was allowed to write my last trivia articles, for the time being, on any subject that I want. She has agreed, and so in the first of my last two weeks on the job as trivia giver of the week, I shall be giving you, dear reader, 10 facts on one of my favourite subjects, Bigfoot, or Sasquatch if you prefer. Now, I don’t know if Bigfoots exist, I would really love them too. But there is enough weird stuff going on in the woods that it bares a closer look.

I have never seen one, but then I live in Wales, and Bigfoot doesn’t often venture across the pond. Here in Wales, we don’t have many big hairy hominids, apart from on the rugby pitches up and down the nation, we have ABC’s (Alien Big Cats), and the odd reports of flying snakes! I have never seen either of these cryptids either, especially winged snakes (I wonder why), but my fascination for cryptozoology continues, for proof see this, and this. Whatever your views, Bigfoot is cool, or at least the idea of Bigfoot is cool. Now I can’t very well give you 10 Bigfoot facts, as facts in this case, can not be determined. I shall however give you 10 famous encounters with the Big Hairy one throughout the ages.

 

In 1884 in British Columbia, a crew of railway workers claims to have seen an ‘ape man’ during the summer, walking near the tracks. The workers forced it into a carriage, and held the ape man in a jail cell for several days, feeding it berries. They named their captive Jacko.

 

Imagine getting kidnapped by Bigfoot! Well in 1924 a lumberjack called Albert Ostman, woke up whilst being carried away in his sleeping bag. After a few hours, Ostman was put down and found himself in the lair of a family of Bigfoots. It seems the adult male had carried him there. They didn’t hurt him, but wouldn’t let him leave. He escaped by feeding the big Sasquatch a can of snuff.

 

Also in 1924, Fred Beck and four other Gold miners claimed that their cabin in Mount St, Helens was put under attack by a number of ‘ape men’ who threw rocks and tried to get in to the cabin. The men grabbed their rifles and shot one of them, although the body fell off a cliff.

 

In the summer of 1958, Jerry Crew, a tractor operator at Bluff Creek noticed giant footprints all over the construction site. He cast the
footprints and sent them to a local news reporter. They dubbed the creature Bigfoot, and a legend was born.

 

Reports from Honey Island in Louisiana’s swamp land describe a monster that lives there. It is known as the Louisiana Wookie, because it looks like Chewbacca.

 

In 1976 Virgil Larson, an outdoors-man and hiker encountered a Bigfoot who he thought was a park ranger. He shouted a greeting and was shocked when the Big man just stared back at him. Larson left sharpish.

 

This next one is straight out of the X – Files. Apparently a rancher shot a Bigfoot in Big Sky County. The dead body was confiscated by the FBI. Seems like bollocks to me.

In 2008 a Bigfoot hoax was perpetrated on the world press by Rick Dyer and Mark Whitton. They claimed they had a dead Bigfoot, which they kept in a freezer. It turned out to be a costume, and the two claimed it was all a big joke.

 

Bigfoot has even made it to the Whitehouse. In 1892, President Roosevelt wrote a book called The Wilderness Hunter. In the book a man named Bauman and his partner are camping along Montana’s Wisdom River. In the night they are disturbed by an ‘ape man’. They fire their gun at the creature who runs off. The next day, Bauman woke up, but his friend didn’t, he was found with his neck snapped and teeth marks on his throat. Bauman ran off, gun in hand, it was the creature who was responsible.

 

1967, Patterson and Gimlin capture the best video footage of Bigfoot ever. In broad daylight, the two men filmed a large female Bigfoot across a sandbar. The film is the best evidence yet for Bigfoot’s existence, but is very controversial.

My Geeky Trivia

By Geeky Gem

For the final week of my current trivia run, I thought I would touch upon a series of films that I hold close to my heart as do many other people. It has become one of the biggest franchises to grace the world of movies, had it not been for the huge success of the original book we would not have these wonderful movies with us today. I am of course talking about Harry Potter, do you really think I could not do this as a subject matter. They have to be among some of favourite books and the movies are there to make that rich world come to life. Without further ado here is some Harry Potter trivia. I hope you enjoy this and will welcome Hmsbeefnuts back next week with open arms.

Philosophers Stone

The hut used for Hagrid’s home has since been torn down for fear that fan’s of the movie would swamp it.

The Tabby Cat that Professor McGonagall turned into ran away but came back two days later.

Chamber of Secrets

Hugh Grant was originally cast as Gilderoy Lockhart.

Fourteen Ford Anglia’s where made for the scene where Harry and Ron crash into the Whomping Willow.

Prisoner of Azkaban

The cast were told that all the sweets in Honeydukes were covered in lacquer, when in fact they weren’t they just didn’t want sweets to go missing during takes.

The director Alfonso Cuaron had never read the book or seen the first two movies when he took the job.

Goblet of Fire

There was at least one full size dragoon that was built on set, it even breathed fire.

When the contestants enter the area for the third task the girls from Beauxbatons are dancing the Macarena.

Order of the Phoenix

The radish earrings that Luna is wearing were actually made by Evanna Lynch.

Padfoot, Sirius Black’s canine form, was played by a Scottish Deerhound named Cleod.

Half-blood Prince

Jessie Cave beat over 7000 girls to get the role of Lavender Brown, Ron’s love interest from the book.

Mr Weasley’s shed of Muggle artefacts contains, among other things, two Remington Noiseless Portable Typewriters and an HP Laserjet 4.

Deathly Hollows Part 1

This movie was originally to be released in 3-D, this idea was scrapped just weeks before the movie came out, due to the difficulty of converting the film into the format.

There were 40 versions of Slytherin’s locket made for the scene in which Harry and Ron try to destroy it.

Deathly Hollows Part 2

Most of this movie takes place of the course of a single day from the raid on Gringotts to the Battle of Hogwarts.

For the scene at Gringotts over 210,000 coins were made for inside the vault.

And there we have an epic journey that barely scratches the surface of Harry Potter trivia that is out there. Well that would appear to be the end of my four week run, next week Hmsbeefnuts will be back with his own brand of trivia and I will be putting my feet up and mocking him.

Weekly Geeky Trivia: Lord Of The Rings

By Hmsbeefnuts

Thank Zeus for that. This is my last week on trivia for four whole weeks!! Whooo!! Next week, Geeky Gem is back with her usual brand of Geek trivial awesomeness, at least I hope she is…you are back Gem right? Anyway, just before I break down and cry, may I present to you 10 most excellent facts all about the greatest film trilogy of all time, The Lord of the Rings…your quest begins…..now!

Viggo Mortensen was not originally cast as Aragorn, the guy who played Lestat in the awful Queen of the Dammed, and Dorian Grey in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, also awful, Stuart Townsend was cast, Peter Jackson soon realised he was shit, and fired him, thank God.

Jack the Ripper himself, Ian Holm, plays Bilbo Baggins in the films, but weirdly was the voice of Frodo in the 1981 BBC Radio adaptation of LOTR.

Security was so tight on set, and things so secret, three people were arrested for break-ins, obviously spies of Saruman.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate, was never in favour of the film adaptations, but unlucky, the great man signed over the right to his book in 1968 for a mere $15,000, and thus they were as powerless as a baby hobbit in a warg pit. Tolkien’s grandson was even disowned by his family because he supported Peter Jackson’s production. Christopher Tolkien later retracted any opposition, probably after he knew that Jackson hit all three films out of the park.

The village of Hobbiton was built a year before production started, in order to make it look like hobbits lived there, real vegetable patches, sheep eaten grass and all. Take note film directors, Peter Jackson doesn’t fuck about.

The large tree that overshadows Bag End, was built by the production design team, every single leaf was attached by hand, that is dedication.

The Battle of Helms Deep, took four months to shoot, all of it at night, most of it in heavy rain.

The Riders of Rohan were some of the bravest men in Middle Earth, except, in the film, many of them were not men, women with beards glued on had to be used as, a) they were usually better riders and b) Jackson needed to increase numbers of riders on screen, and not enough men, who could ride, could be found.

A normal major motion picture usually averages around 200 effects shots, or at least did in 2003, The Return of the King alone had 1488!!

The Lord of the Rings is now the most nominated film series in Oscar history, with 30 nominations, others that are close are, the Godfather Trilogy, 28 noms, and Star Wars with 21, sorry George.

So there it be. My last trivia for a whole four weeks, hahahahaha, four weeks off!!! Well actually, I’d better get to work on the next four weeks worth, it does take ages after all…..