I remember seeing this episode as a tot. I'm not sure how old I was, but I remembered it as a child completely different than when I recently saw it again as an adult.
It may have been a re-airing in the area I lived in because there is no way I could have remembered it from its original air date of 1957. I would have been too small. It must have re-ran in my area in 1959 for me to be able to remember it at all.
As a child, I remember being intrigued with monsters. Once again, it must have been in 1959 when I saw this because this is the first time I heard about Bigfoot (a.k.a. Sasquatch). My mother mentioned a little ways into the episode that the creature must be a Bigfoot.
It wasn't until 1958 that the phenomenon, previously known as Sasquatch, had been referred to as Bigfoot. My parents would have been aware of this phenomenon because an acquaintance of theirs was Jerry Crew, the man who, evidently, was tricked into reporting evidence of a creature dubbed 'Bigfoot' with 16 inch feet. This took place near Eureka, CA.
It was later revealed in 2002, that Crew had been misled. Crew's boss, Ray Wallace, at the time of the 'Bigfoot' sighting, died that year. Wallace's family revealed that he (Wallace) loved to play pranks... and that he had carved some wooden 'feet,' strapped them on and tramped around in the mud at the area where Crew was working, thus leading him to believe a monster had wandered through the site (true believers in 'Bigfoot' have never accepted Wallace's family's admission).
Watching this episode as an adult was disappointing, after having believed all these years that the episode was about a Bigfoot and not a Bear. Even then, it's curious that the viewing audience seemed to have been led to believe that this was a monster of some sort (the glowing eyes staring out from the dark), prior to the Bigfoot hoax that followed it. Perhaps this episode inspired Wallace to concoct this hoax?
As scary as this episode was, there is a glaring plot flaw. Bears and other woodland creatures fear fire. Any Bear who had been singed by fire would fear it and run from it rather than risk being burned again by stomping it out and covering it with dirt - unless of course, it was Smokey the Bear. Perhaps Smokey helped to inspire this episode as well.
It may have been a re-airing in the area I lived in because there is no way I could have remembered it from its original air date of 1957. I would have been too small. It must have re-ran in my area in 1959 for me to be able to remember it at all.
As a child, I remember being intrigued with monsters. Once again, it must have been in 1959 when I saw this because this is the first time I heard about Bigfoot (a.k.a. Sasquatch). My mother mentioned a little ways into the episode that the creature must be a Bigfoot.
It wasn't until 1958 that the phenomenon, previously known as Sasquatch, had been referred to as Bigfoot. My parents would have been aware of this phenomenon because an acquaintance of theirs was Jerry Crew, the man who, evidently, was tricked into reporting evidence of a creature dubbed 'Bigfoot' with 16 inch feet. This took place near Eureka, CA.
It was later revealed in 2002, that Crew had been misled. Crew's boss, Ray Wallace, at the time of the 'Bigfoot' sighting, died that year. Wallace's family revealed that he (Wallace) loved to play pranks... and that he had carved some wooden 'feet,' strapped them on and tramped around in the mud at the area where Crew was working, thus leading him to believe a monster had wandered through the site (true believers in 'Bigfoot' have never accepted Wallace's family's admission).
Watching this episode as an adult was disappointing, after having believed all these years that the episode was about a Bigfoot and not a Bear. Even then, it's curious that the viewing audience seemed to have been led to believe that this was a monster of some sort (the glowing eyes staring out from the dark), prior to the Bigfoot hoax that followed it. Perhaps this episode inspired Wallace to concoct this hoax?
As scary as this episode was, there is a glaring plot flaw. Bears and other woodland creatures fear fire. Any Bear who had been singed by fire would fear it and run from it rather than risk being burned again by stomping it out and covering it with dirt - unless of course, it was Smokey the Bear. Perhaps Smokey helped to inspire this episode as well.