Can a TV show save your sanity?
Yes, but only this specific one
It would be ridiculous to suggest that the TV show Mountain Monsters is the only thing I’m living for these days, but it would also be absolutely true (to my family and friends: this is of course an exaggeration and you are what I really live for!) (to everyone else: I absolutely mean this, I am lying to my family and friends).
If you’re unfamiliar with the show and just now paused reading this to go Google it, you’re already confused because Mountain Monsters is not an acclaimed prestige TV drama or a groundbreaking comedy full of inscrutable in-jokes—you know, the kind of thing an award-winning author can safely recommend in public. It appears to be a zero-budget Bigfoot-hunting “reality” show that has been airing on deep cable for a decade alongside an endless stream of similar paranormal grifter bullshit.
My friends, I’m telling you that this show is magic, and I’m not doing a bit or watching it through layers of ironic detachment. I have no connection to the production and am being paid nothing to say this. So buckle up while I share with you one of the pure joys of my life:
Before we start, my next novel is up for pre-order and out soon! If you want a signed hardcover you can only get them here. All the other buy links, including audio, are right here. If you want to read the first two chapters to get a sense of what you’re buying, here you go.
1. Improvising elaborate monster battles, with zero budget, for unclear reasons
The premise of Mountain Monsters is that it is the real, absolutely true-to-life chronicles of these six men...
…named Jeff, Wild Bill, Trapper, Huckleberry, Buck and Willy. I can set the tone right away by noting that “Trapper” is the leader and is not a trapper—Wild Bill and Willy are the trappers. Trapper is just his name.
They are allegedly an elite group of cryptid hunters with nearly two decades of experience tracking Sasquatches, Mothmen and the like around Appalachia, responding to any monster rampage that occurs within easy driving distance of their homes. But this is not one of those shows where they just interview some locals, get some interesting facts about the region and its folklore, then maybe find a footprint or hear a mysterious howl in the distance. No, in each and every episode of Mountain Monsters they head into the woods with the express purpose of not just finding, but assassinating that week’s cryptid.
Each time, literally within minutes of entering the woods, they are directly attacked by the legendary, supposedly-elusive monster. This is not Finding Bigfoot—these creatures find them, sometimes before the team has even gotten out of the truck. The monster hunters are physically assaulted, often flung to the ground or pelted with objects, always at the hands of creatures too fast or stealthy to be caught on camera. Well, almost always—occasionally, we’ll catch a glimpse a “monster” in the form of somebody on the crew reaching into frame while wearing the furry sleeve of what appears to be a rented gorilla costume.
In each episode, they build a makeshift trap to capture the creature, sometimes implying they intend to eat it afterward. Each time, they will utterly fail at this task, ending every episode in a sad huddle around the empty trap, reassuring each other that they did their best but are now giving up and going home. All of this is played 100% straight, they don’t break kayfabe at any point—not in interviews, public appearances or behind-the-scenes featurettes.
So, for example, in one episode they hunted a creature that was literally the xenomorph from the Alien franchise, which witnesses had spotted tromping around the woods of Braxton County, West Virginia:
After multiple encounters with the West Virginia Xenomorph (including one in which the alien angrily chucked a log at Willy and Wild Bill, from off-camera), they build a trap designed to ensnare the creature and yank it into the air. At no point did they explain what they intended to do once they had the Xenomorph dangling from a cable, thrashing in a panicked rage—they brought no cage, net or tranquilizers to restrain the creature for transport. It is thus heavily implied that their plan, once the alien entity was in their clutches, was to use their shotguns to just absolutely explode that dangling fucker like a piñata.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your mindset) the creature just avoided the snare, leaving the team empty-handed. At no point during any of this did a single member of the team so much as crack a smile. They never wink at the camera, they never give away the game.
It is magic. It is pure joy. It is art utterly unburdened by stakes or social commentary. Mountain Monsters does not attempt to deliver a single atom of useful knowledge or any discernible moral lessons. It’s just a bunch of guys, some of whom are senior citizens, stomping around in the woods for a couple days playing make-believe with no budget, script or sense of shame.
2. So how does something this amazing even exist and why didn’t anyone stop it
Mountain Monsters originally aired on Destination America, which was later swallowed up by the Travel Channel and then HBO Max, now Max (all episodes are available for free if you’re a Max subscriber, or on the Travel Channel website). As far as I know, the series is still going (the most recent season aired in 2022). Which leaves us with one question: how? As mysteries go, how the hell this show got made is, to me, a far more intriguing puzzle than Bigfoot.
There is no evidence that, prior to being handed their own cable series, any of these men had any experience in performance or media of any kind—not even a YouTube channel or cable access show. Within the fiction of Mountain Monsters and in the kayfabe maintained outside it, the story is that this group hunted cryptids for several years out of the public eye prior the inception of the TV series, but if so, I can find no documented evidence. There’s an entire interview with producer Colt Straub talking about how the show came together but even that is done in-universe, maintaining that the creatures and their hunters are real, that the producers simply discovered this actual cryptid-hunting team and decided to document their absolutely true, totally legitimate work as Bigfoot exterminators.
This is very frustrating to me, because I desperately want to know the reality. The team leader, John “Trapper” Tice, passed in 2019 and sounds like an absolutely fascinating person, a decorated Vietnam vet who worked as a boilermaker, farmer, cattle herder, oil man and breeder of award-winning show dogs(?). Then, in retirement, he apparently put together a TV show starring a bunch of guys he knew (literally just neighbors and their co-workers) in which they would walk around the forest and pretend to hunt imaginary creatures. He somehow sold a production company on the idea, they agreed to shoot a pilot and a cable network was so impressed by the result that they ordered it directly to series and it’s still fucking going a decade later, with eight seasons and multiple spinoffs.*
Do you have any idea how many talented professional actors, writers, comedians, and filmmakers have spent decades trying and failing to even get a pilot greenlit? Statistically, what these guys did in real life is literally less likely than getting attacked by a huge flock of pterodactyls, which is something that actually occurred in Episode 16 of this show. That story, the real story, is a glorious example of the triumph of the human spirit, and it is a tale none of them will ever tell because that would be breaking character, which is the one thing they will never do, even in the grave.
I mean that literally. When Trapper passed, they kept the show going and just incorporated his death into the plotline (saying he left behind a mysterious journal full of cryptic monster clues) and I 100% believe that was his idea. I wish I was as good at anything as Trapper was at whatever this is.
3. A sample storyline, for your edification
“Wow,” some of you are no doubt saying, “this is just more proof that there is talent everywhere! Here is a collection of dudes working as lumberjacks, linemen and prison guards who were secretly harboring marketable acting and improv skills their whole lives!” No, that’s the best part! They absolutely were not! They’re in way over their heads!! But also they don’t write anything in advance or otherwise do preparation that would make their jobs easier!!!
For example:
Each episode of Mountain Monsters begins with a briefing inside Trapper’s Ford pickup in which their “researcher,” Jeff, informs the rest of the team of their latest target. But, and I cannot emphasize this enough, this is entirely made up on the spot. Many if not most of the cryptids hunted on Mountain Monsters are invented specifically for the show, so there’s no existing lore to research. Even when there is existing lore, they ignore it and pull something completely new out of their asses. The Mothman episode (Season 1, Ep 5) is a prime example of their gloriously flawed method.
For reference, the actual Mothman story is that a few people claim to have seen a large, winged creature around Point Pleasant, West Virginia in the late 1960s (it was most likely a sandhill crane, which can have a wingspan of seven feet). A year after the first sightings, the collapse of a nearby bridge that killed 46 people was connected to the Mothman, locals insisting it was spotted on the bridge beforehand. Cryptid enthusiasts have since speculated that the winged beast is a supernatural harbinger of doom, and witnesses claim to have, “...seen the creature before earthquakes, tsunamis, and even the 9/11 terrorist attack.”
In the initial briefing of the Mothman episode of Mountain Monsters, the team improvises their own lore, stating that the Mothman weighs “500, 600 pounds” and “hangs around old bridges.” Trapper elaborates that the Mothman has “mystic powers”, “hypnotizes people” and “causes disasters.” Like all on-the-spot improv in the show, everything said immediately becomes canon in their universe. They will thus continue to work under the assumption that the Mothman caused all of the disasters that occurred in its proximity, which means that in the Mountain Monsters universe, the creature they’re hunting with shotguns did 9/11.
The team then interviews a witness named “Crash” who is dressed like this:
There are three things you need to know here:
1) All Mountain Monsters witnesses are apparently actors who are given their testimony in advance;
2) they often deviate from this testimony in ways that seem to frustrate the rest of the team, often contradicting and/or undermining what occurs in the rest of the episode;
3) this show doesn’t do second takes under any circumstances—if they released a blooper reel, it would just be the show.
So “Crash” says he spotted the Mothman near some power lines. He says the creature appeared to be dancing around the lines, as if they were, quote, “charging him up or something.” Then he says he saw the Mothman teleport, repeatedly vanishing and reappearing nearby. He concludes that the Mothman is drawn to the power lines because he feeds on electricity, which gives him teleportation powers.
The team returns to that spot in the middle of the night to investigate the area and, within literally one minute of screentime, they encounter the Mothman. They first detect it on thermal, where the Mothman’s heat signature does not include wings and, in fact, is shaped exactly like a random member of the crew they told to stand nearby...
...then Buck looks the creature in its eyes and collapses due to the influence of its telepathic mind-powers.
The team then flees the woods, having been temporarily defeated. The next day, trap builders Willy and Wild Bill decide that, in order to capture the Mothman, they need to build a giant cage with a powerful spotlight inside to act as bait, which the Mothman will be attracted to, because he is part moth. To prevent the trapped Mothman from merely teleporting itself to freedom, their solution is to hook a portable generator up to the cage to electrify it, as Willy says it is impossible to teleport through an electric field.
And the Mothman will not be able to physically tear itself out of the cage, he says, because he would be electrocuted.
“Hold on,” you say, “didn’t their one witness say the Mothman feeds on electricity? The witness being an actor they cast, and whose testimony they wrote?” Yep! I’m pretty sure the witness was supposed to say the electricity was harming the Mothman, not “charging him up.” But all of this is improv, nothing is written down, and I think he just fucked it up. Rather than redo that scene, the team simply plowed ahead with a plan that treats electricity as the creature’s kryptonite rather than its food and never acknowledged the contradiction. They place the trap on an old abandoned bridge, as the Mothman’s appearance on a bridge in 1967 has led them to believe that it just likes bridges, as if it’s a fetish.
That night, they assemble the team, intending to use lit torches to drive the Mothman toward their trap, despite Buck having flu-like symptoms due to having been temporarily mind-controlled the previous night (this manifests as fatigue, lightheadedness and a light cough). They instantly find the creature, which counterattacks by setting a patch of ground on fire using its mind. The Mothman then uses a different magic power to cut the electricity to the trap as well as killing all lights in the area. It then trips the trap but easily flies away before it can be captured (all of this occurs off-camera).
The team, having utterly failed yet again, gather to do a postmortem on the mission and declare that next time, they’ll use a larger amount of electricity and connect it directly to the bridge itself to, “blow his balls off.” This is, as always, played completely straight, no one breaking or winking at the camera or otherwise acknowledging that what they’re doing is anything less than deadly serious.
4. Yes, they are in on the joke
I feel like it would be insulting to imply that the Mountain Monsters crew doesn’t know that what they’re doing is ridiculous, or that their audience isn’t in on it. These guys dress their “witnesses” in goofy costumes and give them oddball nicknames with 18th Century job titles:
The renderings of the creatures are always comical, often looking like taxidermy disasters:
…and the show’s chaotic action scenes lean heavily on slapstick.
As the seasons roll on, they invent increasingly complex lore, so that by Season 3 Trapper is referencing the “twelve clans of Bigfoot” in the area, and detailing their treaties and rivalries. At one point, the team learns they must assemble a magical ax to defeat a gang of sasquatches that can control lightning. Their budget never seems to increase with their ambitions; they simply get more and more elaborate with their descriptions of all the spectacular events their cameras just barely missed.
It is escapism in its purest form, devoid of allegory or anything else that could be called substance. These six men are here to thoroughly and heroically waste your time, carefully avoiding even a single moment that might leave an lasting imprint on your mind or spirit. You will not be inspired, you will learn nothing about yourself, you will not see the world in a new way.
We must protect these men, and this show, at all costs.
5. Okay so I did have a point here
Mountain Monsters came along at exactly the right time for me, and I don’t mean that in a good way.
This article has been haunting me for months, in which a psychiatrist speculates that endlessly refreshing outrage headlines is a compulsive form of self-harm. I don’t know if the science is sound but I do know that this describes exactly what I’ve been doing since Donald Trump appeared on the scene in 2015 by deploying a strategy of nonstop manufactured outrage. Each day he would supply a new controversy and people like me would gobble it up, the resulting headlines a psychic siren blasting in my ear, day and night.
I don’t know how many of you have this same problem—I realize not everyone’s job forces them to be terminally online—but in 2024 it’s legitimately difficult to escape the noise. Every outlet now sprinkles in some outrage politics to juice their engagement, every new Star Wars thing is met by a wave of anti-woke backlash and backlash to that backlash. It is painfully clear that politics simultaneously occupies too much and too little space in the culture.
This is because when politics and “content” mix you just get content, screeching voices and flashing pixels that are less about motivating anyone to action and more about keeping everyone, regardless of their views, glued to a screen. And I’ve found that a siren that blasts 24 hours a day is no longer useful as a siren.
Yes, people who fly into a frothing rage over wokeness in their Disney Star Wars shows are obnoxious children and all of their arguments are ridiculous but also it is absolutely reasonable to ask for some pure escapism in your entertainment. And don’t tell me the situation is too dire for anything but round-the clock vigilance. Even if a goddamned meteor was on the way, I’d still want a break from thinking about it now and then—burnout does not make me more effective at any task. Asking for respite doesn’t make me callous and it sure as hell doesn’t make me pro-meteor.
No, I haven’t changed the subject, damn it. In this media environment, the childlike bullshittery of Mountain Monsters was like a cool breeze blowing across my brain. Being the way that I am, the only sure-fire method of forcing myself to get lost in something truly frivolous was to make it part of my job, which is why I started doing an episode-by-episode watchalong podcast called BIGFEETS with former Cracked co-workers Seanbaby and Robert Brockway (on Apple podcast or Soundcloud or just google the title). It has helped me restore balance to my life, maybe it will do the same for you, I don’t know. The next book is out in September. Be sure to vote.
*Some listings arrange the episodes as six seasons rather than eight—it is the same total number of episodes but for some reason they were rearranged when uploaded to streaming services, probably by accident.
If you want a signed hardcover of the upcoming book you can only get them here. All the other buy links, including audio, are right here. If you want to read the first two chapters to get a sense of what you’re buying, here you go.