The DB Cooper Media Phenomenon
The DB Cooper case has formed the basis of multiple documentaries, movies, books, and TV shows. Several TV documentaries have tackled the basics. Among many others, there was a 1979 episode of the Leonard Nimoy-presented show In Search of...
that featured the lead FBI agent on the case, Ralph Himmelsbach; a 1988 episode of Unsolved Mysteries presented by Robert Stack, which interviewed flight attendant Florence Schaffner; a 2011 episode of Brad Meltzer’s Decoded that investigated the then recently named suspect Kenneth Christiansen; a 2017 episode of Expedition Unknown hosted by Josh Gates; and 2020’s feature-length BBC/HBO documentary The Mystery of DB Cooper.
The earliest movie to feature the story was 1973’s made-for-TV film Deliver Us from Evil which explored the aftermath of a Cooper-style air heist without making any specific references to the recent Northwest case. Starring George Kennedy, Bradford Dillman and Jan-Michael Vincent, the movie sees a group of hikers discover an injured hijacker who appears to have parachuted from an airplane with $600,000. After they kill the hijacker, the men then fight each other over the money. That was followed by the theatrical release of The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper
(1981), directed by Roger Spottiswoode and starring Treat Williams as Cooper and Robert Duvall as an insurance investigator on his case.
That light-hearted caper movie was loosely based on a 1980 novel entitled Free Fall by JD Reed. In 2004’s Without a Paddle, three friends (Matthew Lillard, Seth Green, and Dax Shepard) on a camping trip set out to search for the DB Cooper “treasure”. Noir novelist James M Cain also tackled the aftermath of the case in his 1975 novel Rainbow’s End.
Television drama series such as Prison Break, Leverage, and The Blacklist all featured characters revealed to be DB Cooper. Other shows, like Breaking Bad, NewsRadio, Journeyman, Renegade, 30Rock, and Numb3rs have made references to various aspects of the case, including the discovery of the $20 bills. One intriguing fact is that Twin Peaks
FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle McLachlan) has the middle name “Bartholomew”, making him “DB Cooper”.
There have been several songs about Cooper’s exploits, including Chuck Brodsky’s “The Ballad of D. B. Cooper”, and punk-ska band Victim of Circumstance’s “The Final Flight of D. B. Cooper”. Other singers and groups with songs mentioning the Cooper heist include Bill Mallonee, Kid Rock, MK Doom, and the Mountain Goats.
The crazier media ideas about Cooper include the theory that the infamous director of The Room (2003), Tommy Wiseau, was Cooper and used his ransom money to fund the movie, or that the series Mad Men (200715) would conclude with the revelation that black-suited 1960s man of mystery Don Draper (Jon Hamm) would be revealed to be Dan Cooper (the ad agency in the show was called Cooper Sterling, leading to ‘Don Cooper’ perhaps?). More recently, the Disney+ Marvel series Loki
(2021) revealed in its opening episode that Tom Hiddleston’s Loki was, in fact, DB Cooper, who hijacks the plane having lost a bet with his brother, Thor (Chris Hemsworth). To this day, the community of Ariel, Washington (one of the possible Cooper landing zones), maintains the tradition of annual “DB Cooper Days”, usually taking place on the Saturday right after Thanksgiving. Even after five decades, the legend of DB Cooper remains undiminished.