Sasquatching TV
Spike underwrites big-bucks search for ‘Bigfoot’ HE’S GOING ape for Bigfoot.
Dr. Todd Disotell, a mohawksporting biological anthropologist who runs NYU’s molecular primatology lab, is a DNA whiz who got roped in as a judge on Spike TV’s outrageous new reality show, “10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty.”
“Are there primates in the Pacific Northwest?” he wonders. “Well, humans are primates.”
On the show, (debuting Friday at 10 p.m.), teams of lifelong Bigfoot seekers and big game hunters who call themselves “squatchers” (a play on “Sasquatch,” a Native American term for the elusive creature) compete to capture a Bigfoot or provide definitive visual and DNA proof of its existence.
The $10 million prize, underwritten by Lloyd’s of London, is one of the largest cash prizes offered in TV history.
Each week, the teams compete in Bigfoot-hunting challenges attempting to collect incontrovertible evidence of the beast. Teams present what they’ve gathered and their theories to a judges’ panel made up of the show’s host, Dean Cain, Disotell and Natalia Reagan, a primatologist and anthropologist.
The team judged to have offered the weakest evidence is booted from the show.
In case proof is not found by the end of the season, the team that comes up with the most compelling evidence will be given a $100,000 research grant to continue their search.
Disotell says that while he is skeptical of the creature’s existence, he’s open to the possibility and sees the show as more of a platform to share his “evangelical” love of science with millions.
It also doesn’t hurt that Spike, a network more associated with shows about beer and babes, footed the bill for a stateof-the-art mobile DNA lab that Disotell designed himself.
“I’m sure my collegues will be tuning in to laugh at me, (but) they’re going to see this (DNA lab) and want one.”
The machine can quickly determine what species of animal a sample of DNA has come from.
In the past, such tests have taken days at major research centers, while in the field, scientists usually have to wait months.