2,150 Miles in 30 days
Oh, The Places You’ll Go –
In Search of Bigfoot
By Tom Yamarone
Joining John Freitas on a Shoot
for a British TV Show

The first of four road-trips was the shortest.
An invitation from John Freitas brought me
down to the Bigfoot Discovery Museum
where he was meeting a television crew from
England. John had contacted Michael Rugg
asking if there was an accessible forest
location nearby where the crew and he might
film a comedy segment. Indeed there was.
The San Lorenzo Valley offered a variety of
locations. But what was this all about?
It turns out the crew was with a long-running
comedy show from England called Bo
Selecta! They had arranged to have John
Freitas participate in this segment where the
showʼs character would be interviewing John
about some of the things he does in his
search for bigfoot. Unlike the recent Penn &
Teller television show, this was all in good
fun. In fact, there was no disparaging
approach to the subject – the laughs are all
generated by the character comedy of Leigh
Francis. This comedic actor became famous
for his on-the-spot celebrity interviews. He
would portray a character called Avid Merion
and show up at high profile events like
movie premieres and interview celebrities on
the red carpet. This soon evolved into the
television show Bo Selecta! and after 5
seasons, they found it difficult to film on the
street in England due to the popularity of the
show. So, they came to California to film
segments for the up-coming season, due to
air beginning in September 2006.
The crew of four met with John and Montra
Freitas, myself and Mike at the Bigfoot
Discovery Museum. Leigh posed for the
perfunctory celebrity photo in front of the
museum with Mike and then went into the
Mikeʼs office to change into character. Today
he would be “Marilyn,” a bizarre
bespectacled character wearing nothing more
than black army boots, calf-length pants and
suspenders. The glasses featured an eye-ball
taped over the right lens and he carried with
him a cane with a skull on the end.
“Marilyn” was a traffic-stopping sight to see
– the expressions on the unsuspecting
motorists passing by the museum were
priceless. This outrageous display also kept
us from using the main trail through the
redwoods at nearby Henry Cowell State Park.
We finally found a location off of Highway 9
at the Ox trail and spent an hour filming the
segment. It was hilarious. “Marilyn”
interviewed John and addressed him (and
anyone else he addressed while in costume)
as “Mildred.” The questions were fairly
run-of-the-mill regarding bigfoot, but the
delivery and reaction by the showʼs star was
quite hilarious. John even demonstrated
some loud call blasting for them and I
played a quick version of my song “Bigfoot
– The Living Legend” as “Marilyn” danced
around beside me…weʼll see if that makes
the cutting room floor. They used the
bigfoot museum as a backdrop for the
episodeʼs closing segment and shot a bunch
of footage in the museum to use as “B roll”
material – “filler shots” for us non-industry
types.
As I said before, the comedy is the character
and how he behaves. The subject of bigfoot
was merely the focus of this episode. I think
this will be one of the funniest bigfoot
television shows ever to air – one weʼll
probably never see. Hopefully, the museum
will obtain a copy to archive and perhaps
debut for an American audience at one of our
monthly meetings later this year!