I don’t always get the greatest cell phone reception up here in the wilderness of northwestern Pennsylvania. The spooky mountains that surround my home may be high, but they are very remote too. Hard put tuning in any decent FM rock stations, the nearest station I get plays country music.
Three cheers for satellite TV and broadband internet! I can stream music from thousands of stations and choose from hundreds of channels on TV. Mostly crap these days with all the stupid reality shows, but there is some good stuff.
I remember the trip home from Walmart with my new TV just the other night. As I drove along the dark roads of this far-removed area I thought how fitting it would be for a Devil Dog or Dogman to leap out at me from the woods beside the road. Active imagination.
After returning home, unpacking and hooking up my new TV, I saw a preview for a new show. Another show about monsters in the woods has found it’s way to televisions across America: Mountain Monsters. I thought, how perfect a show for someone in so remote and woodsy a location. Bring it on!
Ghost and monster shows are a dime a dozen these days. After a lull in this sort of thing following In Search Of… and Arthur C. Clark’s Mysterious World back in the 70s and early 80s — except for one-off episodes on various TV shows throughout the 80s — an interest in the paranormal and mystery monsters has seen a huge resurgence since the mid 90s spurred on by growth of the World Wide Web and perpetuated by an eager audience.
The popularity of ghosts, monsters and mysteries across the web has translated to television. Success of shows like The X-Files has proven that there is a big market for the paranormal, monsters and mystery.
Investigation-style shows abound. Most of them are pretty lame, much the same half-baked treatment of paranormal and ghostly topics which began with Ghost Hunters. Since first airing on October 6 2004, Ghost Hunters has spawned Ghost Hunters International, and through the ensuing years we’ve seen more shows pop up, some short-lived, some achieving some success. You can find paranormal and cryptozoological themes on Animal Planet, A&E, SyFy, Destination America, the History Channel and more.
Shows include Destination Truth (SyFy), Paranormal State
At first glance Mountain Monsters may seem to be just another lame knock off with some different cryptids, and hokey personalities, but some viewers have responded favorably. A few posts I’ve read online indicate that in some ways Mountain Monsters is actually more entertaining and better produced than Finding Bigfoot.
My first impression, after seeing that preview, was “Oh boy, here we go again…” But I admit, I have yet to watch my first episode, so I’ll head over to Amazon to check out a few before I cast my vote, and before the next one airs on TV this Saturday. I may chime in again on this show at a later date when I have more information.
UPDATE: The show sucks. Same old nonsense with dudes roaming around in them thar woods looking for monsters. I did that shit when I was 10!