become. i think he feels probably he should have come forward. we set out to verify morris story and found bob heironimus who says he is the man in the bigfoot costume. heronimus and morris have since become friends. he said patterson told him to walk like a gorilla. bob had no idea how it would like. he walked like a normal person walking down the street and kind of waved his arms back and forth and thought that was real show business. bob has the size, the gait to be big foot, to give it life, and i think this is very important, there are people still living who remember seeing a bigfoot suit in the trunk of bob heronimus mother s car. when it comes down to it, it s hard to improve upon phil morris as the source of the costume.
bob heironimus as the guy in the big suit and roger patterson as producer, director and whatever else of this film. just as patterson stood by his story, so, too, does morris. rick baker who is academy award winner eight times said to me one time, he said, phil, that was the worst gorilla suit i ve ever seen in my life. and i said yes, it s true. but think about this. that there were over 10, 20, 30 million people who saw that film of bigfoot walking through the forest and they thought it was a real suit. that s absolutely amazing. at the end of the day when you ve watched this figure stride and you looked at it, i m inclined to agree with the late john napear from the smithsonian who remarked famously i can t see the zipper. and i think that s the most concise way to view what happened.
film, morris goes public with the story. i started announcing that s the gorilla suit. another 10 or 20 magicians across the country have the same suit. that sor suit. it s not a real bigfoot. but morris revelation comes too late for the film s believers. people are so taken by the things they fall for. they re hugely invested in it. now they re fools if they were wrong. and as soon as you come in and rain on their parade, you find utter hostility. the first reaction was no, you re lying. that is a real bigfoot. i said how is it possible that this thing could fool people? the suit was all right. it wasn t the best gorilla suit ever made. but it was okay. but in broad daylight did not look like a real animal. i talked with phil morris about this in retrospect seeing how entrenched this film has
will blend into the mask itself. they also wanted to know how to make it large and massive. and he wanted some extra material that s going to have to change the head. he s going to have to put these and this is brilliant on roger s part these pendulous female breasts which everybody thought wow, that s the kind of detail nobody could make that up. it s so credible and believable. well, the check arrived and i sent the suit out to him. he called me back and said, listen, you can see the zipper in the back of the suit. i said well, that s easy to overcome. get a hair brush. brush it back and forth across the zipper. that was the last i heard from him. until he sees his suit on tv. my wife was in the kitchen and i said, amy, come here! you ll want to see this! she walks in and said oh, look. there s our gorilla suit. morris keeps quiet about his involvement hoping that patterson would admit about making the film.
in 2002, more than three decades after he first saw the film, morris goes public with his story. i started announcing that s our gorilla suit. that s the gorilla suit that other magicians, another 10 or 20 magicians across the country use the very same suit. that s our suit. it s not a real bigfoot. but morris revelation comes too late for many of the film s believers. people are so taken by the things they fall for. they re hugely invested now. now they re fools if they were wrong. and as soon as you come in and rain on their parade, you find utter hostility. the first reaction was no, you re lying. that is a real bigfoot. how is it possible that this thing could fool people? the suit was all right. it wasn t the very best gorilla suit ever made, but it was okay. but in broad daylight, did not look like a real animal.