Bigfoot – the monster truck, not the woodland creature – was a big deal for about 15 seconds when I was growing up.

Bigfoot’s run in the popular consciousness (that is to say, in the minds of the boys in the first grade class of Baythorn Drive Public School) began when one of the other boys at the babysitter’s place got a motorized toy Bigfoot truck and brought it. I asked him if I could take it school, and he let me.

At school, I was the hit of lunchtime recess.

My first grade teacher was Mrs. Boyes, and Mrs. Boyes was a ball-buster. I knew there was no way that Mrs. Boyes was going to let me get away with having this huge toy truck that is as high as my knee with me in class, but I really did think she wouldn’t notice it if it was under my chair. But she did notice it. In fact, she found it in no time at all. Mrs. Boyes made me go leave it on the top of the coat rack in the hall – a coat rack shared by three classrooms.

I hurried to the coatrack when the bell rang but by the time I got there, the Bigfoot truck was gone.

My babysitter was furious. Then my parents were furious. They made me give the boy this toy truck that was one of my birthday gifts (a non-descript pick-up truck with an action figure driver that already had the front smashed in).

The end of Bigfoot’s era of influence and relevance was when it was part of a programming block on sunday mornings called Super Sunday. This cartoon was complete garbage, and Bigfoot toys hadn’t been of interest in a couple of years. The saving grace of Super Sunday was that it was the original television home of Jem & the Holograms.

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Bigfoot tribute

Toy commercial

Bigfoot cartoon show

Super Sunday