Revisiting Harry & the Hendersons—S1 Bonus Interview

Wild Thing

Foxtopus Ink

Society & Culture, Science

4.8 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Wild Thing is re-releasing its bonus interviews! We hear from William Dear—director of "Harry & the Hendersons"—about how he tried to capture the magic of Bigfoot on the big screen.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, Wild Thing fans. You're in for a treat today, an interview with William Deere.
0:05.5	He's the Canadian film director, producer, and screenwriter who wrote and directed Harry and the
0:10.6	Henderson's. A quick recap of the plot. The Henderson family is driving back from a camping
0:16.3	trip in the Pacific Northwest when George Henderson, played by John Lithgow, accidentally hits
0:21.9	a strange animal with his car. Turns out, it was Bigfoot, and thinking it's dead, they strap
0:28.1	it to the roof of the car and take it home. I'll let you guess what happens next. For those of you who
0:34.1	haven't seen it, you should watch it, seriously. For those of you who have seen it, but it's been a long time, I feel like it holds up.
0:43.0	It's cute, yes, a little corny, but fun all the same.
0:47.2	I'll be honest, I even teared up in a couple of places.
0:50.5	I rewatched it a few days before this interview and was pleasantly surprised, which is what I told William Deere.
0:56.5	I try to make a film that's rewatchable because that way, you know, if someone watches this second time, I try to put something in there that maybe they didn't see the first time.
1:05.1	Did you ever have a Bigfoot experience or a Bigfoot siding?
1:09.7	No, no, I grew up in Toronto and the only, I think the
1:15.8	closest I got to any large animal at my young age of like, say, five or six as a kid in Toronto in the
1:22.9	late 40s was that our milk band actually had a horse-drawn vehicle.
1:28.2	Oh, wow.
1:29.1	Yeah.
1:32.4	No, Bigfoot sighting, no.
1:35.8	I was very afraid of things as a kid.
1:36.9	My mother would give me the option.
1:41.9	You can listen to the radio, and I'll turn the light out in your bedroom where you can have no radio and, you know, leave the light on, you know, trying to, but I just sit there with the light on trying to go to sleep, you know, I don't know. Scary things would freak me out. I'm still not a big fan of very scary stuff. You and me both. I don't much care for horror or any of that kind of stuff. Well, so where did the idea come from then? What drew you to Bigfoot?
2:02.6	What made you interested in creating Harry in this creature?
	...

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