You folks missed a good one.

The Gable Film.

This started back in 2007 and ended with The History Channel’s “MonsterQuest” finally spilling the beans in March of 2010. The quality of the image of the Dogman in this antique 8mm film has been compared to Bob Patterson’s images of Bigfoot. In fact,..... there are STILL people out there that believe that this film is REAL and that “MonsterQuest” is simply “Covering-Up” the facts by claiming it to be fictional, in order to preserve the security and solitude of the creature.

Check it out.

This all began as an April Fool’s joke on the radio in 1987.  A Michigan Disc-Jockey named Steve Cook wrote and performed a “song” on the air to scare the begeezies out of Northern Michigan.

......(It worked!!!).

This song was ALL that everyone was talking about all summer long, in 1987. It made the summer of 1987 fun. And events in the song re-occur every ten years, and so ... in 1997, I was anxiously anticipating a new version of the song, as it was once again the year of The Dogman. A new song hit the radio….... and went.

..... No-one cared at all!

I was pissed. I had been a big fan of this thing in the beginning and I didn’t want to watch this thing crash and burn….. but that’s what it did.

BUT,......... in 2002, I got my first Home-P.C. , and eventually discovered the evil intoxication that is,..... eBay. I discovered that I could use this website to ressurrect a hobby of mine that I had previously believed to be totally obsolete…...... making home movies. My Dad gave me his old 8mmm camera in 1989, when he sold his house and was moving down South to the warmer climates. (He bought it brand new in 1956). I was able to make 6 home movies with it until I could no longer find film anymore….. then it went in the basement for what I thought was the end of days. But that changed when I discovered eBay. NOW, I was able to find film again!!! And when 2007 was approaching,..... I was determined to try to re-invigorate some life back into my favorite Campfire Story. So I made this antique-looking home movie using all the antique toys that I love collecting… a 1963 Ski-Doo snowmobile, a 1973 John Deere, my 1967 Ford truck….. all my rusty treasures. I wanted this film to honestly appear to have been filmed in 1977. In fact, I can HONESTLY SAY that this film is over thirty years old….. since the expiration date on the box was 1976. (Of course,...... the IMAGES on the film are from 2007). I had HOPED that I could get one of the local television stations to play ten seconds of my film on the late-night news to assist in advertising the latest version of Steve Cook’s song,..... but the Television Stations didn’t want it. So I gave it to Steve Cook to use in whatever manner he would choose. It seems he chose to tease and torture Cryptozoologists all over the world, across the internet. I was a little dismayed at first…... but that didn’t last long. I was very quickly a part of the shennanigans and even made a sequel: a “Police Investigation” of the attack site. (I even purchased a 16mm camera for the sequel).

You can find my Dogman vids on my YouTube account,..... QuinlanOUR12.

I just recently uploaded “Gable Film Part 3”, as well. (It is a comedy, and it has sound… unlike the previous two films).

The accompanying mp3 is the original recording of Steve Cook’s song/campfire story. It is/was cool as Hell…..

.....Enjoy!!!

(The two links are the same… I was having trouble uploading them, but finally they BOTH appear to have worked, so I’m just going to leave them both there).

View My Video

Legend mp3

Nothing mch seems to happen until about 2 and a half minutes into the film, then theres a picture of a man in a furry costume. This is quickly followed, and indeed preceeded by lots of shaky cam, presumable the camera man running from the ‘thing’ though obviously being used as an excuse not to take a closer look.

Interesting though nevertheless, especially if some people thoguht it was real.

Not a fursuit, a GHILLIE suit…with ears on it.

Gods, DonCoyote, your avatar image scared me for a minute there.
I considered making a Gable film thread two or three years ago, but I was afraid of getting lynched for being a believer. XD I’ve learned my lessons now.
Personally I’m surprized that this forum didn’t have a Michigan dogman thread already. That thing has been one of my favorite cryptids and favorite hoaxes, especially since the least embellished versions of the dogman legends sound believable. I even made some pretty nice scetches and paintings of bipedal wolves back in the day. They seemed down to earth, even logical, compared to the other critters I believed back then.

Another version of Steve Cooks song is available on YouTube: Link. Personally I like this one more and it used to scare me to death, especially because I listened to it at night and I have a strong phobia of things peering through the window…I’ve been thinking of making an animation to go with the song if I could only figure out how to use Flash. Say what you want, but a bipedal, intelligent, yet unanthropomized wolf is a terrifying idea, if you can picture it in your minds eye clearly enough and I want to make my contribution to The Legend.

Back in 2008 I became interested in Michigan Dogman. There were numerous websites dedicated to sightings and collecting proof of it’s existence at that time - many of them also linked out to the Gable film or mentioned The Legend. It’s truly fascinating how a pop-cultural phenomena caused by a song on the radio and a blurry video could bring forth so many people swearing on their lives that they’ve seen the Dogman with their very own eyes.

If you really are the one who created this little hoax, then I wish to shake your hand for making such an elaborate and quite believable video which probably sent thousands of gullible teenagers, like me, to a hasty Google search marathon. Nobody could actually PROVE that the video was fake - it used age appropriate props and gave just enough material (like the reflexion in the car mirror) to titillate the viewer into trying to find out more. Unlike what Sharruma said - unless one has a very, very sceptical mind - the Dogman didn’t look anything like human either. It didn’t move the way people are used to seeing a human on all fours move and the ghillie suit created a rather interesting morphing effect between shots. I’ve seen people swear that they could make out the tail or ears on that video and a still shot highlighting the joints in that things hind leg (which seemet to be a good indication that it was neither a man nor a bear). Generally it just seemed like a rather difficult stunt to pull off, so the general comments on it’s YouTube video seemed to favor a bear or an escaped silverback gorilla over the notion that it was a human. And that’s why I want to congratulate you - for teasing cryptozoologist with a video that had no obvious flaws and having the guts to come forth with it. I hope you, or Steve Cook, didn’t get in trouble for that stunt?
I can understand the ghillie suit and the retro thing, but one thing I’m interested in - how did you make the shot of teeth near the end of the video?

I haven’t seen the MonsterQuest episode yet, but…
Blogpost - For whoever is interested, ,,The last word’‘. A blogpost by Steve Cook (I presume) speaking of the shooting of that episode and how MQ team likes to over-dramatize their stories.

Excuse my english, please, it’s not my first language. I’m just a geek for everything related to cryptids or the paranormal.

And, of course, there’s a web page dedicated to our ‘furry friend’.

Michigan Dogman

Cliodna - 03 September 2011 06:16 AM

.....I can understand the ghillie suit and the retro thing, but one thing I’m interested in - how did you make the shot of teeth near the end of the video?

Much of tha “Teeth” effect was edited out by Steve Cook,.... but if you watch the YouTube vid, “The Gable Film: Don’t Pet The Dog…..The Director’s Cut” ... it shows the full version. The reason for the editing was that much of the “Netting” that makes up the Ghillie suit was clearly visible and obvious. The scene was filmed as stop-motion animation using a wolfman mask with my Ghillie-Suit hood over top of it.

.....And, you might find this amusing…........ it was Steve Cook who gave this film of mine the title “The Gable Film”. MY original title was “Don’t Pet The Dog”.

daveprime - 03 September 2011 11:52 AM

And, of course, there’s a web page dedicated to our ‘furry friend’.

Michigan Dogman

Yes,..... that’s my Buddy, Steve.

The MonsterQuest Episode revealing part about the film on YouTube

Too cool

(for those who want “the whole experience” - different set of videos but same episode)
Part1
Part2
Part3