Dammit, Jim, I'm a Cryptid, Not a Flotation Device!

I found these "Monster Feet" at an estate sale this summer.  It reminded me of the Bigfoot scare/mania of the 1970's when Bigfoot seemingly waited around every tree in every forest around me.

These aren't water wings, folks. Don't use them as a life preserver.

They fit comfortably on my size 10s.

They were made in Taiwan and date from 1984 which seems a little late in my mind for Bigfoot popularity, which could explain why they were simply called "Monster Feet". "Harry and the Hendersons" was still a few years off, so no tie-ins there.

 

Raymond Castile over at The Basement of Horror was able to provide the shot below of the original packaging.

In 1977, I was in fourth grade and I remember the local St. Louis news doing coverage about "MoMo", the Missouri Monster, which was our version of Bigfoot.  The first sighting of MoMo was in Louisiana, Missouri in 1972, so I'm not sure what piqued the local interest again 5 years later. I do see there was a Bigfoot book published in 1977 that featured a story on MoMo, so it could be that.  Whatever the reason, MoMo was all the buzz on the playground the next day.  One girl in my class claimed she'd seen it in the woods behind her house. Of course, we all believed her.  I became terrified to enter the woods behind my own house and think I probably stayed out of the them the entire summer afterward.