Evolution of Yeti imagery

Cryptomundo's Loren Coleman and I Love The Yeti's Henry Stokes made fun companion posts today about the Yeti's depiction in popular culture over the years. From Cryptomundo:

It is only when we move into the 1960s (after Sir Edmund Hillary’s debunking Yeti expedition) do we see the shift to the “white” Abominable Snowmen. Is this due to the establishment of a concrete-thinking postwar USA, where Americans’ insights in popular culture were viewed as the most important ones of the day?

Or is it merely a reflection of the worldwide popularity of the Bumble (from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer)?

Yes, I am a firm advocate of the theory that the whiteness of the modern popular cultural icon the Yeti or Abominable Snowmen directly issues from the depiction of the “Abominable Snow Monster” or “The Bumble” in the oft-repeated Christmas TV classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Link to Cryptomundo, Link to I Love The Yeti

• [MrScience]

  Blistering Barnacles! Way to go for using the Tin-Tin image!

• [grey not grey]

  I think I found an even earlier legitimate white-furred Abominable Snowman – “Man Beast”, 1955 (Jerry Warren). There’s another 1964 whitey too, in “Seven Faces of Dr. Lao”. According to the IMDB “Man Beast” was released 1956, not ’55, but that’s still 8 years pre-Bumble.

  info & pics here:
  http://www.weirdwildrealm.com/f-abominablesnowman.html

  imdb links:
  Man Beast: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049468/
  7 faces: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057812/

• [Fnarf]

  Sasquatch is brown.

• [billy]

  white horned ape of star trek ??

  and what happened to the backwards facing feet of the yeti ?

• [slywy]

  White in snow is camouflage.

  Sometimes ya just dig too deep.

• [Antinous]

  The Khumbu Himal is a rather vertical landscape, and the rather vertical parts are brown because the snow doesn’t stick to them, what with the whole gravity thing and all. The yeti would likely live and forage in the brown parts, not the parts that are covered by snow and ice.

• [Anonymous Philanthropist]

  Thanks, Grey Not Grey (#8). I’ve made a correction post about Man-Beast:

  http://ilovetheyeti.blogspot.com/2008/03/correction.html

  The Man-Beast is the first white yeti.

  I think the argument is that the popularity of Bumble from the Rudolph Special is the reason yeti is conceived as white so often now… not that he’s the first.

  That would be MAN-BEAST!

  -Henry of I Love The Yeti

• [justONEguy]

  What about the Golden Jasmine Yeti Dancers?

• [FredicvsMaximvs]

  [Yukon Cornelius]

  “Didn’t I ever tell you about Bumbles?

  Bumbles bounce!”

  [/Yukon Cornelius]

• [ill lich]

  Edmund Hillary had a “debunking” expedition? Do you mean “yeti scalp” he brought back? (which neither proves nor disproves anything– the locals could have foisted any hairy creation on the clueless westerners and called it a “yeti scalp”).

  FYI– there was a b-grade movie in the 40′s or 50′s (I think called “Snow Creature”) that portrayed the yeti as brown, not white.

• [rodriquezseeds]

  My suspicion is that a legend becomes more successful when it has an air of plausibility about it. The new-look yeti could well have been inspired by the polar bear, artic fox, etc. And it makes more sense that a cameoflaged abominable snowman would remain undiscovered in a world where over-population and tourism has led to the mountains becoming a lot less mysterious.

  Or, it’s a piece of stealthy racism by Walt Disney and the WASPs.

• [cshotton]

  Honest to god! Who has ever heard of a brown snowman?

• [Takuan]

  ya didn’t grow up downtown, did ja?

• [OriGuy]

  The Abominable Snow Rabbit, by Chuck Jones http://youtube.com/watch?v=73sYUEPE2t4

• [ptduff]

  @Billy
  white horned ape of star trek ??

  = Mugato. You didn’t mentions poisonous as well. Although why you would evolve poison when you can rip your prey apart with your giant claws would make an interesting study.

• [grey not grey]

  Yup, that predates the Bumble by 3 years…