Winter Camping for Dummies, Iron Chef version

December 14, 2012 11:00 AM

Alferd (or Alfred) Packer has inspired musicals, songs, tourists, cookbooks, students, films and government employees. Even the local library and the state archives have found it necessary to document Packer's journey from maneater to vegetarian. Some still claim he was innocent.
posted by QIbHom (10 comments total)

My first introduction to Alferd Packer was a VHS copy (of a copy of a copy of a copy etc.) of Alferd Packer: The Musical given to me some time around 1997. My friend said, "Those guys that make that new South Park show made this thing back in college in Colorado" and then we proceeded to watch it repeatedly.

Years later when I heard that Troma had renamed it Cannibal! The Musical (which had actually happened before I ever even received that VHS tape but I didn't know that until today when I looked up the timeline) I was upset. I thought, "How will anyone ever learn who Alferd Packer is if they don't leave his name in the title?"
posted by komara at 11:25 AM on December 14, 2012

I can never remember Alferd Packer's name; but all I have to do is imagine the drive from Slugmullion Pass down to Lake city, and his name pops into mind...
posted by notsnot at 12:00 PM on December 14, 2012

Fudge, Packer?
posted by dobbs at 12:09 PM on December 14, 2012 [3 favorites]

Packer is buried in Littleton, Colorado, where I went to high school. We used to hold an annual picnic at his grave; somewhere I have a photo of a group of us wearing buckskin jackets and holding chicken legs huddled around his little gravestone.
posted by scody at 12:35 PM on December 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

Heh, scody, my great-(great?)-grandparents are buried a few graves down from Packer. You probably spent a fair bit of time sitting on their grave.
posted by forza at 3:45 PM on December 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

Heh, small world. I hope we didn't leave a mess!
posted by scody at 4:30 PM on December 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

My husband and I like to go to restaurants and leave the name called as either Packer or Donner. We fantasize that either one would go from "name party of 3" to "name party of 2."
Also worth noting is that the University of Colorado named a student restaurant on campus the Alferd Packer Grill
posted by dbmcd at 4:57 PM on December 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

Hey! I wrote an Alferd Packer song!

I have also seen his head. It's on display at the New Orleans French Quarter Ripley's Museum, for reasons nobody on the staff could explain. When I lived in the French Quarter, it sort of pleased me to have Alferd Packer as a neighbor, or, at least, the part of him that did the eating.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 6:35 PM on December 14, 2012

If his head was there it ain't there no more.
posted by komara at 6:52 PM on December 14, 2012

Never heared o Alferd. Heared of Green Bay.
posted by Twang at 8:32 PM on December 14, 2012