The History Channel's fun, scary-scientificMonsterquestroams the world in search of real-life monsters. A current inheritor of the style of the memorable Leonard Nimoy seriesIn Search Of…, the show digs up dirt on the best known urban-legends monsters. Or are they…real? Each episode, punched to the hilt with meaningful music and dramatic narration, serves up a well-documented (or at least much-rumored) freaky phenomenon. The titles of individual episodes give the flavor of the show: "America's Loch Ness Monster," "Mutant Canines," and "Birdzilla." This is not a skeptical enterprise, like National Geographic'sIs It Real?, but an eager survey, complete with re-created scenes that visualize the beasties for us. One of the fun things aboutMonsterquestis that it introduces us to a collection of crackpots--er, witnesses--who have glimpsed the elusive monsters, such as the Wisconsin man who spotted a dog-creature and has since filled his home with lupine bric-a-brac. You're never far from some true believer who insists, "It looked like a friggin' werewolf." Naturally, there are also rational approaches: legitimate scientists examining bits of fur and tissue, DNA testing, lie-detector sessions. Snippets of historical monsters lend some pleasing shivers to the modern accounts. Watch a few of these in a row, and you'll feel like you're in the room with the UFO buffs inClose Encounters of the Third Kind("I saw Bigfoot once!"), but the appeal is undeniable, especially for adolescent monster enthusiasts. And yes, Bigfoot gets not one but two episodes to his hairy self. Bonus wackiness: a 15-minute reel of unused footage and a few strange occurrences that happened to crew members while shooting.--Robert Horton