Why did Little Bear really leave Alaska Monsters?

Little Bear has never really shared why he left Alaska Monsters, but there are many different reasons why reality television stars part ways with their shows.

If you are a fan of the paranormal, supernatural, or otherwise-unexplained, then you have likely heard of a show called Alaska Monsters.

As the show’s name suggests, “Alaska Monsters” follows a group of individuals who dubbed themselves the Alaska Midnight Sons (AMS).

AMS tracks down, investigates and hunts some of the most feared cryptids that could be hiding out within the Alaskan Wilderness.

The Alaska Monsters revolution

When Alaska Monsters first started airing, The Alaska Midnight Sons comprised eight members. These members and their various roles within the team were as follows:

• Roy “Little Bear” Kinney (the Team Leader)
• Tom “Crusty” Cruickshank (the Researcher)
• William “Dudley” Eudy (the Forensic Expert)
• Bulldog (the Survival Expert)
• Todd Boren (the Trap Engineer)
• Rhett Magner (the Greenhorn)
• Phillip “Face” Walls (the Veteran Tracker)
• Levi Nilsson (the Tech Expert)

However, by the time the second season of this show premiered, it looked almost completely different.

Not only did the second season of Alaska Monsters take on an entirely new format (with the new Alaska Monsters: Bigfoot Edition name), but it also got rid of its season one team leader, Little Bear.

The show’s producers have never addressed why they replaced Little Bear with Crusty in Alaska Monsters’ second season.

And since Little Bear does not maintain any kind of public social media presence, it is difficult to know what exactly happened behind the scenes between the show’s first and second seasons.

However, if we had to employ our best Alaskan Monsters powers of deductive reasoning, it is likely that the backlash about the show’s first season, some unknown behind-the-scenes drama, or just general television bureaucracy had something to do with this big change.

Recapping Little Bear’s Alaska Monsters run

The first season of Alaska Monsters followed a more general approach, where the Alaska Midnight Sons investigated a wide array of cryptid sightings ranging from the elusive Otterman to the rumored Alaska’s Tiger.

As the original team leader, Little Bear was in every episode of this first season, as follows:

The problem with Alaska Monsters season 1

While Alaska Monsters has now become somewhat of a cult-classic among Destination America fans, the show’s first season was not entirely immune from online scrutiny and criticism.

And given the fact that Alaska Monsters is so very similar to another fan-favorite show called Mountain Monsters (which has many of the same people calling the shots), Alaska Monsters simply could not escape the deadly comparisons when it first started airing.

Many of the negative comments directed towards the show at the beginning inadvertently ended up being directed towards its cast as well.

Comments on the first few episodes of the first season range from “boozey more old farts running around with loaded guns at night”, to “LMFAO what a way to waste an hour of your life”, to “I’m a fan of mountain monsters but these guys are terrible.”

And while some of the cast members may have been able to handle seeing this kind of feedback, it is likely that Little Bear simply decided that he did not want to.

What might have happened behind the scenes

None of the former Alaksa Monsters cast members have ever had anything bad to say about their experience on the show. However, this does not necessarily mean that Little Bear enjoyed being branded as one of Destination America’s new stars.

In fact, many other reality television stars like Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi (from Jersey Shore), Fredrik Eklund (from Million Dollar Listing) and Joe Gatto (from Impractical Jokers) all left their shows just a few seasons in for personal reasons.

Other reasons why Little Bear could have left Alaska Monsters

If there is one thing that is more complicated than tracking cryptids deep in the remote Alaskan wilderness, it is orchestrating a show like Alaska Monsters behind the scenes.

And, at the end of the day, it is highly likely that Little Bear’s exit from the show merely came down to something as simple as a smaller budget (this would certainly explain why Levi Nilsson was also missing from the second season), or a scheduling conflict which prevented him from filming for the show’s second season.