Why Nature Programs are Cool, Featuring The Grizzly Man

I've always been a huge fan of nature programs. My fascination with the genre began back in college, when I got hooked on watching Animal Planet after my roommate came back from summer break one year trying to explain to me the insane majesty that was Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter. I had never seen his show before, and when Ian breathlessly told me that it was basically half an hour devoted to a maniacally cheerful Australian man in tiny khaki's extolling the majesty of nature while at the same time trying to punch nature directly in the face and then wrestle it into submission, I knew that I would be a fan. Sure, one could question the intelligence of someone who dangles their infant child in front of a huge pissed-off alligator’s mouth, or the actual amount of scientific data being collected by slapping a lion in the face and yelling “CRIKEY!!”, but whatever. Steve always seemed to know what he was doing, and it was his limitless energy and passion that made him so endearing.

Of course, his untimely death a while back was a huge tragedy, but at least he went out doing what he loved. He was stabbed through the heart by a stingray while filming a new documentary about the terrors of the ocean, and when I heard the news, I have to admit that my first reaction was "The Crocodile Hunter got killed by a stingray? That's weak. I expected something bigger to finish him off. Like maybe a crocodile." And while me telling people this might make me seem kind of like an asshole, the point is that everybody expected him to bite it (ha ha!) at the hands of some animal he was fucking around with, because despite the fact that evolution did its very best to tell him that it was dangerous by covering it with poisonous spikes or giving it a ravenous hunger for human flesh or whatever, he still seemed to really enjoy prancing around and enthusiastically screaming about how incredible it was. I just think that if you're going to die young, it's probably better if you go out in a way that's reminiscent of the way you lived your life, as opposed to getting hit by a bus or falling down a hole or something. Unless you happened to be a huge bus or hole enthusiast, in which case your life was probably so boring it's better off that you're dead anyway. For Steve Irwin, who enjoyed filming himself while harassing wildlife, getting a stingray barb to the chest while your friend videotapes it is pretty much the perfect way to die. I'm sure that when Evil Knievel finally passes on, it will be from something boring like kidney failure or some disease he got from a hooker, but wouldn’t it be cooler if he died while jumping over 19 olympic swimming pools filled with flaming piranhas on a motorcycle made entirely out of high explosives and razor wire? The answer you’re looking for is “Fuck yes, it would.”

But this philosophy doesn't always hold true. Some people die in a way that makes total sense, and they're still not deserving of any pity whatsoever. Take Timothy Treadwell, also known as the "Grizzly Man", a name I’m sure he forced all of his friends to call him because he thought it sounded totally kickass. This guy was an ex-drug addict, and the last time that he almost died from an overdose and was done with rehab, one of his burnout friends suggested that he go to Alaska to "watch the bears, man." I'm sure that this statement was followed by his friend shooting more heroin into his balls before passing out in a pile of his own waste, but despite the obvious stupidity of this suggestion, Treadwell packed his stuff and moved to Alaska, where he spent the next thirteen summers camping in a national park and making friends with bears. He had to regularly hide to avoid patrolling rangers, and even after being issued numerous citations telling him to quit fucking around with the wildlife, he still wouldn't leave. Pretty much any actual expert on bears said that what he was doing was incredibly dangerous, although you don't really need your doctorate in bearology to know that feeding a 900lb killing machine you've named "Mr. Fishwhiskers" by hand is something you do only if you're fucking retarded or have a desire to get your arms ripped off. Anyway, in a shocking turn of events that came as a complete surprise to nobody, Treadwell's body and the body of his girlfriend were found in the park one day partially devoured, along with a recording of their final terrifying moments:

Grizzly Man: "Hey, honey! Come here! Buttons is playing in the water and trying to catch a fish! Ha ha ha! He is sooooo cute!"

Girlfriend: "That's great, sweetie. Don't you think we ought to be going? I think I remember reading in National Geographic that this late in the summer the bears start stocking up their fat reserves for winter, which makes them really territorial."

Grizzly Man: "Pffft! National Geographic? What do those idiots know? Have they ever been here, out in the wild, actually experiencing the majesty and wonder of these magnificent animals? Whoo, that fish got away! Better luck next time, Buttons! Ha ha ha!"

Girlfriend: "Um, yeah. I'm pretty sure they have. They're bear scientists. That's all they do."

Grizzly Man: "Whatever. I've been doing this for a while now, so I'm sure my experience and knowledge is a lot more extensive than any of those guys with their "degrees" and "research" and stuff. Besides, I'll bet that none of them are called "The Grizzly Man!"

Girlfriend: (rolls eyes) "No, they're probably not. Look, can we just go?"

Grizzly Man: "What's that, Buttons? Oh, are you mad you lost the fish? You want a hug? Yes, come here and give Daddy a hug. Yes, that's right. RAAARRGH! Yes, you're so happy to see your Daddy!"

Girlfriend: "Uh, honey, I don't know if he wants to play. He looks pretty pissed off..."

Grizzly Man: "No, see, you're not in tune with the natural state of the bear like I am. He just wants some attention, some validation that even though his fish got away, people won't judge him as a failure. Isn't that right, Buttons? Yes! Yes it is! Come here and GLAAACCKK!!!"

Girlfriend: "HOLY SHIT!!"

Grizzly Man: "AAAH! FUCK!! AAH!! HE'S FUCKING EATING ME!! HELP!! OH MY GOD, HIS CLAWS ARE RIPPING OUT MY INTESTINES!! BUTTONS, WHY?!"

Girlfriend: "Um...."

Grizzly Man: "SHIT!! DON'T JUST STAND THERE, YOU STUPID BITCH!! FUCKING HELP ME!!! HE'S EATING MY KNEES!! AAAAAHHHH!!”

Girlfriend: "So you want me to throw myself, unarmed, at a gigantic ravenous woods monster in the hopes of saving your already mostly eaten body? No thanks. Buttons, enjoy your meal. I'm going to go scatter some of my shit around the camp so that it looks like I was eaten too, then start my life over again so I won't have to be associated in any way with you and your idiocy. Later."

Grizzly Man: “YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME!! I’M THE GRIZZLY MAAACKK!!”


Now on the surface, I know that it looks like both the Grizzly Man and Steve Irwin are similar. Both enjoy nature and its creatures, and both believe that to fully maximize that enjoyment, one must get close enough so that natures teeth could conceivably eat you. But the fact is, as goofy as he was on camera, Steve was a professional. He was raised by parents who owned a zoo, and he eventually took it over and ran it for a while before he became famous. He's been fucking around with alligators for his entire life, and while putting your head inside an enormous dinosaur lizard’s mouth may not be the smartest thing to do, it helps if you've been doing it for a while and have a rudimentary grasp of the animal’s basic traits and habits. And in addition to his own knowledge, he also had a team of identically khaki-suited flunkies to back him up, and although they never showed them on camera, I’m sure that they were armed to the gills with latest in crocodile obliteration technology. Steve may love giant homicidal lizards, but if one happened to clamp its jaws around his foot I don’t think he’d have any compunction about ordering his henchman to blast it into tiny handbag pieces. The Grizzly Man, on the other hand, was just some retarded hippie on his lonesome who thought he was totally communing with the beautiful bear spirits of the Alaskan woodlands. Did he think that he was special? That the bears had somehow found a kindred spirit in his animalistic, primal soul? No! No, they’re fucking bears! There’s a reason I walk my basset hound down to the dog park every day instead of taking my Kodiak bear to the bear park: bears are massive engines of murderous, furry destruction. They’re unpredictable, because they’re untamed wild animals. I’d imagine that even the aforementioned bear scientists are leery about getting too close to them, and only conduct their bear research under the protective eye of park rangers armed with anti-grizzly rocket launchers. I know that life may have been shitty for the Grizzly Man wherever he came from, and that he was totally pissed Jimbo borrowed his favorite pair of cords and gave them back covered in bong water, but you shouldn’t expect to able to wander into a forest and suddenly become some carnivorous animals best friend unless you’re an idiot. He was, and that’s why he ended up dead and park rangers were forced to dig through bear shit until they found enough of his teeth so they could identify who had been eaten.

So yeah, nature shows are great, even the ones where there’s no chance the main star will be dismembered. For example, sometimes it’s fun just to learn about the reproductive cycle of the elusive tit-mouse of Northeastern Uganda; that way, if anybody asks you about tit-mice, you’ll be able to impart useful information after you’re done giggling about the name. Recently, the Discovery channel aired a series called Planet Earth, and it was, by far, the best nature documentary ever produced. It took four years to gather all of the footage, and was shot entirely in HD. Some of the stuff they captured on camera had never been filmed before, which I think is just incredible. To do this, they literally sent some of the camera crews out into the wild for like two years, doing nothing but following around a particular species of bird or whatever, getting a totally real-life view at how these animals actually act. Amazing. The mastermind behind this entire venture was a British producer named Alastair Fothergill, who, in addition to being a cinematic genius, has probably one of the coolest names in the entire world. I don’t know what he actually looks like, but I’m pretty sure that he has a kickass moustache, smokes a pipe, and wears a pith helmet wherever he goes. Also, a monocle. Or maybe an eyepatch. Or both.

One of the best parts about the series was that at the end of every episode, there would be a quick little ten-minute segment about what went into actually obtaining the incredible footage you had just witnessed. This was great, because as I said before, some of the things these camera crews had to do were fucking insane. I have to imagine that the conversation when Mr. Fothergill was handing out assignments went something like this:

Alastair Fothergill: “Righty-ho, chaps! Enough dithering about! It’s time to see who’s going where and what they’ll be filming! I say, there are enough pieces of this great blue orb for the lot of us, wot wot! Weathersby! Make yourself useful, man, and fetch me a hot cup of Grey! Pinch of cream, dash of sugar! Pale and sweet like Her Majesty’s thighs!”

Weathersby: “Here you are, sir.”

Alastair Fothergill: (sips tea) “Delicious! Weathersby my man, you are indeed a treasure to both Crown and Country! Ha ha ha! Now then, where were we?”

Weathersby: “You were about to tell the camera teams where they would be filming, sir.”

Alastair Fothergill: “Jolly Good! First up! Fitzsimmons! Johann! Front and Center!”

Fitzsimmons: “Yes, Mr. Fothergill?”

Alastair Fothergill: “You two will be dispatched to the coast of Maui, to obtain footage of the beautiful and mysterious Hugging Forest Monkey! You should be able to simply walk up to the little scamp, and it will leap into your arms and wrap its adorable arms around you! You shouldn’t be there for more than a month or so! The budget’s a bit tight for this shoot, though, so you’ll be forced to camp with the native Big-Breasted Mothiqwi tribe! Their ritualistic Pagan Sex festival is around the time that you’ll be there, but don’t let that distract you! Off you go then, lads! Poste-haste!”

Fitzsimmons: “Yes, Mr. Fothergill! Thank you!”

Alastair Fothergill: “Right then! Moving on! McCrady! Bimbleton! Eyes and ears up front!”

Bimbleton: “Yes, Mr. Fothergill?”

Alastair Fothergill: “You two will be going to Antarctica, we’re you’ll be spending two years living in an igloo, documenting the mating and migratory patterns of the Emperor Penguin!”

Bimbleton: “Excuse me?”

Alastair Fothergill: “Yes! You’ll spend six months in bone-chilling cold, with average temperatures reaching down to -80 degrees below zero! In complete darkness! And then six months in constant, hazy light, but still so cold that any exposure to your bare flesh will result in instant and possibly fatal frostbite! And then it’ll switch back again! And then back once more! Best remember your jacket! Ha ha ha!”

Bimbleton: “Are you fucking kidding?”

Alastair Fothergill: “And of course, we have no idea how the penguin acts in this situation! Never been filmed before! They could become ravenous, hunger-crazed monsters, desperate to sink their heretofore unseen claws into whatever warm, pink flesh happens to be close by! Oh, I wish that I was going with you! To be a young lad again, full of pith and vinegar! Weathersby! See them on their way!”

Weathersby: “Very good, sir.”

Bimbleton: “Wait! But! No!”

Alastair Fothergill: “Ha ha! Capital! Godspeed, lads, GODSPEED! Now then, who’s next! Rogers! X’Tiang! To the fore!”

Rogers: “Um, you know, I’m not really sure if I want to-“

Alastair Fothergill: “You two are the luckiest crew of them all! Ho ho ho! You’ll never guess where you two get to go! Try! Try to guess, you lucky bastards!”

Rogers: “To the….tropical island of Badu, to film the….Magical Wish-Granting Tree Ape? Maybe? Please?”

Alastair Fothergill: “NO! Not even close! You two will be going to the famous Deer Cave of Borneo, where you will spend one month underground, filming the three million Wrinkle-Lipped bats that live there! Their droppings have accumulated over the centuries, forming a mound 100 metres high! A mound that’s always covered in a dense blanket of feeding cockroaches! How exciting!”

And I’m not even kidding. They somehow convinced two guys to go down into a hole in the ground filled with millions of dracula bats, tons of bat shit, and a floor made entirely out of cockroaches. And then live there for an entire month. That’s fucking insane. And don’t get me wrong, I was suitably appreciative as I was watching the show from the comfort of my living room, but still. Some of those people have to be fucking madmen. How long do you think it takes to get the smell of cockroach and guano out of your hair? I’m sure that both of those guys weren’t having sex for like three months after they got home. And can you imagine being stuck on an ice floe with a group of 400 penguins as your only company against the literally freezing weather and total darkness? How did they not go insane? And how do you masturbate if you’re bundled under 19 layers of clothing? I mean, they were there for literally two years, they had to have done something. Maybe they just snagged whatever penguin wandered away from the herd and took turns fucking it, who knows?


Anyway, the entire reason I started writing this in the first place was because of a nature video that Noel sent me a couple of weeks ago. You might have already seen it, but if you haven’t, please watch it. It’s this incredible home movie that a vacationing family shot while on safari, and basically shows a bunch of lions attacking a group of buffalo, mauling one of the little ones, then fighting off some crocodiles that are trying to steal their dinner, and finally forty of the buffalo’s friends coming back to beat the shit out of the lions and save the calf. It’s pretty cool. I was going to write some kind of retarded dialogue between the lions and buffalo and stuff, but meh. Maybe later. Enjoy.