the snake underworld show

I watched the show and frankly it pissed me off. Henry Rollins says he is a fan of snakes and used to own them but then does a show that does nothing but show the hobby in a bad light. He started well enough, visiting with Kerry King but after that, it went south. We get a guy that glues fangs into his face and drives a hearse, a guy that illegally keeps hots including some that were illegally smuggled in and a guy that injects himself with venom. Yeah, those are really representative of the hobby as a whole :mad:. It seems like almost every show now involving the hobby goes out of its way to find the biggest freaks they can find and focuses more on shock factor than the true facts.

I haven't seen it, but I wouldn't consider the self-envenomating itself negative. There's some well respected hot keepers out there that do that, one of which is Dr. Ray Hunter.

hypnotic exotic - you bring up a good point there. i didnt even realize thats what was happening when i was watching it. i just though it was a "hey lets go see this guy." but now that you explain it like that it makes sense.

That's really disappointing that it casts it in a negative light. I'm fan of Rollins in general and the clip they had online with Kerry King made it look like it would be a good show... bummer.

He started out well enough but like has been said, he goes more for shock than for actually trying to impart any factual or beneficial information. Sucks...was thinking it was going to be a worth-while show when I first turned it on but it went south in a big way pretty soon after he met up with Kerry King. :rage:

Wellll, it's on again on WILD in about 45 min. I think I might try to struggle through it just so I can see some Reptiles on TV for once.

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Originally Posted by m00kfu

I haven't seen it, but I wouldn't consider the self-envenomating itself negative. There's some well respected hot keepers out there that do that, one of which is Dr. Ray Hunter.

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I understand your point but there was a clip where he self injected the minimum lethal dose of black mamba venom just to prove a point. That is just flat stupid. It would be like putting on a bullet proof vest and shooting yourself just to prove it works.

I felt it focused on hots too much... where is my constrictor love?! Also thought it was funny how he kept saying that snakes have such a bad rap, and it's so hard to break the stereotype and get people to see how great they can be as pets.... then immediately afterward, it's all like 'MORE DANGEROUS AND TERRIFYING THINGS ABOUT SNAKES UP NEXT... *ominous music*' with lots and lots of bloody stumps and missing fingers from snake bites. Played up the whole hardcore rocker thing... I want to learn about snakes and snake people, not the highyl specific hardcore rocker, tattoed and body modified hidden culture (nothing against tattoes and body modification.... but I'd also like to know about the suburban housemom who to the average person looks like she'd be walking a teacup poodle, but in reality, cares for her ball python as if it were her own child). Counterproductive program, imo.

He said 'poisonous snakes' more times than I can count, and I thought it was funny when it started saying something about burmese pythons, and it showed more pictures of balls and retics than burmese.

For those who missed it, see if you can't find it and record it or see it again... and see what I mean. The first 20 minutes, the only thing that was really said was "people have snakes, some people have dangerous snakes!".

lol he DID keep saying "poisonous" and i was sitting here talking back to the tv going "it's venomous you dingbat!"

I watched it last night. J though it did focus way too much on the hot animals. In some ways I was like great show all the idiots they can go buy a hot snake online or at expos. Thanks! Moron. Just what we need. So it was kind of focused directly on the venomous animals. I wanted to see more of the ball morphs, and people that show the honest side of owning these animals. Not the people illegally owning hot snakes. Totally counterproductive. Although I was happy to see them talk about some of the restrictions of owning hot snakes and the people as weird as they might be doing it the right way. I think it's irresponsible they blurred the illegal hot owner when he should thoroughly have the animals taken from him. Why help him keep breaking the law?