the snake underworld show

this show came on last night and i watched some of it but then fell asleep and missed the rest of it.
it was about a guy who's like a hard core rocker who's fascination with snakes takes him on a mission to learn about them...i could have that wrong a little but that's what i understood.
he wanted to find out what's driving our obsession with snakes when these animals strike fear into so many people who dont understand us, or them.
he met up with a guy who's got like 300+ snakes. they said he was a collector and i didnt hear anything about him breeding or anything. they mentioned the fact that breeding ball pythons creates SO MANY cool morphs and went into how to get a bumblebee. "breed this to this and you get this."
during the show, before i fell asleep, they were talking about hots and about people feeling need to own them. the guy went to a reptile show where hots were being sold and he watched someone buy a mojave rattlesnake, and maybe a copperhead, for $100. he asked him why he wanted to own them and guy's response was something like "because i find them fascinating and beautiful." and the guy doing the show was like "ok well this is one of THE deadliest rattlesnakes out there and you WANT it in your home?"
apparently people in certain states only have to do 1,000 hours of some kind of training before they can legally purchase a venomous snake.
he also got to go to someone else's home who had hots, as well as his vehicle of choice being a hearse and he apparently had some kind of fangs glued into his mouth. he did the 1000 hours of training and i swear i heard him say it took 10 years...did i hear that right?
anywho, thats about where i fell asleep so i was wondering if anyone got a chance to finish it up? what else happened? what did i miss?

Ahh I wish I had known that was on, I would've watched it! What station was it on? Maybe they have the episode online?

it was on animal planet.
OH YEAH look it up online...haha why didnt i think of that?


oops i meant nat geo wild...sorry.
it was with henry rollins i think.

Henry Rollins is great! I'll have to look into this...

It was a good show. I was going to post up that it was coming on and completely forgot. Yea, it was Henry Rollins. And youre right, that guy with the fangs did say it took him 10 years to complete the training to be able to own a venomous snake. I couldn't believe that!

Basically what you missed was Henry Rollins went to this dudes house who owns hot snakes and he injects himself with venom. He's trying to prove you can build up immunity to the venom. He injects black mamba venom among others. So he injected himself and they hooked himself up to some machines to monitor his vitals and stuff. It was interesting.

Yea, it was Nat Geo channel, it's being rerun too. I just checked the dvr and for me, eastern time, it's on again on Monday at 9pm, Tuesday at 12am, Friday at 12pm and 5pm and a few others! Hope this helps!

WHAAA...??? :O
injects himself with venom to build an immunity?!
that's so whacked?! does it work? that'd be crazy if it did...
now what's the difference between the injections and the snake's bites? their fangs are hypodermic needles of sorts so it's the same thing...

Black F'ing Flag: http://grooveshark.com/s/My+War/lmf1M?src=5

It's so weird to see Henry Rollins with grey hair and looking kind of frail.

I guess it's cuz he can control the dose if he injects it rather than an uncontrolled snake bite. Doctors said what he's doing is dangerous (duh) and there's no proof it builds immunity. But he thinks it has. He said he's been tagged by the black mamba a few times and obviously has lived through it. When he injected himself his heart rate rose and then steadied out and he said it will swell and it hurts but that's about it. He's crazy! Lol

Alright! Sweet! I just scheduled a recording for the Monday evening show. It's on at 6pm Pacific here in California on Nat Geo Wild. Can't wait!

At least it's not on Animal Planet, cause all it would have shown was people getting tagged by non-venomous and holding their hands in excrusciating pain and stories of grown men and elephants or other huge animals getting eaten by 70 foot Retics. Ohhhh how I can't stand what that network has become.

I really like Nat Geo Wild tho. Had anyone seen that show called "My Life's a Zoo" at all? It was about this couple that started their own Zoo, I think called "The Deyoung Family Home Zoo" or something like that. They had TONS of animals on their property and basically took care of them all by THEMSELVES. They just got a baby Hippo when I saw the last episode that aired but hasn't been on since :( I hope there are more to come!

have a great weekend everyone!

i saw that "my lifes a zoo" show a couple times but decided it wasnt worth my attention after the one episode they had where they were pissing off the lions with the car engine roars.
i mean they even explain why the lions are getting upset but still do it more.
"lets see who can roar louder...this engine or that really stressed out lion!"
and their constant fighting really got on my nerves. honestly theres just no need to fight like that over every little thing. if they're gonna run a zoo they really need a little course on "working as a team".

that's just my :2cent: on that 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?

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Originally Posted by Homegrownscales

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?

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Especially when there are plenty of legal, responsible owners out there with hots they could interview instead...

Oh yes absolutely !!!

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Originally Posted by Homegrownscales

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.

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I find it ironic that people in this hobby hate when people call them weirdos for keeping snakes, and yet within the hobby, quite often, those same people have that same attitude toward those of us who keep hots...

Personally I was saying the people they featured were a little whacky. That wasn't a general assumption of people who keep hots in general. Keeping hots or not the guy who had fangs glued on his teeth was overall interesting. But that was my take on him. I'm sure there are Many many normal hot keepers that don't have fangs glued into their heads. The other guy who was injecting mamba venom... Well I don't think just anyone should be doing that but... That makes him a special person in my eyes too.

Weird or a little kooky in my eyes is also not a bad thing. Those are not judgments it just makes them different. I guess I should make that clear as well

I'm watching this as I'm typing. So far, it's a pretty good show, except that they keep showing the wrong species of snake. They were talking about venomous reptiles and showed a GTP, two ball pythons and a boa before they started showing vipers and cobras. And then they were talking about Burms and kept showing shots of ball pythons and retics. Aaaand they keep showing green mambas when talking about black mambas. But as for the actual facts, it's really good.

And yeah, I'm kinda miffed about that hot poacher too. I understand interviewing someone who's done it is the best way to get insight on it, but they should have interviewed someone in jail who was arrested for it or something.

ok so i got a chance to watch the whole thing this time and i'm sorely disappointed that the show DID infact end up dissing the snake keeping hobby. i noticed henry kept contradicting himself from one sentence to the next.
ok and here's my take on the guy injecting himself with snake venom...
if he's only giving himself a non fatal dose it will not stop him from dying if he gets tagged by that snake and you KNOW that snake is gonna unload everything its got on him. of course he's surviving the injections...they're CONTROLLED doses...no snake is gonna give him that courtesy!
but henry was right on one thing with that situation when he said "this guy is the poster boy for DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!"
OH! and the one guy that drives the hearse...if his neighbors didnt know about his venomous snakes...they do now.
ok i'm done ranting...well, no actually i'm not, but i'm gonna stop myself anyways.

ok looking back at my post this comment

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this guy is the poster boy for DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!

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can be misunderstood...
i did not mean for it to come out as offensive as it did even though i was only repeating what someone else said.

anthonym - i do not think the keepers of hots, including yourself, are weird or anything like that. it's not my place to label someone something like that because of what they choose to own. i just dont like seeing things like self envenomation put into a "look what i can do!" context.
the guy doing it was saying that no one other then his closest family members and friends know about it and that he didnt want alot of people knowing about it so he wouldnt have to deal with hearing everyone tell him he's crazy and all that, ok fine then why go on national tv and SHOW what he's doing?
i dunno, whatever.
to each his own right?

After finishing it, yeah, I was a little disappointed. It started out great, but before long they just started talking about what can kill you. Though I was really happy when the vet said the giant pythons only kill people when people do stupid things and then the snakes get blamed for it.

Also kinda sick of all the captive herp shows talking primarily about hots. I mean no offense to the hot keepers out there, and I know the public is only interested in extremes, but hots are such a minority in the industry.

When I take my film classes, I swear.

Has anyone found anything other than clips online? I'm feeling left out and I don't have Nat Geo Wild...

Hi,

If they did then mentioning it on here could lead them to get infracted for breaking this rule;

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8. No posts promoting illegal behavior will be tolerated, including but not limited to warez/pirating of copyrighted material, illegal drug or alcohol usage, and illegal ownership or trafficking of species.

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dr del

Sometimes Nat Geo will make their shows available on iTunes, that'd probably be your best bet.

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Originally Posted by dr del

Hi,

If they did then mentioning it on here could lead them to get infracted for breaking this rule;




dr del

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Sorry. I'll check itunes.

Just to clarify, when I was calling the people on the show weirdos, it had absolutely nothing to do with them keeping hots. It had to do with a guy gluing on fangs and driving a hearse and another guy operating outside the law. I have a friend that keeps hots and is a normal, responsible guy. My point is that the general public thinks we're strange for keeping snakes and a show that is showing these types of individuals only strengthens that idea.