September 04, 2006

'Crocodile Hunter' Amazingly Survives 44 Years

Steve Irwin, better known as the Crocodile Hunter, has been killed by a sting ray near the Great Barrier Reef. I always liked his show, but let's face it, it's amazing that a guy whose career was based almost entirely on pissing animals off didn't have a horrible accident like this much sooner. Evidently he's the second person *ever* to be killed by a sting ray in Australia because they're generally extremely peaceful creatures and only attack if they think they're in danger.

In other news, more songs have been confirmed for Guitar Hero II. Where there are a couple on the list that I'm not excited about (never really been much of a Nirvana fan) , that's still a really solid lineup. There are 23 songs confirmed at this point, and I believe that there are supposed to be thirty or forty licensed songs total. Anybody have some suggestions for songs to fill out the list?

3 comments:

Noumena said...

Just to be contrarian:

Steve Irwin built a career out of the entertainment value of harassing wild animals. An episode of Nature is 60 straight minutes of beautiful footage of animals living their own lives, with informative and thoughtful narration; an episode of Crocodile hunter is 22 minutes (broken up by commercials) of Irwin jumping out of boats to poke at passing reptiles with a stick while tossing off some trivia about how dangerous they are. His hyperkinetic antics contrast sharply with the parade of sober biologists and George Page's baritone narration.

It's sad that a life was lost, of course, but Irwin reduced the beauty of the natural world to a sideshow spectacle, and I think he deserves no acclaim for that feat.

MosBen said...

Of course, I don't think anyone watched Irwin to learn about animals. Shows like Nature are great, but he's not really competing against them. He's competing against shows like Jackass where the point is merely to watch stupid people do stupider things. Certainly not a noble pursuit, but amusing from time to time.

Jenna said...

I wouldn't say that his career was built on harassing wild animals. He never did anything to harm them and a lot of the shows were about the conservation of wildlife. Maybe you didn't pay attention to that, and that is a shame. He was a good person and dedicated his life to helping animals. Every penny he received from that show and the movie went to the Australia zoo. Did he do some dangerous things, sure, but in the end it was always about educating people about the animals. He moved them to safer environments when their current habitats were no longer safe. You certainly aren't giving him the credit he deserves.