I’ll admit it. The Discovery Channel roped me right in. I watched Sunday night’s special, Eaten Alive, hoping that a human being would, actually, be swallowed up by a giant anaconda. In case you didn’t know. That was the premise of the show. That a 25 foot anaconda would swallow a human whole.
I had this hope, against my better judgement, which told me that the Discovery channel was more than likely, trolling for ratings. And of course, they were. The two hour special was 1 hour and 40 minutes of blah blah rainforest blah blah giant anacondas blah blah hunt for giant anacondas blah blah we can’t find one blah blah oh wait here’s one it’ll do blah blah blah blah.
Lot’s of blah blah, because, to be honest, I wasn’t paying all that much attention, until the supposed “payoff,” which was as lame as it could possibly be.
Snake researcher, and conservationist, Paul Rosolie, outfitted in head to toe protective gear covered in animal blood, was sorta constricted by the snake. After encircling Rosolie with its body, the animal opened it’s mouth around the helmet (snake cam captured the action!) but it was pretty obvious the snake wasn’t going to swallow him. Then the researcher called it off, claiming the blood was draining out of his arm.
The attempted eating scene took about 15 minutes. The expected twitter snarkfest came even quicker than that.
Hey @discovery, can I have my own show? #EatenAlive pic.twitter.com/OLEZykn1sx
— BarstoolTrent (@BarstoolTrent) December 8, 2014
Even my humble little snark tweet got 60 retweets
Even the anaconda is like…”that was stupid” #eatenalive — mjsbigblog (@mjsbigblog) December 8, 2014
Not surprisingly, TMZ reports that the snake the team eventually “found” was a ringer production had shipped in when the crew was unable to capture one in the wild. Oops. Unfortunately, there are no 25 foot anacondas in captivity–a smaller animal had to do.
While teasing a snake meal that never actually happened, Rosolie stressed to media that the show was REALLY all about saving the rainforest, and grand, wild animals like the anaconda. That should have been the first clue the premise was a dud.
So…admit it! Did you watch? Were you hoping for some snake on man action? Were you disappointed afterward?
Watch the Today Show team’s report, including some footage from the show, below.
http://youtu.be/ayZ9HTGaT2w
