Tiger King is the newest cultural sensation, and let is not be said that FloWrestling is not above milking it for content. Netflix has the perfect antidote to cure the quarantine blues, so why not while the weary hours away with a watch (or re-watch)? To those ends, I've blogged each episode so we can pretend like we're all watching it together. 

Join me, friends, why not?

Tiger Blog Episode 1

Zoo manager John Reinke, ensconced in animal prints, kicks us off with a superb line: “Animal people are nuts, and I might be one of them.” Yes, Reinke, Confirmed. 

James Garretson (profession unknown) has another banger: “Big cat people are crazier than monkey people.” Good to know. Can’t wait to see first hand what he’s talking about. 

Politician John Kasic tried to stop all this in 2012. If only we’d have listened to John Kasic. 

More characters are introduced. Reality TV producer Rick Kirkham: “She wanted to shut down a zoo, and he wanted her gone.” Good summary.

Zoo owner and operated Doc Antle: “He’s a completely insane, gay, gun toting, drug-addict fanatic.” Even better summary.

Rick Kirkham again: “He was like a mythical character livin out in the middle of Bumf***, Oklahoma.” Another solid gold summary! Folks, if you’re not sold on watching a show after a segment like that, then we just have wildly different ideas of what constitutes good content.

Series creator Eric Goode didn’t know he was going to make this documentary, he was just investigating a notorious reptile dealer, as you do, when he found a snow leopard in some guy’s van. 5 years later, we have Tiger King. God bless that guy and his snow leopard. Actually, that guy was probably a sleaze, so maybe don’t bless him. But anyway, I’m thankful for this series.

A real fantastic bit of editing to have Joe talk about how nice and loving the big cats are and then immediately cutting to a tiger nearly devouring him.

Not trying to brag but I have the same t-shirt as Erik Cowie.

Erik Cowie getting a bump on the Tiger King Powe Rankings because of that shirt. pic.twitter.com/aghQFFo3Yn

— Andrew ? Spey (@SpeyWrestle) March 30, 2020

I wonder if he actually likes the band Clutch or if he just like the t-shirt because it says ‘Elephant Riders’ on it? I don’t really care, I’m gonna flex anyway. 

Joe Exotic brags that his TV show airs “on the internet, worldwide”. Yeah big deal, so does FRL. Kirkham, being interviewed in a documentary about Joe Exotic about how he was trying to produce a reality tv show about Joe Exotic, once lit himself on fire to get a segment on Inside Edition while Bill O’Reilly hosted. 

We learn that Joe Exotic has been feuding with Carole Baskin since 2006 and the central conflict of the series has been established.

Baskin says she doesn’t read the news unless it's about cats. Man, she really thought she was going to be the hero of this whole thing, didn’t she? “Never been a person that had friends,” she says. I don’t doubt you, Carole!

Joe is proud to show off his two albums but he doesn’t actually sing on them or play any instruments. Whoever that real band is, now their time to shine. Hope they start ranking it in. 

Driving a car off a bridge led Joe to wild animals. Whom amongst hasn’t felt the inexorable pull of charismatic megafauna after a near-death car accident? 

Joe’s rural Oklahoma accent gets exaggerated in certain words. Example: “In the rain forest there are no eskeelators.” 

It takes 30 cows a day to feed 187 big cats? Can anyone double-check that math?

Joe started speaking to kids to say no to drugs in 2004. His act was stale though, so he enlisted the help of JP Wilson, a 12-year-old magician, who taught Joe how to do tricks. But that also wasn’t enough, so Joe upped the ante with animals. Magic, classic gateway hobby to zookeeper. 

After ditching the magic and focusing just on the tigers, Joe starts making 10, 20, 30, 40 grand at malls. Not bad. 

Big cats aren’t just for regular people, stars love them too! Shaq hung out with Joe! Jay Leno had Doc Antle on. Antle also started in magic (see, it wasn't joking!) Before that, Antle was a cowboy (he is from family of cowboys). Then went to Yogaville, VA, located in the woods somewhere between Charlottesville and Lynchburg where he picked up the name Bhagavan. Your classic cowboy to yogi to zookeeper career arc. 

When a tiger cub is between 4 and 16 weeks old you can ‘profit’ $100,000. That’s 8K a week. Anyone want to check Joe’s math on this one as well? 

Not all personal zoo owners are as cool as Joe Exotic and Doc Antle. Some guy in Zanesville, OH went crazy, released some 50 animals from his zoo then killed himself. So he’s dead.

Joe said he will turn Wynewood into a ‘small Waco’ if anyone tries to take his zoo down. The regular size Waco was bad enough so that even a small would be pretty bad, imo. 

Reinke said he has his name and Joe’s names written on bullets. If anything bad happened they’d kill each other. Might be time to ditch those bullets but maybe they have sentimental value to Reinke, who knows. 

Cowie and Reinke think PETA is insane and are scared of them. “How you gonna stop a tiger from going downtown and into a 7-11?” they ask. Good question. Let’s see how PETA responds.

Joe seems to really think his internet program is a real tv show.

Carole Baskin testified before Congress. How many completely insane people like Carole have been taken seriously in Congress before?

So now we have our insane cast of characters (or at least some of them) and the main rivalry, Joe vs Carole. How will the show keep the momentum so as not to devolve into nothing more than an endless parade of weirdos for the audience to gawp at? 

To be continued...

Tiger Blog Episode 2

Second episode starts off with zookeeping Hall-of-Famer, Saff, losing an arm to one of the tigers. That horror is juxtaposed with the slapstick absurdity of Joe, wearing EMT jacket, telling people in giftshop to take a rain check. Joe says “I’m never gonna financially recover from this.” The pitch-black comedy produced from this show is off-the-charts. 

One also wonders at what point Joe decided to put the EMT jacket on, assuming he didn't just happen to be wearing it when one of his staffers got their arm torn off by a wild beast. 

Saff, a hero, was freshly admitted to the hospital when they told him that it would take two years of reconstructive surgery and rehab to save the arm. Saff said, screw it, chop it off and let me go back to work. Saff is back working at the zoo one week after the attack. “Just another day for me.” Incredible.

Rienke, who has no feet, lost them not due to animal attack, but in a zip line accident, naturally. Reinke had his feet when he started working at the zoo but was walking too much without the proper orthopedic support which caused him to have to lose them at some point. Reinke tells this story while they show him kissing a bear on the mouth, because that's how this show rolls. 

Doc Antle says there's nothing cooler or sexier than a tiger. It's their 'primordial calligraphy'. "Anyone who says they don’t love tigers is insecure and broken." Dang Doc, chill out!

Joe says baby tigers cost $2,000. Now everyone is saying 'wow, that's cheap, I should get one.' NO! Fool! Dolt! Nincompoop! That is the cost to acquire a tiger, that says nothing of the maintenance costs! Remember all the dead cows you need to keep them alive? That is the whole point of this documentary, that greedy people buy baby tigers and then (spoiler alert) kill them when they become adults because they stop being profitable. Come on guys, keep up.

Tim Stark, another exotic animal weirdo, says Thomas Jefferson would want him to breed tigers. Or something.

Yet another crazy animal freak is Mario Tabraue, who went from Miami drug lord to wildlife menagerie owner. Mario's armed guards keep the filmmakers out of his South Florida compound. Then they get in touch with Mark McCarthy, some guy who worked for Mario. Mark liked being around the coolest animals and didn’t care that Mario was a drug kingpin who once stuffed 223 live snakes with cocaine to smuggle them across the border. Mark hooks the filmmakers up and gets them into Mario’s place. 

Mario’s dad, Guillermo, also helped run his drug empire. So really it was just a normal family business. 

According to Mario, one of his employees shot and killed an FBI informant, while Mario merely oversaw the dismemberment and incineration of the body. After casually mentioning that he chopped a guys head off with a saw, Mario mentions that he also bought six lions off a guy who was actually killed by the lions, and a tiger that a lady kept on her houseboat. Folks...

Mario’s wife, Maria, raises monkeys. Maria happens to know in what field Doc Antle earned his degree: "mystical science". That kicks off a lengthy discussion about the many wives of Doc Antle. 

Antle brings 'apprentices' to his Myrtle Beach zoo in as teens, luring them with tales of veganism and the charismatic megafauna we all know and love. Then he convinces them to become one of his concubines and builds them houses on his compound where they live for decades. Our next character, Barbra Fisher, left after 12 years in Antle's haram. 

Fisher’s dad literally dropped teenaged Barbra off at Antle's zoo with the sage advice of 'Don't fall in love with your boss'. Poor dad. 

Barbara says dad knew Bhagavan Antle was a “chick-getter". I'm sure he had a different phrase in mind but okay, we'll go with that. Barbara said 'everything is neutral and happy and going well'. And by going well Barbara means living in horse stalls with cockroach infused bread. 

Barbara says at zoo you are garbage people until you sleep with Doc, then he makes you great. He enlightens you with his penis. Barbara's words, not mine.

But Antle is not the only one with a haram. Joe Exotic looks up to Antle as a mentor and soon collects a few lifemates of his own. Reinke has the rundown. First is John Finley, a muscled up bully kind of guy. Then there is Travis Maldanado, a musclebound skateboarding guy. 

Travis is proud of his size 16 feet. He apparently had no intention of being a homosexual paramour when he arrived at the zoo,  but then Joe Jedi-mind tricked him into being his husband (the secret to the trick is meth). John, Travis, and Joe have a triple wedding. 

You guys, a LOT has happened in this episode. Not gonna lie, it's kind of overwhelming.

Back at Doc Antle's ranch, we meet Moksha Bybee (not her real name) who works from 8am to midnight but says it’s cool. There's also Robert Johnson, a hawkineer, who gets paid 100/week. 

So how does Carole Baskin run her animal sanctuary, which is all but indistinguishable from the many backyard zoos she is trying to shut down? Carole uses volunteers, and she works these volunteers hard. No Christmases for any of them. 

Finally we here the catchphrase that is sweeping the nation. “Hey all you cool cats and kittens,” Carole says to her rather dim social media followers. Carole is addicted to clout, just like the rest of them, as her hypocrisy becomes more and more apparent. 

Carole even has her own music video, “Beautiful Wild & Free” which is, of course, terrible. 

Joe rented a helicopter to buzz Carole's operation. Carole doesn't seem pretty lame at this point but this is also obviously harassment. It's almost as if there are no heroes in this story (except Saff). 

Tim Stark (remember him?), appreciates how Doc Antle has his women trained. Not very woke of you, Tim.

Barbra had her name changed to Bala when she got to Antle. She also agreed to get breast implants because, get this, she was tired from working so hard and figured this would give her a couple of days of rest in the hospital. COME ON. 

Doc says he’s heard the cult accusations for 35 years. But then doesn’t really refute the charge. Doc Antle lures teenage virgins to his compound with a fancy website covered in 'papyrus' font (like the Avatar movie logo), whereas Joe Exotic picks up excons at the bus stop. Gotta be honest, Joe's methods seem way less sleazy. 

Anywho, Erik Cowie explains that you only made $150/day at Joe's zoo but the job did come with perks. For example, you got to eat all the meat you want from the Wal-Mart truck. 

Oh right, the Wal-Mart truck. You see, Wal-Mart would periodically donate a big pile of meat that they couldn't sell to the zoo to feed to the animals. But sometimes the meat was still suitable for humans (supposedly). And so the staff would skim off the pile for meat they could eat in their mobile homes they lived in on the compound. Great perk!

The mobile homes were vile, by the way.

So what's Doc Antle's secret (not about the apprentices, about staying profitable)? Well, Barbra and Reinke and Carole all think Doc Antle kills his tigers after they get too old. A plausible theory. And Mark McCarthy, Mario, Antle and everyone else thinks Carole killed her ex-husband and fed him to a tiger. 

Wait, what? 

Incredible turn of events. Episode one was strong. Episode two was otherwordly. 'Did Carole Baskin kill her husband' is the killer hook (no pun intended) that makes this series.

So okay, let's find out if she did!