Welcome to the bizarre world of animal reality TV. The plot goes a little like this:
This is the true story of too many animals picked to be in a segment, and have their human mishaps taped to find out what happens when they stop being polite and start being real - “When Good Pets Go Bad 2.”
Some may call “When Good Pets Go Bad” low-quality television - and it is. But let’s not overlook lessons that can be extracted from the great heap of “reality” shows, especially those crazy humans screwing with their fuzzy friends of the animal kingdom.
Keep the following tips in mind as summer approaches and newly acquired free time leads students’ weekend camping trips into the Michigan wilderness.
Or at least to an Irish Hills camp site.
Lesson One: Animals are jealous, too
“Casper was a real friendly reindeer, he was one of my buddies,” said “Jim,” a white-bearded deer breeder who, dressed as Santa (for no named reason), fed his reindeer at 6 a.m. one ill-fated day.
Casper was a real pal indeed, until he impaled Jim’s leg with one of his antlers and threw him around, bloodying up the white trim on his suit.
Jim had stepped too closely to one of Casper’s ladies, apparently. Those darn humans!
It gets worse - and 10 times more weird. Casper died of a heart attack during the attack. Either way, Jim had the last laugh when he fried Casper into breakfast sausage.
Let that be a lesson to us all.
Lesson Two: Even mules need friends
Sure, the hybrid mix of horse and donkey is sterile. But, it still has the, you know, urge. One man learned the hard way.
Answering nature’s call in a field, the curious beast approached him. He tried to push the nosy animal away, but only enticed the mixed-up mule more.
The man stops playing to the camera and runs, frantically, through the brush as he simultaneously grips and tugs his pants, and the mule follows.
The broadcaster suggests the she-mule is trying to get it on and adds a useable piece of advice for those who wander into fields: “Keep your guard up, and your pants, too.”
Lesson Three: Animals aren’t centerpieces
A large portion of the show’s lesson can be summed up in the following: “When animals are put on public display, there’s no telling what they do.”
This is applicable to circus situations. Avoid elephants and bears, especially.
So what’s next?
“When Lemmings Go Rabid”? “Ebola’s Hawaiian Vacation”?
Don’t let me trick you. This show is sick and masquerades as morality, as it slicks its shocker-footage over with a “lesson” of treating animals with respect. I helped Fox with that illusion to prove a point - it’s stupid and fake.
Between the black-and-white slow-motion replays, melodramatic voice-overs, and recreation of accident scenes, I actually wanted to puke.
The bizarre obsession with reality supposedly ended this fall, as the Fox network announced last year it would dump this batch of reality for a new season aimed at drama.
At one point last year, Fox considered buying a 747 and deliberately crashing it in the Mojave Desert, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Hmm. “When Good Planes Go Bad”?
So this summer, make sure to avoid territorial buffalos, lighting bulls’ horns on fire and repeatedly sticking your head in a gator’s mouth. And avoid animal “reality” TV while you’re at it.
You’ll be much better off, really.
Julianna Keeping, State News theater reporter, can be reached at keepingj@msu.edu.
