13 December 2013

Animal Planet Producers Hate You

I've discussed Animal Planet programming before. The following 7 examples offer proof of the sadistic nature of the programmers:

Let’s say you’re a bartender or a cab driver or drug dealer or something, working the night shift. You come home exhausted and fall into bed. Since you aren’t interested in falling asleep to the lull of Proactive infomercials, you locate the remote and flip to the Animal Planet channel, since they play regular programming 24 hours a day.

You expect to drift off to a peaceful sleep quickly, but of course you have to get up to pee, because that’s just what happens when you finally relax enough to sleep. You figure you’ve got ten minutes, tops, before exhaustion claims your consciousness and you drift into sweet, sweet… Holy Mother of God! What the fuck is that hyena doing with its head up an elephant’s ass?

1.   Eating Giants

The Animal Planet wants to know if you’ve ever wondered what happens to animals after they die in the wild. Instead of telling us some pretty lie about Elephant Heaven they figured they’d show us in stomach turning detail the aftermath of death. Hyenas and insects and maggots and crocodiles feed on the dead elephant for your viewing pleasure. Since sleep is now out of your reach for the night, or maybe for the rest of your life, you don’t change the channel when the dead hippo episode comes on next.

For the love of God. You realize a number of things quite suddenly, really. First of all, you are watching this animal being eaten from the inside. Why in the name of everything sacred did they shove a camera inside of the carcass? How did they nominate the camera shover? Is that legal? 

You also realize that hyenas are probably the most disgusting animals to ever walk the earth. For some reason, they appear to enjoy smelling like dead things, or they simply like to cuddle with their meals before they tear into them. You aren’t even sad as you remember the clip that shows some maggots somehow move from the carcass of the elephant to feed on the anus of a hyena. Karma. 

You vomit and almost fall asleep. 

2.   American Stuffers

Having shown you what happens to dead animals in the wild, the Animal Planet offers this sweet reality show about a taxidermist in Arkansas who specializes in pets because you will never, ever want to leave a dead animal to nature.

This little jewel includes episode titles like “Keep Your Dead Animals Out of my Kitchen”, “How to Stuff a Chihuahua” and “The Woman with the Pet Raccoon”.
And this cute little clip, titled “Freeze Dried Pets” because there is no longer a God.

Since that fucking NONO commercial is on every other channel, you just keep watching Animal Planet, because fuck it, the last few shows have already consumed what you had of a soul and you come across…

3.   Monsters Inside Me
You don’t even attempt to contemplate what could have happened to those daytime puppy shows as you enter the world of parasites. Every episode features people who have been infected with one terrifying and disgusting parasite or another. You watch the shows titled, “Suicide Attackers”, “Feeding Frenzy” and “Cold Blooded Killers” to name a few, as the show explains the terrifyingly simple ways the victims acquired various parasites.

To feed your increasing paranoia, you watch cute little clips on the Animal Planet website called “Brittney Coughs up Worms” and “Attack of the Killer Pea” and the ever-popular “Brain Eating Parasite”. You decide you are never going outside again. Ever.

Now that you’ve quit your job and sealed your air vents to prevent air-born parasites from entering your home, the Animal Planet would like to introduce you to…


4.Infested
Well, that’s fun. Now that you are too paranoid to go outdoors and you wear a nose plug in the shower to keep the brain eating amoeba away, the Animal Planet has produced a t.v. show just to make you feel unsafe in the sanctity of your own home. No matter how many times you bleach everything, you can’t prevent an infestation of the various demons disguised as bugs and shit shown on Infested.

You watch as families across America battle all kinds of infestations, from raccoons to black widows, snakes, cockroaches, and bats. At some point during the bedbug episode, you find the strength to crawl out of the corner you’ve been rocking yourself in and fall into bed. Bedbugs are cool. If the Animal Planet is to be believed, bedbugs are probably the best thing that could ever happen to you.

Thoroughly convinced that you can hear something munching through your brain and that the sound your fridge is making is actually a horde of black widow spiders searching for a way in, sleep eludes you and you can’t help but hear as the Animal Planet decides to fuck with your fragile psyche just a bit more with…

5.   Monsters in my Head

As you cower beneath the bedbug-infested covers, real people tell stories of being terrorized by demons and bugs and other things that are… well, just not human anyway.

After watching Sleeping with the Devil and also the Monsters of the Night episodes, you decide that sleeping is probably the worst idea ever. You sweep the room for mysterious shadows, demons and mosters while shoving amphetamines down your throat in  heart stopping quantities.

Must stay awake.

6.   Freak Encounters

A team of investigators sets out to discover various terrifying creatures. Did that say Mongolian Death Worm? What the fuck is wrong with these people? Who would look for that on purpose?

As the amphetamines eat through the fatigue and fear in your brain you realize that this a some kind of practical joke show. One of the unsuspecting investigators is being set up for a staged run in with a mythical creature.

You relax a little bit, tell yourself you never believed in Mongolian Death Worms any, and even laugh a little as the butt of the joke gets bleeped out repeatedly.

And then, as if the Animal Planet producers can somehow sense your waning paranoia, they throw this one at you,

7.   Killer Outbreaks

They’ve already shown you how a tiny parasite can kill you, now they assumed you want to know how they can also kill EVERYONE. They probably assume that you have some trust issues with the network by now, so they bring in the CDC to explain how a pandemic is waiting to strike anytime. 
Any. Time. To kill everyone. 

The show details real life outbreaks and the implications of new virus strains and as you tuck yourself back into your cozy rocking corner and order a gasmask off your laptop, you get to hear more than you ever wanted to know about Anthrax, SARS and even Salmonella.

Because.. Obviously. The producers have no souls.