9/06/2006
Goodbyes, Yellow Brick Roads
Two quick heavily hearted RIPs from here at The FYC:
1) Best of luck to Dan from The Daily Dump in his future endeavors. The Dump was easily my favorite blog over the past few months and helped make my long, lonely hours keeping watch over these Internets a little more enjoyable. Dan had the rather rare ability to make me actually laugh out loud while reading, but for whatever reason he's closing up his blog shop. So I'm sending out some cyber good vibes and I hope to read from him again soon.
2) Steve Motherfuckin' Irwin, RI-Motherfuckin'-P. Way back in that magical year of 1996, my friends and I used to make home movies, which we called “Footage.” They would range from parodies of "MacGyver," to unscripted weird moments (covering ourselves in foil and reeking havoc in a supermarket; Getting dressed up in three-piece suits and walking into the local Holiday Inn to use their pool for a “suit diving championship”), to plot driven movies like "The Lost Retard" (in which someone lost their pet retard and had to find him during a Christmas parade.) “Footage” took up large percentage of our time, and we normally spent our lunch hour sitting around our table, thinking up footage ideas and trying to make each other spit up their soda from laughter. Amazingly, none of us were getting laid at the time.
Anyway, The Croc Hunter was somewhat of a hero to us, as his entire show seemed to be one elaborate ruse in which everyone was in on the joke. We admired his and Terri's work so much, we would have "Croc Parties" on Thursday nights, in which we would watch his crazy ass do something stupid, and then we'd run outside into the freezing night and get wild on the Crocodile Mile, in a bizarre attempt to out crazy a professional nut-job.
Much like a great indie-band, The Croc Hunter was our little secret back in '96. When his whole bag blew up a couple years later, we were happy for him, but it simply wasn't the same. He was there for the masses now; for everyone, not just us jerkasses, to enjoy watching as he stuck his thumb up a snapper's brown eye. After the string of movies, imitations, and commercials, he was not just playing a caricature of himself, but a parody of a caricature of himself. He was still having tickling contests with dinosaurs, but it just wasn't doing it for me anymore.
Then, Monday, I heard he died. By a sting ray to the chest, nonetheless. At first I was sad to hear he passed, but then I figured his last words were probably "Crikey! What a RIPPER!" and I started giggling.
An e-mail from my buddy Nick sums up my feelings about this whole matter better than I actually can:
“To think we gave Steve and Terri their start back in 97, it is a sad day. How do I get my hands on the live video of Steve pulling a ray's spear out of his heart and then dying? Now that is footage!”
Good night, sweet Croc Hunter.
1) Best of luck to Dan from The Daily Dump in his future endeavors. The Dump was easily my favorite blog over the past few months and helped make my long, lonely hours keeping watch over these Internets a little more enjoyable. Dan had the rather rare ability to make me actually laugh out loud while reading, but for whatever reason he's closing up his blog shop. So I'm sending out some cyber good vibes and I hope to read from him again soon.
2) Steve Motherfuckin' Irwin, RI-Motherfuckin'-P. Way back in that magical year of 1996, my friends and I used to make home movies, which we called “Footage.” They would range from parodies of "MacGyver," to unscripted weird moments (covering ourselves in foil and reeking havoc in a supermarket; Getting dressed up in three-piece suits and walking into the local Holiday Inn to use their pool for a “suit diving championship”), to plot driven movies like "The Lost Retard" (in which someone lost their pet retard and had to find him during a Christmas parade.) “Footage” took up large percentage of our time, and we normally spent our lunch hour sitting around our table, thinking up footage ideas and trying to make each other spit up their soda from laughter. Amazingly, none of us were getting laid at the time.
Anyway, The Croc Hunter was somewhat of a hero to us, as his entire show seemed to be one elaborate ruse in which everyone was in on the joke. We admired his and Terri's work so much, we would have "Croc Parties" on Thursday nights, in which we would watch his crazy ass do something stupid, and then we'd run outside into the freezing night and get wild on the Crocodile Mile, in a bizarre attempt to out crazy a professional nut-job.
Much like a great indie-band, The Croc Hunter was our little secret back in '96. When his whole bag blew up a couple years later, we were happy for him, but it simply wasn't the same. He was there for the masses now; for everyone, not just us jerkasses, to enjoy watching as he stuck his thumb up a snapper's brown eye. After the string of movies, imitations, and commercials, he was not just playing a caricature of himself, but a parody of a caricature of himself. He was still having tickling contests with dinosaurs, but it just wasn't doing it for me anymore.
Then, Monday, I heard he died. By a sting ray to the chest, nonetheless. At first I was sad to hear he passed, but then I figured his last words were probably "Crikey! What a RIPPER!" and I started giggling.
An e-mail from my buddy Nick sums up my feelings about this whole matter better than I actually can:
“To think we gave Steve and Terri their start back in 97, it is a sad day. How do I get my hands on the live video of Steve pulling a ray's spear out of his heart and then dying? Now that is footage!”
Good night, sweet Croc Hunter.
