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Tiger King is a documentary I missed on its release, but even over three weeks later, it’s still being talked about so I though I’d give it a look.
The titular individual calls himself Joe Exotic (real surname: Schreibvogel), and this redneck lunatic married five men at the same time. I’ve no interest in getting married, but to do so five times simultaneously is not only bigamy, but just adding never-ending pain for yourself. He also likes to keep big cats, including a snow leopard, with the zoo he began building in 1999 now housing over 200 of them.
You can tell how he doesn’t endear himself to people by making bad Country and Western music, recording the events at his zoo for a nightly TV show, the producer of which, Rick Kirkham, refers to him as “King of the Misfits“, amongst a whole band of misfits. You could’ve figured this out for yourself since a number of them are missing arms and/or legs as a result of their interactions with the animals. Some of them are also missing teeth… because, y’know, reasons.
Anyhoo, Joe went to jail for the incite to murder a animal rights activist Carole Baskin after threatening to have him put out of business, following him putting on tiger shows at shopping malls and reportedly not treating the cats properly; and on seeing a recent Inside No.9, Thinking Out Loud, I can see who Steve Pemberton based his character upon.
It’s a concern that one of his rivals reckons it costs $10,000/year to feed his tigers, yet Joe says he can do it, per tiger, on $3,000/year… then you learn of him just getting hold of dead cows who have been hit by a car on the side of the road. Hmm….
Joe Exotic is clearly nuts and an exploiter of animals, but after one episode, I’m not really grabbed to watch any more of this. It passed almso an hour, but does it actually get interesting?
Tiger King is not available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but is on Netflix now, and you can still buy – oddly – a “Free Joe Exotic” Tiger King Hoodie.
Episode 1 Score: 3/10
Directors: Rebecca Chaiklin, Eric Goode
Music: John Enroth, Albert Fox, Mark Mothersbaugh, JD Thompson
Interviewees:
Joe Exotic
Carole Baskin
Bhagavan Antle
Howard Baskin
John Finlay
Eric Goode
Rick Kirkham
John Reinke
Kelci Saffery
Erik Cowie
Sylvia Corkill
Jeff Lowe
Tim Stark
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.