League of Melbotis

I have to admit a fondness for MTV's globe-trotting "nature" program Wildboyz.

While I am sure that the good folks at PETA probably flip out at the very notion of putting an animal on camera without a signed consent form, the folks at PETA should really give the show a second-look... because the primary attraction of Wildboyz is getting to see grown men mauled by wild animals.

Steve-O and Chris Pontius from MTV's gleefully brain-dead Jackass have taken the show on the road, and decided to involve the peoples and animals from across the world. No longer content just to ride grocery carts downhill into a brick wall, Chris and Steve-O swim with man-eating sharks, get bit by toucans and get zapped by electric eels. Really, the show is an investigation into all of the aggressive tactics of animals you've heard about, but never got a chance to witness at the zoo. Luckily, Chris is not above poking a jaguar to see if it IS the dealiest cat alive.

Granted, Wildboyz is deeply rooted in the scatological (and here, my PETA friends, you may quit reading before you bust an artery). Steve-o is pee'd and pooped upon by elephants, and Chris might use his thong as the location where he's concealing feed for a guinea hen. And, of course, the male nudity. Neither Chris nor Steve-O will wear much more than a thong, given the chance. In some cases (like when they jumped in the water with a Great White Shark) they've had on even less.

Have I learned anything from Wildboyz? I have learned that Chris and Steve-O should be dead about fifty times over, but somehow live on, with all of their fingers, toes, ears and eyes intact. I also have learned that undomesticated animals WILL in fact attack you in pretty much the worst ways imaginable (see last nights episode with the Sloth Bear incident), and your crew will stand off camera and laugh as you get really messed up.

The amazing part of the spectacle is that Chris and Steve-O go back again and again. It wasn't enough when they dressed up as two parts to a zebra and ran across a veldt in front of hungry lions, only to be mauled. No, next episode they plan to test the stories surrounding the electric eel by standing in runnign water and grabbing electric eels.

I won't watch The Swan, but, God help me, I will watch these two guys get beat up by every creature on the planet.