14 DAY TRIAL // This December 7, the Discovery Channel aired a special that, according to the network's own statements, was supposed to show people a grown man being eaten alive and then regurgitated by an anaconda living in the Peruvian jungle.
The thing is that the special turned out to be a huge disappointment. Naturalist and wildlife filmmaker Paul Rosolie was not eaten alive by any ferocious beast, be it an anaconda or the Kraken gone on a hike through the jungle himself.
As if this weren't enough to seriously annoy fans of the Discovery Channel, recent news on the topic says that the anaconda featured on this special wasn't even a wild one.
On the contrary, TMZ tells us that, having had the chance to sit down and have a heart-to-heart chat people involved in the production of Eaten Alive, it found that the snake was in fact a captive one. Bummer, right?
What the Discovery Channel promised us and what we got
Admittedly, life is full of disappointments, and the sooner we come to terms with this very simple fact, the easier it gets to carry on with our daily routine without obsessing about everything that didn't work out as planned.
Then again, having a major network lie to our face for the sole purpose of making a profit is not something to be forgiven and forgotten all that easily. Hence the fact that the Discovery Channel is now in the dog house.
As mentioned, Eaten Alive was supposed to show naturalist and wildlife filmmaker Paul Rosolie being, well, eaten alive by a wild anaconda. Instead, the special only showed him wrestling a snake and being bitten by it by the head.
Thus, just as the anaconda was getting ready to try and swallow him whole, Paul Rosolie asked for help from his team and was immediately rescued. True, watching a man wrestle an anaconda is nothing short of impressive.
However, this does not change the fact that what we were promised and what we got were as alike as two peas in two pods growing up in different centuries and miles away from one another.
There's more disappointment where this came from
Apart from the fact that Paul Rosolie was not eaten alive by a snake, it appears that the anaconda the naturalist got to wrestle with was a captive one that was especially brought to the Peruvian jungle by the Eaten Alive team.
More precisely, it is understood that, after spending several weeks desperately trying to find a wild anaconda big enough to be worthy of being included in this special, Paul Rosolie and his team simply gave up and had one delivered to them from a wildlife park.
The same inside sources behind revelation say that, although pretty impressive size-wise, this snake was by no means big enough to be able to swallow Paul Rosolie whole and regurgitate him just a few minutes later.
At the very worst (or the very best, depending on how you want to phrase it), the snake could have constricted the naturalist and wildlife filmmaker to death, maybe pull out his arm.
Interestingly enough, rumor has it that, probably to make peace with disgruntled viewers worldwide, Paul Rosolie now claims that he really did want to let the snake eat him alive.
