Villainous Company

Where I am from, we call that dying with your boots on.

I would say rest in peace, but I doubt that is what he wants.

No, I imagine he is probably pestering some poor critter up in heaven... heh.

"Crikey! This flying wildbeeste may *look* angelic but it has quite a temper! Let's see if I can grab a hold of its sharp tusks and hop between it's wings for a ride!"

[falling off cloudbank as he gets gored in the tuckus]

A sad day for us all. He was loved around here and well, three years ago it was just too hard to watch his show.

You won't rest in peace Steven. You will meet the Creator of those creatures and He will tell you "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."
And you will get to ask Noah the hard questions about the ark and lasso dinosaurs.

There are people tend think that Irwin was just an entertainer who was using over the top behavior with animals to as a hook for his celebrity. In fact, Irwin was a zoologist who was very knowledgable about the animals that he was involved with. If he tooks risks, they were calculated risks. If his behavior drove his celebrity status, it also made the science of zoology interesting to untold numbers of people who might never have given it a second thought. If it claimed his life in the end, then his legacy will be those kids who decide to pursue the field of zoology as a career that might never had done so, except for him.

Given his life, his death was quite odd. He died doing something pretty safe and tame with an animal that was quite low on the danger totem pole. His other antics, dangerous or flamboyant though they were, were not predictive of his death. His death could have happened to a Sandal's Resort scuba diving guide. But it was in the line of work he loved, and it was being up close and personal with the animals he loved.

He did seem like a pretty cool guy, and his legacy is much more than his TV show and eastern Tennessee preacher snake handling impersonations.

I hope he is with his maker, and my prayers are for his family.

Yes, as Thresherman said, some ridiculed him for what they viewed as clueless behavior. I never bought that angle. He knew what he was dealing with, and knew the dangers.

We will miss his insight...and his silliness!

Prayers go out to his family.

Animal Planet is running continuously two one-hour documentaries about Steve and his life, wife, children, parents and friends. One was first aired in 2000, the other in 2004.

I have been so sad all day because that man was who he appeared to be, no artifice. The documentary from 2000 has movies his parents took of him as a kid (they were zookeepers) and at 6 they got him a python, and there he is, kissing it. He loved those animals, the creepy ones, from the time he was tiny. He was the genuine article.

The documentary from 2004 has an interview with his precious daughter. I have never seen such an engaging child on camera - little kids in movies or on television are no where near as genuine and captivating as this little girl, and she simply loves her daddy. My heart breaks for her, because it's going to be impossible to fill her daddy's boots.

This was my first exposure to him, and it was so funny to me when I discovered that he was exactly the same in life as in that commercial.

And I read an interview of him today, where he said this was a hoot.

I miss him.

I'm planning to post about him, too. He seemed a genuinely nice guy...

That takes class to spoof yourself and to laugh with others. That South Park vignette was priceless.

A fine epitaph for a fine Man. He will be missed!

What a waste. I don't know that much about the guy, but that he thoroughly loved what he did. His death was a real fluke. He didn't die an adrenaline junkie's death pushing the envelope or playing Russian roulette.

There is risk in anything. One of my greatest disappointments as a kid was not being allowed to participate in junior rodeo by my parents. I was furious, and they were absolutely right. Two weeks later one of the neighborhood kids had a horse fall over backwards on him saddle bronc riding and drove the pommel into his bladder. He wound up peeing in a bag for the rest of his life. It was also pointed out to me that the village idiot became such after being kicked in the head by a large bull he was riding not very well. Rodeo lost its shine. It became more fun to watch than do.

It's good to have been admired; it's a profound blessing to be understood and admired.

I keep telling people that we *should* have seen this coming-- Mr. Irwin knew what he was doing, and all his dealings with animals took into account the danger involved. Sure, they LOOKED horribly dangerous, and for us, they would be-- but so is riding a horse, if you don't know how, and so is driving a car, if you don't account for the dangers.

We should have figured he'd die in a fluke accident with a hardly dangerous animal.