Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter, Dead at 44
Steve Irwin, who most know as the Crocodile Hunter—aka That Crazy Australian Guy With The Bad Haircut Who Ran Around the Outback in Snug Khaki Shorts Lifting Up Unbelievably Lethal Animals by the Tail, Pointing at Their Crotches and Telling the Camera “Looks Like We’ve Got a Sheila!” —died yesterday while filming a documentary, after a sting-ray barb caught him in the chest. He was 44.
Doubtless every ‘net comedy hack will be spending the day writing cringingly unfunny headlines like “Crikey! I’m dead!”—because as we all know, there’s no tragedy that an 18 year-old with a blogspot account and a pirated copy of Photoshop can’t mock ironically by Madlibbing a few Simpsons quotes—but as for me, I just think it’s sad. I liked Steve Irwin. How could you not?
Back in college, my housemates and I used to watch The Crocodile Hunter, Steve’s eponymous nature show, with a quiet, studious awe that our classes certainly didn’t merit. There was something about how ridiculously dangerous the situations were that this idiot kept throwing himself right in the middle of, coupled with that wide-eyed sense of childlike wonder that spread all over his big face any time he explained something about nature, that made it one of the more enjoyable shows on television.
I guess on some level, sure… we were all laughing at him a little. You can’t run around in khaki short-shorts smiling as innocently as Steve did, or get as unabashedly excited about kangaroo poop as Steve got, without inviting at least some measure of ridicule. Yet simultaneously, there was an unspoken understanding among us that, even if he did perhaps owe most of his bravery to having the emotional development of a functionally retarded ten year-old, the dude had balls the size of Ayers Rock. It’s probably an unwritten rule of male machismo that once you’ve got “Put crocodile in headlock” on your résumé, you’re pretty much allowed to act and dress however the fuck you like. Steve earned the right to be ridiculous.
Perhaps because of this, I don’t think anyone’s filing Steve Irwin’s death under Didn’t See It Coming. When your job title is Professional Crocodile Hunter, living to 44 is probably considered a ripe old age. If anything, I imagine people will just be disappointed. I mean, seriously, we all knew that crazy bastard’s luck was eventually going to run out—I think in our hearts, though, we all imagined it’d be a bit more romantically mythic than “stabbed by a sting-ray.” I’ll bet Steve Irwin did. You can’t spend your life chasing after the world’s most deadly animals without one of them eventually figuring out that you’re very stupid food. He knew the day would come. I just think that he, like all of us, envisioned a more glorious send-off—covered from head to toe in the vise-like grips of crocodile jaws, maybe, while on fire and falling down a gorge.
Sadly, the animal kingdom denied Steve an inherently cool death scene. All the same, though, I’d remind you that he did take a sting-ray barb in the chest. This is a picture of a sting-ray barb, which according to Wikipedia is razor-sharp, serrated and coated with toxic venom:
I mean, Jesus Christ. That might not be as cool as Mid-air Shark Attack While Parachuting Into Mouth of Volcano, but it still sure as hell beats Heart Attack From Too Many Cheeseburgers.
We’ll miss you, Steve. Hopefully you’re in a better place now, with all manner of dangerous and poisonous mythical creatures—all of which are patiently waiting for you to walk up behind them while you yell excitedly at a camera, before lifting up their tails to prod curiously at their genitalia.