What's it like to have strangers disappointed that you weren't eaten and potentially killed by an anaconda? Just ask Paul Rosolie, the host and (almost) snake snack on Discovery Channel's recent "Eaten Alive" special.
Many of the Dec. 8 special's 41 million viewers took to Twitter to vent about their disappointment that the two-hour program didn't end with Rosolie being eaten whole.
"Calling it #EatenAlive is like having a show on the Food Network about cooking a turkey and all they do after two hours is preheat the oven," Twitter user Reagan King tweeted.
"This guy had one job," another user tweeted in a profanity-laced, disappointed tweet.
Rosolie later took to late-night TV and Salon to defend the show's end, saying that his real intent with the show was to inspire rainforest conservation by showing the spectacular strength and beauty of the Amazon serpent.
"They’re totally forgetting everything else about the fact that we’re actually trying to protect these animals,” Rosolie said on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
Slate defended the viewers' disappointed reactions, faulting Discovery for false advertising and saying viewer disappointment might actually backfire on Rosolie's intentions.
"Rosolie had to stop the encounter with the snake due to the crushing pain he felt as the anaconda ingested his arm — he feared it might break," Slate blogger Laura Bradley wrote. "But people tuning in hadn’t seen a word about conservation in the ads promoting the show, or even seen video clips of creatures losing their habitat. They were promised one thing: a guy getting swallowed by a giant snake. And their disappointment definitely doesn’t help the rainforest."
Email: chjohnson@deseretnews.com
Twitter: ChandraMJohnson