Posted on 03/31/2009 4:01:35 PM PDT by JoeProBono
May your soul rest in peace, Steve Irwin, because your estate certainly won’t let it. Australia Zoo, the native Australian animal reserve founded in Queensland by the late Crocodile Hunter, has decided it’s good business to keep the high-octane Irwin persona alive. Not just alive, in fact, but in rude health...and still wrestling crocodiles.
Irwin was just 44 when he died in 2006 after being pierced through the heart by the barb of a stingray while shooting a marine life documentary off the Queensland coast. His death unleashed a wave of national mourning in Australia, similar in feeling (if not in form) to the outpouring of grief shown by the British over the death of Princess Diana, or by Americans over the assassination of President Kennedy. Not knowing where you were when you learned of Irwin’s demise is regarded as un-Australian. Australia Zoo, where Irwin is buried at a location known only to his family, is Down Under’s version of Arlington National Cemetery.
Nowhere in the zoo does the specter of Irwin loom larger than in the gift shop. Shelves are stacked with Irwin talking action figures, one of which screams: “Check out the size of this bloke! One false move and he’d take me head off!” There’s the 100-page CRIKEY! Magazine, complete with huge capital letters so you can’t miss it on the shelf. There are Irwin coffee mugs, Irwin ashtrays, Irwin snow globes, Irwin drink coolers, Irwin shot glasses, Irwin spoons, Irwin lunch boxes, Irwin lighters, Irwin postcards, Irwin floaty pens and Irwin fridge magnets. Not since Graceland has a corpse been so shamelessly exploited.
(Excerpt) Read more at shproto.urbanatomy.com ...
There were a lot of weird stingray attacks that year. Reports of stingrays throwing themselve onto boats. I consider them to be like aquatic dogs.
Steve was the zoo. I can’t imagine his image not being there. It was his life, his drive; and his personality drove the zoo to success. It would be ridiculous for the zoo to drop his image, especially considering the feelings for Irwin held by his countrymen. I have a few Aussie friends, and it was a palpable sadness the day he died.
It was sad, to see someone so full of life go so young and so quickly.
Did this thread disappear for a bit? That was weird!
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