Last night, I was watching Discovery Channel and came across an extremely interesting special on Jungle Men. Apparently, a guy named Daniel Hillard lived in the Amazon amongst the monkeys for over twenty years, then randomly decided he wanted to go back and work for his dad’s shoe company. What a moron. Why would he give up his exotic lifestyle for footwear manufacturing?
Regardless of his honorable yet questionable decision to continue the family legacy, this guy was not the best jungle-man. He was a bumbling fool who could hardly get through a day in the suburban New Hampshire environment. These are my reasons for doubting his self-proclaimed "jungleman" status:
- He was not animal-savvy. He couldn’t deal with the lion, monkeys, stampede, werewolves, anything. He could barely go swimming without getting attacked by an alligator. He didn’t even help when his boyfriend turned into a monkey. He didn’t put posters up or anything, he just sat on the porch like a goon and waited. That guy’s gotta think “You got a monkey, you got a responsibility.” If your friend turns into a monkey, you don’t watch him transform for an hour then call it quits. You contact Ms. Lippy immediately, she always has the answer.
- He wasn’t even friends with the monkeys. I mean, come on. How hard is it to keep a group of monkeys under control and stop them from throwing silverware around? They are his ancestors for crying out loud! He should know how to get on their level! If he were a true jungle man, he would have been able to speak Tamarin, Capuchin, or at LEAST know the dialect of the White-Fronted Spider Monkey, which I believe is the species that resided in the Parrish’s kitchen.
- How hard is it to kill a mosquito? Yeah, it was large and made an intimidating buzzing noise, but all he had to do was swat it with one of his dreadlocks and it would have died, relieving the gang of a lot of unnecessary stress. He later told the camera crew that he was afraid of getting West Nile. I don’t believe him. I know for a fact he got the vaccine months ago.
- He was very uncomfortable with typical jungle décor. He was terrified of the vines, extremely frazzled during the light rain, completely baffled when he was being sucked into the quicksand. A true jungle-man would have a few tricks up his sleeve when caught in a sticky situation such as this, but this guy just didn’t cut it. He probably was teased when he was in the jungle for being such a pansy.
