The famous alligator and bear attack scenes are staged, and neither scene actually shows the victim being chomped or mauled.

0:32:07 Man in boat throws lasso into weeds. Suddenly yanked out of the boat. Cameraman runs closer. Confused struggle seen, with what looks like a 3 or 4 foot alligator when run frame-by-frame. Many crowd reaction shots. Several shots of alleged TV cameraman. We never actually see the alligator biting the man.

RushBaby on April 23, 2008 at 3:20 PM

It was like 15 years ago that I watched this, so no doubt my memory has fogged. But that description is not what I saw. There were no crowd reaction shots in the scene. There was no crowd, just one woman with a video camera and the guy that got ate is my recollection. Or could I have been on my sixth beer at the time…. it’s a mystery.

– The Alligator’s Lament…

We catch these things all the time in Louisiana.

Yeah, and you guys eat things I spray raid on too..so? Just kidding man…love the food. Just can’t pass up a good straight line.

Haha, “there’s your cowboy boots.” Eat it, PETA.

You know a state has a gator problem when the 911 operator screens the calls based on the footage of the beast.

Grafted on April 23, 2008 at 3:20 PM

DAYUM! Beat me to it!

I don’t like Meredith but Katie is worse…

Christine on April 23, 2008 at 12:41 PM

Smug and smuger.

Really? An alligator in your kitchen is enough to get a flight to NY to be on the Today Toady show?

jimmy the notable on April 23, 2008 at 12:42 PM

Fixed for you jtn :)

Dude. We’ll do you one better. Hot dog vendors on the side of the road in very small bikinis. We’ve had car wrecks occur because someone got…ummm…distracted and smacked someone’s rear end.

As it where…

You know a state has a gator problem when the 911 operator screens the calls based on the footage of the beast.

I looked at that and did not see the scene described I was talking about. But I remember there was a part 1 and a part 2 of the movie…

Yeah… it’s not for the kids.

Maxx on April 23, 2008 at 2:08 PM

From the Executive Summary right at the top:

The famous alligator and bear attack scenes are staged, and neither scene actually shows the victim being chomped or mauled.

scroll to 0:29:50 for debunking the details of the alligator scene:

0:29:50 Intro to alligator attack scene. Apparent TV news reporter doing a standup report. Bad actors worried about a 15-foot alligator in a lake.

0:30:45 Game wardens arrive in a boat. They’re going to try to catch the gator.

0:32:07 Man in boat throws lasso into weeds. Suddenly yanked out of the boat. Cameraman runs closer. Confused struggle seen, with what looks like a 3 or 4 foot alligator when run frame-by-frame. Many crowd reaction shots. Several shots of alleged TV cameraman. We never actually see the alligator biting the man.

0:32:57 Luckless game warden pulled ashore. Limp, bloody, shirt torn. He’s covered with a blanket.

[This sequence is laughably ungenuine. It is allegedly filmed by a TV news crew. Where did the second camera come from? How on earth did the TV cameraman manage to position himself to get close-up crowd reaction shots at the same time as he filmed the "attack"? How did he get the extreme close-up shots of the man struggling with the gator?]

Those are all the benefits of living in Florida. Everything else sucks. I couldn’t get away fast enough.

As a 5th generation Floridian I love stories like this. The scary news keeps people unaware of the natural beauties and wonders of Florida: the springs and rivers and live oaks and gently rolling hills.

Anything to stop the huge influx of transplants and rapacious developers who have built on top of swamps (hey, you know there might be a good reason that gator ended up in her kitchen)! I even remember Orlando and central Florida before Disney and the Villages and IMHO it’s not been an improvement. There’s been a loss of sense of community spirit because Florida gets treated as a resort to go to golf and die, rather than a place to build a life.

Before the invention of air conditioning, the wealthy had winter homes and would then leave and go back north in the summer. Now they come down, build a huge box on a small piece of land and stay indoors.

Florida is a place of wetlands and lightning. That means we have gators and snakes and brushfires. We also get hurricanes. The old style beach house was a more modest plain home, not the high rise condominiums of today.

I’m not a ecohysteric, but there needs to be some common sense about the land you live on.

Hillary would have told the lady that she (Hill) once wrastled a gator in the middle of a hurricane.

faraway on April 23, 2008 at 2:07 PM

Hillary would have order the maid to get the gator out.

I looked at that and did not see the scene described I was talking about. But I remember there was a part 1 and a part 2 of the movie…

Yeah… it’s not for the kids.

Hillary would have told the lady that she (Hill) once wrastled a gator in the middle of a hurricane.