I didn't think it could happen. I didn't believe that I was even remotely susceptible to charms and wiles of reality television. Those smarmy bastards at Reality TV Co. Inc. have at long last found my weakness and Harlan Ellison's "Glass Teat" calls out to me with a siren song of taxidermic offerings.
Some of you may know that I spent the better part of a decade professionally impersonating a Taxidermist. At first this was a done as a lark--an ironic tribute to the quirky backwoods hill folk that added so much color to my childhood years in rural British Columbia. Eventually, as I endeavored to shore my impersonation skills and provide convincing dialog and action for newspaper photo shoots and the like I developed a genuine interest in the art of taxidermy.
And so this is my dilemma: we live in a world where at least three reality television shows have been devoted to the art of taxidermy:
- AMC's Immortalized: a competition occurs each week between two taxidermists to create an artistic masterpiece that aligns to set theme. Judges range from a bearded comedian to the head taxidermist at the Smithsonian.
- Animal Planet's American Stuffers: a nuts and bolts, molds and wires romp that follows Arkansa's 'Xtreme Taxidermy' through a unique project in every episode.
- History channel's Mounted in Alaska: follows a similar pattern to American Stuffers but focuses on Knight's Taxidermy Inc. of Anchorage Alaska. This one appears to have been canceled after the first season, but it's still out there for your viewing pleasure.
Given my penchant for cryptozoology-inspired taxidermic experimentation and Frankensteinesque animal hybrids I'm pretty sure 'Immortalized' is the show for me.
