Eaten alive? Underwhelming anaconda stunt leaves viewers with a bitter taste

When naturalist Paul Rosolie wanted to focus attention on the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, he decided he needed a stunt guaranteed to get people looking. So the staunch environmentalist offered himself as dinner to an anaconda - filming every moment.

The problem was, “Eaten Alive” didn’t quite live up to its billing. In pre-show hype, Rosolie had described being swallowed and spending an hour inside the snake.

But to the general disappointment of viewers, it turned out that a more accurate description of the outcome would have been “Squeezed Alive”, since Rosolie never actually made it inside the snake itself, which proved incapable of swallowing the naturalist’s helmet-encased head, never mind the rest of him.

The internet was not impressed with the show, which aired on the Discovery Channel on Sunday. “If you ever want to complain that #Ghosthunters doesn’t find enough ghosts – just watch #EatenAlive and know true disappointment,” tweeted viewer Amy Bruni, capturing the general mood.

Others tweeted that they had developed “trust issues” with Discovery Channel.

Despite the disappointment that followed, the stunt had been conceived with the best of intentions.
The idea came to Rosolie after a decade spent working in, and working to save, the rainforest habitat.