For International Tiger Day: On Some Tiger Kings, Queens, and Jokers

Yes, I know. Joe Exotic is so 2020.

I had contemplated doing a post on him when he first made his big splash that year, but (much like, let’s say, a cat) I always resist moving with the herd. In my previous post for International Tiger Day I said I’d do a post about Joe Exotic on his birthday but when the moment came I couldn’t bring myself to. I’m not interested in celebrating him or his ilk, just discussing them as a cultural phenomenon. Joe Exotic kind of makes me want to puke for multiple reasons, but there are even more points of overlap between his story and the themes of this blog and its author. So we gotta go there. What’s the overlap? He operated zoological parks, he toured with traveling shows featuring magic and trained animals, he released records as a country singer, he hosted video talk shows, he was a pro wrestling announcer, he committed cons and hoaxes and other crimes (I write about crimes, I don’t commit them), he ran for office as a Libertarian (a party I formerly belonged to), he is an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church (as am I). He was even married to a man named Travis.

When Joe Exotic burst into the public consciousness during the Pandemic of 2020, he and his cohorts seemed like some sort of metaphorical representation of the same America that produced Donald Trump, an explosion of Americana, with elements of greed, lawlessness, sex, violence, selfishness, neglect, exploitation, and bad taste. As a New Englander, the TV shows about these people were revelatory to me. I’d known about exotic animals in circuses and non-profit municipal zoos, and being kept as illegal pets, but the privately run petting zoos where I come from never have animals more dangerous or rare than llamas.

At any rate, for a week or two in 2020 Joe Exotic & co., was all anyone could talk about, but it’s quite possible you missed it all. And even if you didn’t, the entire saga is a wild tangle. So I offer here a simplified chronological overview of the people and events that make up this mad saga, and the programs that brought them to our consciousness.

The key player is Joe Exotic (Joseph Schreibvogel, b. 1963) a.k.a., “The Tiger King”. Born in Kansas and raised in Texas, Schreibvogel joined the Eastvale Police Department after graduating from high school, becoming chief of police in 1982. In 1985 he retired from the force following a bad car accident, and moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, where he managed a pet store. While there he visited a safari park and other local attractions that inspired his own later endeavors. He then returned to Texas and opened his own pet shop with his brother Garold Wayne (“G.W.”) in 1986. G. W. died in a car accident in 1997. Schreibvogel then sold the pet shop and purchased an Oklahoma farm, which he opened as an exotic animal park in 1999. It had many names over the years, usually involving some variation on G.W., Garold Wayne, or Greater Wynnewood (Wynnewood being a nearby town). In 2000, he obtained his first tigers. He also acquired many alligators, some of them from Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch. Over the years, the park had many other animals, such as bears, monkeys, kangaroos, and lemurs. His specialty was big cats, however, often take in from people who had bought them as illegal pets and couldn’t care for them once they grew to adulthood.

In 2002, went on the road with a traveling show featuring magic and big cats. This is when he renamed himself Joe Exotic, began wearing a bleached mullet, and clothes that made Siegfried and Roy look like Trappist monks.

2009 marks the start of Joe Exotic’s war with Carole Baskin (b. 1961). Superficially, Exotic and Baskin seem like opposites, with him being an entrepreneur, and her a conservationist. He’s a gun nut, she’s to all appearances a crunchy hippie. But in the broader scheme of things they have more in common than otherwise. They’re both American eccentrics obsessed with big cats. Like him, she is from Texas, and her organization Big Cat Rescue (est. 1995) is located in Florida, where Exotic first became interested in zoological parks. She has a podcast; he has a tv show on Youtube. They both have elements of their story that can inspire one’s sympathy. Exotic has been on the receiving end of homophobia; Baskin is a survivor of rape and abuse, and was a homeless runaway in her youth. And, though she presents differently, she’s pretty much in the same business. She charges admission to people to come and interact with big cats, and (it has been charged) arguably exploits her staff.

In ought-nine Baskin started ringing an alarm bell about animal abuse at Joe Exotic’s park and travelling shows. The apparent hypocrisy of her charges made Exotic go ballistic. He snuck in to her facility in 2010, and made careful note of what he witnessed there. In 2011 he went on the road with a show called Big Cat Rescue Entertainment, hijacking her brand (a hoax I can’t help admiring). The pair waged a p.r. war on social media. Exotic launched his popular Youtube channel in 2011, and used it to attack her. He was instrumental in bringing to light Baskin’s own sketchy past. In 1997, Baskin’s abusive husband Don Lewis disappeared without a trace. He was declared legally dead in 2002. Her inheritance of his assets was awfully convenient in light of the fact that she had only just launched her struggling infant not-for-profit. While it seems fishy, nothing has ever been proved against her. But Exotic basically accused her of being a murderer, and suspicion has remained

Meanwhile, Joe Exotic continued expanding his activities, even as (it seems pretty well established) he neglected the many animals in his charge. In 2014 he launched additional careers as a country music singer and wrestling announcer.

That same year, he hired TV journalist Rick Kirkham to co-produce a reality show about the doings at G.W. Kirkham, a recovering coke addict formerly employed by the syndicated news program Inside Edition, took hours of footage, including not just interviews but revelations about conditions at the park that were none too flattering, depicting starving cats, animals and people being fed spoiled meat scavenged from supermarket dumpsters, and the outright murder of horses, tigers, and other animals, usually by shooting.

In 2015, a mysterious fire conveniently destroyed their in-house TV studio, including most of the footage that was shot. Some animals expired in the event as well. Kirkham reported being traumatized by his experience in the aftermath, and suspects that the fire was done on Exotic’s orders.

Meanwhile, Exotic continued untrammeled. In 2016, he ran for President as a Libertarian, and John Oliver featured him on his HBO show in a segment about offbeat third party candidates. In 2017, his meth-addicted husband Travis Maldonado tragically shot himself to death. That might make some of us slow down a little and do a bit of soul-searching, but Exotic didn’t break his stride. He remarried a few months later, then ran a 2018 campaign for Governor of Oklahoma AND (the climax to all of this) hired two hit men to rub out Baskin. He was subsequently arrested for that and other crimes, and convicted in 2019. He is currently serving out a 21 year prison sentence, though that hasn’t stopped his latest candidacy for the Presidency. This time he is running as a Democrat.

And now a look at the many TV shows inspired by this wackadoo real life folktale.

Beware of the Tiger (2011)

Joe Exotic was one of several people profiled in Louis Theroux’s BBC documentary, titled in Britain America’s Most Dangerous Pets. (The Brits love to rubberneck at American lunacy and I can’t say that I blame them). It aired in the States on Netflix. As you’ll note, it falls before many of the more dramatic events in the timeline.

The Life Exotic: Or the Incredible True Story of Joe Schreibvogel (2016)

This is a feature length documentary by Oklahoma film-maker J.D. Thompson, whose previous film Blackie: The Fast Lives of Giordano Steece (2014) was about thug life in New Orleans. Super low budget, this one too was made prior to the maximum craziness, and even Exotic himself hadn’t yet gone off the rails as completely as he did toward the end. The movie depicts him mostly as a struggling entrepreneur who’d known some tragedy. Not untrue, but of course, not the full story.

Tiger King (2020-21)

This is the Netflix original series that sent America off its head with Tiger King Mania for a few days. Mainly, the enthusiasm was for the first season, subtitled Murder, Mayhem and Madness, which did an expert job of slowly revealing new levels of craziness that had millions of viewers across America on the edge of their seats.

On the show, we don’t just spend time with Exotic and Baskin, but also their spouses and many of their employees, who seem exploited in different ways (Exotic’s were underpaid, Baskin’s weren’t paid at all, they were volunteer interns). Exotic’s were an especially motley bunch, drug-addled, and fond of randomly shooting off firearms. Many of them had been seriously chomped on by critters and are missing limbs, or sport massive scars. Everyone on the compound, man and beast, looks seriously diseased and underfed, though some remain cheerful about it, as though there were no other way on earth to live. Tiger King 2, the second season delved deeper into the same story, but didn’t reveal very much more.

The third season explores a character easily as interesting, offbeat, and seemingly dangerous as the other two, Kevin “Doc” Antle (b. 1960). Antle is like the George Harrison to Exotic and Baskin’s John and Paul. He was introduced in season one, but the third season focused on him. In some ways, Antle seems more legit, if that word can apply in this case. He was on the scene earlier, and has numerous conventional Hollywood and show biz credits.

Antle was the son of a wealthy farmer in Steinbeck country (Salinas, California). He dropped out of high school and headed to Yogaville in Virginia to do a retreat with the guru Satchidananda Saraswati, whom he studied under for many years. He also spent some time in China, learning alternative medicine. While living at the Yogi’s ashram, Antle began performing as a magician. In 1983 he opened a private zoo nearby, whose inhabitants included lions, tigers, bears, monkeys, and an elephant. He later opened a second one in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina called The Institute for Greatly Endangered and Rare Species (T.I.G.E.R.S.).

Antle supplied and/or trained animals on several well known Hollywood movies including The Jungle Book (1994) and its 1997 and 2003 sequels; Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995); Tons of Trouble (1998); Mighty Joe Young (2008); and The Notorious Betty Page (2005) among others. He appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Oprah. He toured with Britney Spears in 2001, along with a tiger and a python.

Like Exotic, at the present moment Antle is incarcerated for a variety of charges, in his case comprising animal abuse, wildlife trafficking, and money laundering. He has also been accused of human trafficking. But we have not touched on the most colorful aspect of his profile yet. By most conventional measures Doc Antle is a cult leader. Known to followers as Bhagavan Mahamayavi, he’s at the head of a polygamous mini-society where most of his unpaid and underfed zoo staffers are his wives and/or sex slaves. As charged on the series at any rate, many of them were underaged when recruited, and were coerced into remaining on the compound.

It makes you begin to wonder: what is it about tigers? Do they give off some hormone that makes humans insane after prolonged exposure? If so, somehow it doesn’t affect the workers at legitimate zoos.

Tiger King: What Really Went Down? (2020)

This TMZ special focuses on the true crime/ murder-for-hire aspects, purporting to be more objective than the admittedly sensational Netflix series which privileges outlandish personalities

Surviving Joe Exotic (2020)

This documentary for Discover UK explore the animals and humans left behind after Joe Exotic interrupted all their lives and then, to use a popular euphemism “went away”.

Dancing with the Stars (2020)

Lest we lose sight that even reality shows are ultimately all about entertainment, in 2020 Carole Baskin and a partner competed on Dancing with the Stars. Dressed for some reason as lions, they performed their routine to Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”.

Shooting Joe Exotic (2021)

Belated realizing that he’d missed the lede when he filmed Joe Exotic a decade earlier, Louis Theroux revisited the scene of the crime with this follow-up, which trotted out unused 2011 footage to build on the hoopla generated by the subsequent documentaries.

Joe vs Carole (2022)

I was initially very excited about the prospect of this dramatized series. John Cameron Mitchell as Joe Exotic??? Kate McKinnon as Carole Baskin??? Kyle MacLachlan as her long suffering, patient and generous third husband Howard??? Based on a 2019 podcast, it premiered on Peacock…after the wave had crashed. By 2022, the story had been told and told and told, and so it just seemed redundant, and if anything, somehow less exciting than the documentaries, even though many of the events dramatized were ones we’d only been told about, never depicted on film. Like too many contemporary programs it tries to straddle a line between camp and real drama, and frankly, children (for I do think it’s mostly younger writers and producers who make this mistake) THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE. You are either flip or sincere. You cannot be both at the same time. Truth and mockery exist in different dimensions. And everyone who thinks they’ll be the one to solve that…doesn’t.

As for Joe Exotic, if you want HIS side of the story, in 2021 he released his autobiography Tiger King: The Official Tell-All Memoir. Just in case you want to know the “real” story.