Tag: Tiger King

This Is the Horniest Bread Cookbook

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At this point in quarantine, odds are either you or someone your know has tried to pass the time by getting into bread making. From fiddling with sourdough starters to brining focaccia, baking bread seems to have become one of the universal stages of lockdown alongside Zoom fatigue and watching Tiger King. It’s a good chaste activity perfect for keeping your mind off thinking about how long its been since you’ve felt the touch of another human being. Unfortunately, it looks like Trojan didn’t get the memo.

Related | Here Are Quarantine Trends From Around the World

The condom maker is celebrating World Baking Day by releasing their own cookbook geared towards couples looking to spice up their kitchen life and they aren’t talking about cumin (…on second thought, maybe they are). Available as a free e-book, Rising Time is full of innuendo-laden recipes such as “Pump Her Nickel,” “Rye’d That D,” “Knot Without a Condom” and “Great In The (Potato Sack)” among others.

Trojan Brand Condoms on Instagram: “Couples are quarantining together. But they’re baking bread instead of having sex. So for World Baking Day we made a bread cookbook. And…”

According to the cookbook’s description, the 69-page spread (yes, really) features “sensual bread recipes and surprisingly erotic bread photography” interspersed with reminders for couples that they don’t have to wait for their dough to rise to get their hands on a pair of buns.

Related | Two Photographers Capture the Magic of ‘Falling in Love’

In addition to giving away their very horny cookbook for free, Trojan has also promised to donate 50,000 meals to Feeding America as a part of their World Baking Day celebration. So if a nice long baguette just does it for you, head here to get your copy of Rising Time and get busy baking *wink wink.*

Photo via Instagram

No One Is Fucking on Netflix’s New Reality Show, Either

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Sorry but did Netflix know coronavirus was coming? If not, please explain the timing of Tiger King. And now, as millions quarantining without sexual partners hit their fifth week of celibacy (or digital substitutes), how Netflix just dropped a reality TV show all about sexual frustration.

Related | This Is How My First FaceTime Date Went

Too Hot to Handle is based on the Boomer-ish premise that young people’s fast and casual relationship to sex has devalued intimacy and commitment. So they dropped ten of “the hottest, horniest, commitment-phobic swipesters” in a beachside mansion where no one’s allowed to fuck, to see if they can be cured. No one can so much as kiss, and the group’s $100,000 ($10,000 each) cash prize depreciates if they do. The contestants, blissfully under no pretenses of having been chosen for anything besides their looks, arrive on the island unaware of the twist. Twelve hours in, they’re informed by the Alexa-ish device that serves as host that any thirsty behavior will cost the group: kissing docks $3,000, sex costs $20,000.

Too Hot To Handle on Instagram: “There are conditions to your stay here. Meet the singletons: @brycehirschberg @chloeveitchofficial @david.birtwistle @francescafarago…”

Compulsory chastity and society-wide consequences if you break the rules… sound familiar? Reality TV life already has a lot in common quarantine: social isolation with a group of people you likely didn’t choose deliberately, the urge to stir up just drama for no reason, etc. The only difference is they’re not allowed to masturbate. And we know we’re only getting $1,200 to begin with.

Netflix became a reality TV juggernaut with The Circle and Love is Blind. This new creation seems to combine their secret ingredient — a pseudo-sociological twist — with the other recent winning strategy of late (re: Love Island): accents. Contestants are plucked from all over the UK, Australia and America. Just based on the trailer, besides watching hot horny people shame their hornier, weaker lessers for a lack of control, the accents constitute a good chunk of the entertainment.

Related | Here’s Why ‘Love Is Blind’s Cameron and Lauren Look So Good Together

Too Hot to Handle seems destined for virality, but can watching people not fuck really be as gratifying than watching them do it? Does watching the show from our weird social experiment mean we’ll relate to our hotter, blueballed counterparts? Will the internet’s horny solidarity become unstoppable? Or, will the show make us more sexually frustrated than ever? Sadly, it’s Friday and we have nothing better to do than find out.


Screenshot via Netflix



Carole Baskin Breaks Her Silence on Kate McKinnon Casting

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We don’t know much about the upcoming limited TV series based on the misadventures of Joe Exotic, Carole Baskin, Doc Antle and the other exotic animal enthusiasts slash criminals of Tiger King who rule our lives now. The upcoming UCP show is not actually based on the Netflix series directed by Eric Goode, but on the second season of true crime podcast Wondry’s Over My Dead Body.

Related | Stop Misgendering Saff From ‘Tiger King’

One of the only things we do know is that Kate McKinnon has signed on to play Baskin, the flower crowned queen of cool cats and kittens, according to Deadline. Sorry to Lisa Kudrow (though I personally think Meryl Streep, Helena Bonham Carter or Geena Davis could all kill it). The casting was announced in November, long before Tiger King introduced Baskin to the world.

Now, Baskin has addressed the casting choice. She made a statement to EW, complimenting McKinnon and appealing to her personally to use CGI instead of live cats for the series. She might’ve killed her ex-husband, but she really just doesn’t quit.

“Kate McKinnon is a wonderful actress,” Baskin says in her statement. “Cat Rescue implores Kate McKinnon to not use real big cats and cubs in the making of her series… We hope McKinnon has a passion for animals and that her series will focus on the horrible lives captive big cats lead when exploited by breeders like Joe Exotic. We further hope she urges the public to support the Big Cat Public Safety Act that would end the cub petting abuse in America.”

Related | ‘Tiger King’ Star Carole Baskin Refutes Documentary’s ‘Lies’

Baskin condemned Tiger King as “salacious and sensational” and promised that she did not feed Don Lewis to tigers, or put him in a meat grinder. She apparently prefers the podcast.

She continues, “The Wondery podcast, which is the basis for her series, explores the rampant breeding, abuse and exploitation of big cats by breeder and exhibitor Joe Exotic. It would be cruel to use real big cats in a television series about cruelty to big cats.” PETA issued their own plea to McKinnon about the series, echoing Baskin: “We hope you’ll agree that using technology such as CGI or animatronics or existing footage is the only conscionable way of depicting animals for your series.”

Hopefully the show will heed Baskin’s responsible warning. Hollywood has a fairly upsetting history of animal abuse, and recently, plenty of celebs have come under fire for their connection to the big cat trade, including Britney Spears, who used one of Doc Antle’s tigers in her 2001 VMAs performance.

But dare we say, Carole doesn’t sound mad about being played by McKinnon? Who would be?

Photo of McKinnon via Getty / photo of Baskin via Twitter


Would You Stay Inside If Your Street Was Lined With Netflix Spoilers?

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People are having a real tough time with social distancing. Have you seen those haunting photos of New York City’s streets, full of idiots gathering to see the medical ship that sailed into the Hudson this week?

Causing the deaths of thousands of people appears not to be a particularly effective incentive to inside, so some inventive advertising students in Germany figured out what people really care about: Netflix.

Related | Is It Worth Getting Dressed Up to Stay Home?

“Jim Hopper dies. Then he doesn’t,” reads one of the spec Netflix billboards created by Seine Kongruangkit and Matithorn Prachuabmoh Chaimoungkalo. Another: “Only two couples say ‘I do.’ And no, Kenny and Kelly aren’t one of them.” Both are followed by the hashtag, #StayTheFuckHome.

Kongruangkit and Chaimoungkalo, a student and alumni at the Miami Ad School in Hamburg, designed the campaign after returning home to Thailand, and witnessing how poorly the government was enforcing social distancing.

The series, which also includes Narcos and Kingdom, is sadly not real… yet. The images were digitally rendered, though plenty of people online assumed they were real billboards. According to Forbes, Netflix actually rejected the campaign, though it surely would’ve sent people straight back to the couch and their laptops.

Guess the company don’t need the help, given the coronavirus pandemic is just one big Netflix campaign anyway. Netflix stock has increased by 17%, and their unique streaming viewers are up 25%, reports Forbes. Just saying, if I knew there was a billboard on my street revealing what happens to Travis from Tiger King… I’d stay inside and finish it.


Photo via Twitter

Stop Misgendering Saff From ‘Tiger King’

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Perhaps the coolest, most level-headed person in the entire Tiger King series, zoo employee Saff, was subject early on to some of the horrors of Joe Exotic’s mismanagement of G.W. Exotic Animal Park (including an accident that left him without an arm). And while the viral Netflix documentary shed light on the subpar working conditions that staff endured during their time at the zoo, one wrong the documentary filmmakers did not right was the misgendering of Saff by the film’s subjects.

Related | Cardi B Is Team Joe Exotic

“Saff, the person who got mauled by the tiger, told me repeatedly that he is trans, prefers to be called Saff (not “Kelci”), and uses he/him pronouns,” Robert Moor tweeted out a few days ago following the documentary’s release. Moor had previously worked on a long form article for New York Magazine about Joe Exotic and his zoo and was able to offer insight into many of the characters’ narratives.

Saff was continuously misgendered throughout the Netflix program and no clear attempt was made at correctly identifying him and his pronouns either during or post-production. Moor did add, however, that “all of the news broadcasts at the time, and most of the people at the zoo, use the wrong pronouns for Saff.” While this is no excuse, it offers some insight as to why Saff was so blatantly misgendered throughout the seven-episode series by coworkers and management.

The bright side of the documentary’s release is that Saff has been gaining a lot of positive praise from fans for how he handled the situation. He was also recently featured on David Spade’s YouTube show, but was incorrectly referred to as Kelci in the title.

Photo via Netflix

The Connection Between Britney Spears and Doc Antle From ‘Tiger King’

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It’s the 2001 VMAs. Britney Spears‘ career is peaking, fresh off the release of her eponymous third album, a huge Pepsi deal and a Forbes’ world’s most powerful celebrity ranking. She hasn’t discovered Marxism or front-facing selfie home runway videos, or even married Kevin Federline yet. No one has ever heard of coronavirus or Netflix. People are allowed to go outside. Brit appears on the stage in a large metal cage, which mechanically rotates to face the audience.

Related | ‘Tiger King’ Star Carol Baskin Refutes Documentary’s ‘Lies’

“I know I may be young/ But I’ve got feelings too/ And I need to do what I feel like doing/ So let me go,” she coos, leading off “I’m A Slave 4 U.” Behind her, a muscle shirted man with flowing long dark hair strokes a huge tiger. She exits, and goes on to make one of the decade’s most memorable visual statements, to the horror of PETA.

This Tarzan-type is none other than cult Netflix series Tiger King’s resident cult leader Bhagavan “Doc” Antle, mentor to the show’s star, Joe Exotica. Antle, who runs a wild cat park in Myrtle Beach, is painted as a slicker and more malevolent version of Exotic. Antle is the show’s unsung villain: he doesn’t kill anyone or try to, but he does staff his park with a harem of underpaid and overworked female employees, some of whom are coerced to sleep with him and get breast implants. Hate to say it but he looks… good?

On-camera, Antle brags about having worked as an animal trainer on “hundreds” of movies like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (there are ten listed on his IMDB page) as well as bringing tigers onto Jay Leno and David Letterman. Given Britney was in her exotic animal phase and his proximity to show biz, it made sense they crossed paths. According to Screenrant, Antle also provided animals for music videos by the likes of P. Diddy, Ashanti and Janet Jackson.

The photos of Britney posing with Antle began circulating on Twitter this weekend, but now, another mystery has emerged, thanks to PAPER columnist Evan Ross Katz, who shared a photo that appears to be of Britney Spears hanging out with another Tiger King star.

At the 2002 VMAs, Britney sits next to a blonde lady in leopard print who closely resembles the potentially murderous animal rights advocate and queen of “cats and kittens” herself, Carol Baskin. That really you, Carol? Could the animal rights advocate have been a guest invited by Britney herself as a PR stunt to ward off the PETA militia that came for her after the python performance? Is that a completely different blonde who neither starred in Tiger King nor murdered her husband and fed his body to tigers? Has this goddamn show ruined all our lives? Stay tuned…

Photos via Getty

Joe Exotic Wants a Presidential Pardon ASAP

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Like many other Netflix true crime series that have come out over the past few years — from The Keepers and Making a Murderer to Don’t F**k With Cats and The Staircase — the newest hit Tiger King is renewing public interest in stories long-buried by the legal system and giving its subjects a whole new platform. In the case of Joe “Exotic” Maldonado-Passage, he wants the renewed public interest to help get him out of the big house.

Related | ‘Tiger King’ Star John Finlay Got a Glow-up

Exotic, the star of the series and an inmate serving 22 years for a murder-for-hire scheme and violation of the Endangered Species Act, has filed a federal lawsuit challenging his conviction and sentencing from back in 2019. The former zookeeper is evidently taking notice of the massive success of the show and using the renewed press to take a stab at freedom. The lawsuit is taking aim at several parties whom Exotic feels culpable for a wrongful conviction, including current owner of the newly-named Greater Wynnewood Animal Park, Jeff Lowe, to the combined tune of $94 million.

The real kicker, however, isn’t the ridiculous asking price of the suit. Exotic is also requesting that President Trump issue a pardon for all 21 counts he was convicted on. The entire statement to the press is available to read on his Facebook page, in which he claims that federal agencies — like the United States Fish and Wildlife Service — have overreached their power by prosecuting him for killing and selling tigers.

Related | ‘Tiger King’ Star Carole Baskin Refutes Documentary’s ‘Lies’

Exotic hasn’t issued any new statements since the March 19 Facebook post, but the public is getting wind of it all quickly. The binge-worthy Tiger King has surely only fueled the fire he has to get the hell out of prison, but it’s doubtful that anyone in the Trump Administration has A) watched the series and B) sides with the blonde-haired criminal. They might be a little busy with the whole pandemic thing going on at the moment, but only time will tell!

Photo via Instagram