In this 2013 post I had to wonder why the slithery creatures known as anacondas are so fascinating to people.
Like Indiana Jones, I too have asked that question many times of late. I finally decided to stop trying to figure it out and accept the fact that—to use one of my least favorite clichés—it is what it is. (At the end of the day, of course.)
Okay, the backstory: last July I wrote a Guilty Pleasure post on one of my favorite dumb movies, Anaconda. That’s the “B” movie full of “A”-list stars: Jennifer Lopez, Jon Voight, Owen Wilson, Ice Cube. Subsequently I noticed a considerable number of people finding my blog by inputting some form of the word “anaconda” into the various search engines. Hmm, interesting…
So the following month I wrote another post on the film’s sequel, Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid. (That’s the title; really.) No “A”-listers in this one, but it is watchable…fun, but ultimately forgettable. Since then, some variation of “anaconda” has been number one in sending people to this blog. Nothing is even close.
Here are some numbers: during the past thirty days alone there have been over two hundred searches. Besides “anaconda” and “anacondas” there are words and terms such as, “anakonda,” “anaconda movie,” “anaconda film bilder,” “giant anaconda,” “anaconda movie photos hot,” “how anaconda kill a man,” “anaconda geant le film,” “anaconda kills Owen Wilson,” “giant snake movie,” “where in anacondas 2 is kadee strickland’s thong slip,” “the big snake movie by jinefer (sp) lopez,” “anaconda eating person,” and so on.
“Uh, guys, what do we do with it now?”
One question I can’t answer is this: were the folks doing the search interested in the movies, or in the snake itself? Probably some of both, I imagine. That also got me wondering, why the fascination with anacondas? So here are some real factoids.
The anaconda, sometimes called a water boa, is a large, non-venomous snake found primarily in the Amazon and Orinoco river basins of South America. It usually hangs out in murky water and swims a whole lot faster than it can slither along the ground. (When you see one racing on land in the first movie, chalk it off to creative license.) Contrary to the high body count in the first two films (and probably higher in the sequels, which I have so far avoided), anacondas prefer to chow down on turtles, caimans, birds, fish, even the occasional deer that wanders too close to the river.
The “giant anaconda” of South America is a myth, although these suckers are not exactly on the petite side. The more common green anaconda can weigh anywhere from a few hundred pounds up to half a ton, with a length of thirty feet or more. When they consume a big meal, such as a land animal, it can take them weeks to digest it. The females are larger than the males, and they give birth to anywhere from two to three dozen live, squirming baby snakes at one time. (Betcha Indiana Jones would love to be in the midst of that!)
Anyway, this blog is no substitute for National Geographic or Animal Planet. I’m sure you can learn a lot more about anacondas online, if you so desire. I just thought that all those searches leading to my blog (kadee strickland’s thong slip???) were interesting.
THE WIZARD FROM HARRMEL: one of my readers really “got it” after reading my Sword & Planet spoof and posted this review: “Like adventure? Like exotic worlds? Like humor? Like a great read that cries for a sequel? The Wizard From Harrmel is all of these and much more. It’s worth reading the book just to appreciate the names of the characters. Great plot with just the right touches of romance and swashbucklingness. If you liked The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you’ll love this one too.”