Make America exotic again

madness and mayhem: 'The monkey people are a little bit different. You know, they're kind of strange . . . but the big cat people are back-stabbing pieces of s***,' says one interviewee in the real-life documentary, Tiger King, starring gun-toting Joe Exotic, tigers, a zoo crew of misfits and an animal rights activist. So what could go wrong? Picture supplied

Big cats, polygamy and crime are good escapes from the news at the moment. The Netflix documentary series Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness tells the story of Joe Maldonado-Passage, also known as Joe Exotic.

“He was like a mythical character living out in b****** Oklahoma that owned 1200 tigers and bears and other exotic s***,” says Rick Kirkham, the TV producer who filmed the documentary.

Blonde-mulleted, gun-toting Joe is married to two men – before his husbands reveal that neither were ever gay and slept with women behind Joe's back. They were only with Joe because of the drugs and lifestyle he gave them.

Meanwhile, Joe believes the rapport he has with his animals means they will never hurt him.

Like the other misfits who work at his park, Joe mixes it up with the animals and encourages visitors to get up close and personal with them.

Joe, along with other big-cat park owners, is at war with Big Cat Rescue facility operator Carole Baskin, who lobbied to have such parks shut down. As we learn in episode one, Joe is accused of hiring someone to murder her.

Mixing wild animals with humans always ends badly, says Baskin.

The animal rights activist is passionate about wanting to end the private possession of big cats and believes Joe's animal breeding programmes, park conditions and practice of charging people to pet lion or tiger cubs is abusive to the big cats.

She wants to close Joe's park.

This rivalry stirs Joe into issuing violent threats against Carole.

In his many videos, he threatens her with snakes and is seen shooting a blow-up doll with her name on it.

The rivalry comes with a twist and leads to the one of the biggest shocks in the documentary. Joe alleges Carole killed her ex-husband and fed his body to the big cats. No one believes this.

But when Carole's ex-husband's family speak on camera, they say they are scared of Carole and believe she had a part to play in his disappearance.

This resulted in Joe's arrest and later conviction.

“She wanted to shut down the zoo and he wanted her gone,” says Kirkham.

“It's not everyday a zookeeper goes to prison for murder for hire.”

Tiger King: Madness, Mayhem and Murder is available to stream on Netflix. There are seven episodes around 45 minutes each in the one season.