Tiger King is a 2020 American true crime docuseries about the life of zookeeper and convicted felon Joe Exotic. It was released on Netflix on March 20, 2020. The series focuses on the small but deeply interconnected society of big cat conservationists such as Carole Baskin, owner of Big Cat Rescue, and collectors such as Exotic, whom Baskin accused of abusing and exploiting wild animals.
Episode 5: Make America Exotic Again
We open with Doc Antle talking about a chimp birthday party, and we see him filming it for his social media account. He says their social media account was growing by the millions at that point. Then we hear Joe saying that the zoo wasn’t the same anymore. That Jeff conned everyone, because he’s jealous and he’s a little man with a little dick and a limp and he’s bald and he’s got to pay everyone to have sex with him. He also says that he’s got more criminal shit going on with him than anyone would know and he’s going to jail soon.
Saff said that once Jeff came onto the scene, Joe only cared about his opinion. Jeff didn’t clean cages, feed cats, check in customers. He didn’t work. John Reinke said that Jeff fired half of the people when he took over the zoo. He hired a man named Allan Glover. He is a nasty, scary, rough, hard man.
21 Mins: Jeff said that they were doing ok the first year at the zoo, made some improvements but a lot of what he wanted to do required money. So he met James Garretson through Joe. He had lucrative strip clubs and bars. James said that he’s done a little bit of everything. James said that he’s been around big cats ever since he was about 17. He bought a lion cub out of a Dallas newspaper and has been around them ever since. He said that he’s been friendly with Joe for a long time and was introduced to Jeff Lowe and then they were friendly. He even gave them $14,000 to open a pizza place.
Joe said that you can sit down on the patio right next to real life tigers and have some of the best pizza that he makes from scratch, and that’s the Joe Exotic promise. He used the Wal-Mart meat truck to lower the cost of the pizzas. Jeff said that Joe told him that people didn’t come here to see the tigers, they came here to see me. Saff said that Joe was the star of his show, and Jeff was the star of his show.
In 2015 Joe Exotic ran for president of the United States Of America. John Reinke said that Joe told him, and he was floored. Joe said that he had a chance to win. He ends up on John Oliver who says that he produces some of the most amazing campaign videos and we see one of Joe in a tiger cage saying that “I’m not changing the way I dress. I refuse to wear a suit. I am gay. I’m broke as shit. I have a judgement against me from some bitch down there in Florida. And this is all paid for by the committee of Joe Exotic speaks for America.” John Oliver says that Joe Exotic is truly the candidate you’d want to have a beer with, then have another beer, then several more beers, until you’re drunk enough to try meth for the first time. James Garretson said that when that clip went to John Oliver, even though they were making fun of him, Joe got a big head.
34:00 Mins: Joshua Dial, Joe’s campaign manager said that it was the worst experience of his life. He said that Joe Exotic for president was 100% a complete and total publicity stunt. When that fell apart, according to Sylvia Corkill, he decided to run for governor. She said that she thinks his exact words were, “I couldn’t wait another 4 years, so I decided to run for governor.” Joshua Dial said that he met Joe working at Wal-mart. He was a manager at Wal-Mart and was working in the guns and ammo section. He said that he knew Joe was batshit crazy, but when he got the job he was super excited because it was his dream job. He said that Joe would come in almost every day and buy bullets and tannerite. Joshua Dial said that he knew a lot more about politics than Joe did since that was Joshua’s major in college, but Joe thought that he would win.
Sheriff Rhodes said that Joe running for Governor was a source of entertainment for the locals. Sylvia Corkill said that with politics there’s a lot of gladhanding, a lot of baby kissing. With Joe he was passing out condoms with his face on them. The tagline was “Vote for me or you need this cause you’re screwed.” He was super popular on social media. He was running as a libertarian but he had no idea what a libertarian was according to Joshua Dial. He said he still has no idea what it is. There’s a scene of a debate maybe where Joe is in front of a group of people and he said, “I’d like to introduce you to my wife, but my husband is at home feeding my baby kangaroo.” Then he laughs and no one else does and it’s awkward as hell. He’s the only one that laughs. Joshua Dial said that his platform was Josh’s initial platform, less government, less spending, but he also used his platform to go against the big cat safety act.
Meanwhile in Washington D.C. That bitch Carole says that the only people who are opposed to the safety act are those who are breeding cubs and using them as pay to play props. And she is literally wearing head to toe leopard print. LP doc martens, pants. We cut to another clip of her, and she’s in a damn floral crown again. She says that people like Doc Antle take exotic animals into courthouses and get them in front of lawmakers. Then when she goes in and says that it’s cruel they feel like they can’t agree, because then they’d be hypocrites.
Joe is now at a state fair handing out bumper stickers. Joe is incredibly charismatic. He’s good. Jeff said that Joe thought his political stuff would lead to more business at the zoo, and Jeff said that it hurt them. He said that he had signs up in the gift shop, and he made him take them down. He said that he wanted to get the focus back on the animals. He said that Joe turned into a little bitch. He would complain about Allen every day. Joe would threaten to fire Allen, and Allen said that he didn’t work for him he worked for Jeff. They were at odds. They hated each other. Saff said there were a lot of burnt bridges.
Joe says from prison that the staff tried to get him killed in a cage. He said that they put cologne on his shoes. Joe was filming a campaign video and a liger is sniffing his shoes and rubs on them and swipes at them and then bites them and drags him. Joe is hitting her with his cane, but she drags him far. Carole says that there are so many people there watching him being dragged around and no one goes in to help him. Joe has to shoot into the air a couple times to get the liger off of him. Carole says, “If someone wanted to kill you then they’d put like sardine oil all over you. Something like that the cat wants to eat. Not something the cat wants to drool on. The perfume, that’s all they want to do, drool on it.”
Jeff said that all the money and time from the Carole lawsuits was making Joe paranoid. Joshua Dial said that the mood swings were significant. John Reinke said that Joe was super controlling. That if John Findlay went to visit his brother in Texas, Joe wanted him back the same day. Reinke said that he doesn’t know how much love was involved. That it was probably just the cars and guns, the 4 wheelers. Saff brings up that both Findlay and Travis were 19 when they met Joe, and at 19 all you want to do is party and have fun. Joe said that Travis didn’t really work at the zoo, he just rode 4 wheelers and shot guns. Jeff said that Joe kept Travis pumped full of weed, so he wouldn’t wake up and realizing that this wasn’t a life to live.
There’s a super strange video of Joe telling people, including his mother in law, Cheryl Maldonado, to run while he shoots in their direction. Joe said that he’s had his days of drinking, he’s had his days of coke, meth. Sheriff Rhoades says that one thing that meth does to you is somehow it concentrates in your teeth. Then the documentary cuts to John Findlay who is missing a significant amount of teeth. John says that meth is the main one that they did. He said that it was really starting to fuck him up in the head, and that he feels he’s still fucked up from it. Findlay said that Travis would smoke his meth. Tim Stark said that Joe was smart and saw a boy on meth and said “hey, come here. I’ll provide your meth. I’ll give you everything if you come over here and marry me.” Travis would tell James Garretson apparently that he wanted to go to the strip club with them, but Joe would freak out.
James said that Travis said from his own mouth that he wasn’t gay. Rick Kirkham said that he told Joe multiple times, daily that Travis wasn’t gay. That he was banging all the girls in the zoo. And he said he found out later that John Findlay came out and said that he really wasn’t gay, he was sleeping with a girl at the front desk and they were gonna get married. John Findlay said that all through high school he only dated girls. John Reinke said that he was sleeping with a secretary at the zoo and Joe was pretty close to her. Joe said that he left him for a girl and the hardest part he had with that was that he couldn’t compete with that. Leave him for a man and well, game on. Reinke said that John Findlay got the secretary pregnant. Saff said that the only saving grace in that was Travis. Joe said that he fell in love with straight guys, and kind of laughs it off.
We see a video of Travis walking through the park and says that he wants the footage to be shown to Joe. That he might ask Travis what’s wrong, but that Joe only spends a few minutes with him. Then he punches a truck a whole bunch. He said that Joe doesn’t care about his problems. That he doesn’t care about him. Josh Dial said that Joe saw a man that was a meth addict and took that and used it to be with him. Then he talks about one day Travis came into the office and was complaining to him. He was sitting underneath the camera, but the camera was pointing at Josh Dial. He was complaining that he was a prisoner, he was never allowed to leave the park and couldn’t get a job, which according to Dial was all true, and frankly he didn’t have enough pot. Dial said that Travis always pointed guns at people. He said sometimes he’d wake you up pointing a gun at you. He’d done it to Dial on multiple occasions. He said that that morning he’d pointed his gun at Dial and said, “Freeze, motherfucker!” And Dial said don’t point a gun at him. But Travis said, “Oh, you know this is a ruger. A ruger won’t fire without a clip.” Travis put the gun to his head and fired and killed himself instantly. There’s video of it happening, or Dial’s reaction to it. It is heartbreaking.
Dial said it’s not like in the movies. That he knew the first second that he was dead, but at the same time he didn’t know. Travis liked to play pranks on people and he thought it was a prank. Reinke said that when he got to the zoo that day he saw Joe passed out in the front and the ambulance was taking care of Joe. He said that he almost had to climb a fence to get in the place to figure out what was going on. Josh Dial said that he felt like maybe he was attached to Joe by a bond of pain. That he couldn’t leave him.
Then it’s Travis’s funeral. And Joe is in a clerical collar. All black with a black cowboy hat. He said, “We’re gonna try and make this not a day of mourning, but a day of celebration to celebrate the life of Travis Maldonado. We spent the last 4 years of our lives together. I asked him everyday, I said, “Why me?” And he said because god put me here to make you smile, and that’s my job. And it didn’t matter how stupid he had to get…or if I was sitting there concentrating as hard as I could… on the computer to write a letter to a senator or a congressman or something else, he’d come and rub them balls in my face. Everybody that works here knows exactly what I’m talking about, cause you’ve seen his balls. They were like golden nuggets to that boy.” Cheryl Maldonado, Travis’s mom said that Joe has to do a show wherever he goes, whatever he does. He was even acting at the funeral. She said that it was the worst thing in her whole life. She said that Joe was a year older than she is, and that she thought it was weird and didn’t think it was right. But if Travis was happy, I was gonna accept it, no matter what.
Reinke said that Joe’s whole demeanor changed when Travis shot himself. Everything changed. We see a Thanksgiving day with Joe having people over and feeding people. He said that he cooked all night for everyone. Then Joe is showing off a memorial that a local biker club helped make. It’s got Travis’s 4 wheeler, go kart, skateboard…. It kind of looks like a hunk of junk… Joe said that he goes out there every morning and sits with him and has a cigarette. He said that people think he’s crazy, because he takes pictures of the sky. He said that he’s seen the word hi, angels.
Jeff Lowe said that after Travis died, Joe went completely crazy. There’s a clip of Joe on Oklahoma News channel 4 and Joe says, “he wanted so badly to support me in my political career running for Governor of the state of Oklahoma because he always said, Hon, if anybody could get the people in this state to love and respect each other it would be you.”
Jeff said that he told his wife if Joe wanted to run the zoo they’d have to get out of there, because Jeff was ready to kill Joe. So he said, “let’s go lease a spot on Las Vegas blvd,” and they went there. So he said he had the house and the tigers. Reinke said that he went out and tried to make money out there. They got a bus and called it the jungle bus. It was like a party bus with animals. He could haul people from casino to casino and let them play with cubs while they were doing it. Jeff said they thought it would be a good idea, but they were wrong. It was a big fucking mistake.
Joe is in his house, showing off a white tiger cub named Travis that was born 2 days after Travis died, and he said he’s gotta change clothes. He shows a lamp that has Travis’s picture, and his ash box. He said that he’s gotta get his Prince Albert in his pants, and that he’s had it for 18 years. He said that sometimes he puts the padlocks on the end of his prince albert. He’s getting ready for his first date since Travis died. Dillon Passage is Joe’s date. Joe said he met Dillon in a chat room. It took him a few days to talk him into going on a date with him. He said that Dillon went to dinner and never went home. Joe is going on a date with Dillon, and he’s doing an appearance to campaign for Governor at what appears to be a state fair. Joe is totally using the tigers to get Dillon interested in him. Joe says that Dillon can ride in the cage with the tigers if he wants while the parade is going.
Joshua Dial said, “When Travis died, he didn’t give a fuck about the campaign, not about his family, nothing. All he cared about was that he find a companion. And he wasn’t satisfied until then. But when he found Dillon he started to bounce back. Dillon said that his energy is so strong and when he proposed to me, it wasn’t something I could think about. I just had to say, you know, I’m just gonna go with the flow. I just had to say yes.” Cheryl Maldonado said that 2 months after Travis died Joe married Dillon. She was invited to the wedding. She said that she thought that it was gonna be a wedding, but it was the cameraman, me and the flower girl. So on social media, “Oh, well Travis’s mom is fine with it, so everybody else should be.” She said that she never heard anything from him again.
Josh said when he felt like Joe was finally listening to him and doing what he said, Joe said, “Josh, what will we do if we win?” Election Day. There are some interviews and there’s a man that says, “Joe Exotic would make as good a governor as we’ve ever had.” A woman said “He’s not afraid to say what he wants to say, and do what he wants to do, and sorry if he steps on some toes, but does it anyways.” Another, Sam Elliott mustached man said, “I don’t know. Stranger things have happened.” Then it’s the election night party. Joe didn’t win. The winner comes up to Joe and congratulates Joe on a great run, and says he’s glad they’re all friends.
Saff said that the governor campaign is where he lost his path as far as what his priorities were. It wasn’t about the animals anymore. Everything was falling apart. Erik Cowie said that the passion was there, but he lost it. Josh Dial said that you could always read Joe, he didn’t have a poker face. They knew something was going on. He was already a paranoid person. Throwing people out and stuff, but he said that it was not unfounded. He said they found a microphone antenna in the gift shop room. Josh Dial said that he doesn’t pretend to be a technical wizard, but he could tell it was a listening device.
Jeff Lowe is on the phone and says, “That’s when she says that, “That’s when I hear Joe is under some federal investigation.” He asked what she heard and she said, “I don’t know. They were just talking about it here one morning.” Then whoever Jeff is talking to says, “I got it.” And Jeff is rushed off the phone. He’s wearing an affliction shirt. It’s worth mentioning. The director, Eric Goode said that they just interviewed Jeff Lowe, and that he was getting calls from a federal agent over and over. Jeff says, “Who the hell still talks to Joe that would even….” Eric Goode said, he said, Joe’s going down. And whoever he’s talking to said, “I mean, it was sort of funny when they started, but it’s gotten really dark.” And the episode ends.
