Chomp

Mickey Cray’s prized alligator, Alice, is his bread and butter. She has appeared in “nine feature films, two National Geographic documentaries, a three-part Disney special about the Everglades, and a TV commercial for a fancy French skin lotion” (4). Alice is accustomed to the spotlight, and her safety record on set is unblemished until Derek Badger comes along. With Mickey supervising, Alice is calm and cooperative, but her encounter with Badger is a stark reminder that she is a wild predator. Alice therefore represents a bridge between the world of civilization and the world of nature, and Badger’s initial encounter with her foreshadows the much greater difficulties that he will have in the Everglades. Additionally, because Carl Hiaasen’s work often explores the relationship between humans and the natural world, Alice becomes the perfect symbol of that often tenuous relationship.

When Wahoo and Tuna discover the episode’s shooting script, they gain a glimpse into the painstaking process of filming a television show. However, the script also serves as an indicator of the great divide between the image that Expedition Survival! presents to its audience and the mechanics required to craft that image. The artificial reality of Hollywood is another theme that Hiaasen explores in the