On page 128 of the TelevisionWithoutPity.com's book, Television Without Pity: 752 Things We Love to Hate (And Hate to Love) About TV, the writers have some harsh words for Steve Irwin.
RUSSELL MCPHEDRAN: AP

Nov. 24, 2006, 12:19PM
TELEVISION
A few regrets but they don't pity the fools
TV watchdogs who've spun book off Web site show remorse over Crocodile Hunter


By ALAN SEPINWALL
Newhouse News Service

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"I think you can spell 'posthumously' without 'pity,' " insists Sarah Bunting.

But it's close.

Bunting knows from pity — and, more importantly, the lack thereof. Bunting is co-founder of TelevisionWithoutPity.com, one of the most indispensable — and certainly the funniest — TV resources on the Web, home of scathing recaps of dozens of shows both good (Deadwood) and bad (Big Brother). But in eight years of merciless digs at actors, writers and reality TV "personalities," Bunting says she rarely will reread a comment that she wrote or edited and think, "That was too much."

Then came Steve Irwin.

On page 128 of the new book, Television Without Pity: 752 Things We Love to Hate (And Hate to Love) About TV, which she wrote with TWoP co-founder Tara Ariano, the entry on the late Crocodile Hunter host included such passages as "Though he comes across as your standard braying Aussie loon, Steve Irwin is apparently a qualified zoologist" and "he takes very stupid risks in the name of documentary television," not to mention an assessment of the stunt with his infant son and the crocodile that I can't print here.

"We finished writing and turned in a first draft around Labor Day of 2005," she sighs, "and then we started getting galleys in early '06, and the last shot we really had at catching stuff like this was March or April (Irwin died on Sept. 4). When we're at readings, we apologize to the universe and to the family of Steve Irwin for essentially saying, 'How's that guy not gotten killed yet?' I like Steve Irwin, but this was kind of obviously going to happen.

"We feel bad, but mostly because it's not accurate," she adds. "There are enough other dead people that we make fun of. Lucille Ball doesn't get an inch."

(Ball's entry includes the lines "She never once, in 53 years in show business, managed to apply her lipstick so that it followed her actual lip line" and "She. Was not. FUNNY." There's also a cross-reference to an entry titled "SITCOMS, UNFUNNINESS OF SEMINAL.")