5: Lion Around

Welcome to Born to Bicker! Tell your friends and fam about our crazy stories! 

This week, Griffin and Ellen go head-to-head in telling two unbelievable stories about lions, and we don't mean the Detroit kind. One regarding the notorious Roar film and the other about the incredibly terrifying Tsavo Man-Eaters. We pounce into the mind-blowing details, but not before sharing some "tails" of our very own! 

Let us know who you think won this episode, what you guys think about the stories, and who should now be another step closer to being our mom's favorite! 

Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/borntobickerpod/

Email us at: borntobickerpod@gmail.com

Index:

00:00 -- Start

11:12 --  Roar (Griffin's Story)

24:25 -- Tsavo Man-Eaters (Ellen's Story)

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Anywho, we should probably do this. Let's go. Alright. Hello, and welcome to Born to Bicker.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Is it recorded?

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Yeah. I don't see it.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Oh no. Don't come for my th Don't come for my throat. Just kidding.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Alright, hello, and welcome to Born to Bicker, a sibling rivalry podcast where we share some insane stories to help you get out of the insanity of your own life. I'm Ellen.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

And I'm G. Formerly known as Griffin. I'm trying something new in this episode. And yes, I'm still sick because we finished recording the other episode. An hour ago, or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

And we're siblings who kind of like to already. Yes. In this podcast, we'll talk about safari madness and weird stories about regarding this uh and weird stories regarding the Savannah. Plus our own crazy anecdotes probably revolving around the safari. At the end, whoever can come up with the strangest tale wins the episode, and more importantly, is one step closer to being the favorite.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Which won't be that hard.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Sure. And this is Born to Bicker.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Could you hear that on the mic? Probably not. My tummy be rumbling. Give us your weirdest story either of the week about the Safari or I was I was trying to come up with something to do with the web browser so bad to be clever, and then I just couldn't I couldn't come up with anything. Um but Safari just reminded me of large guns. Uh and I remembered that maybe this was two weeks ago now, um, when I was on the road, I stepped out of my hotel in Phoenix, and there was a guy waiting outside, and he was like eyeing me down. I'm like walking around the corner to this coffee shop I had seen like the night before. Um and he just starts walking up to me, and I'm like, mmm. It's like this Yeah, I don't know, he must have been like in his forties or something, but he's got like Yeah, I don't know, he's got like an American eagle shirt of some kind that's like two sizes, too big, and like uh some thong sandals, which I haven't seen in the wild in a long, long time. They're coming back. They aren't making a comeback, but he follows me for a sec, and I just turn around and he's like, Hey bro, uh, you wanna buy an AK-47 clip? And I was like, What? It's like an AK-47 clip. I don't have any bullets, but I have the clip. And he pulls out literally an AK-47, like a tan AK-47.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Why would you want to buy that?

SPEAKER_00 3:35

I was like, I mean, yeah, obviously first I was like, why do you have that? Yeah, and then as I I obviously turned him down, you know, we haggled for a bit, but I ended up turning him down. Yeah, no, but yeah, first I was like, why do you have that? And then I was like, I was rounding the corner and I was like, why did I look like somebody that might want to purchase this clip? He's like, I'm like, oh yeah, dude, I'm just staying at this Phoenix hotel, brought my AK, but forgot the damn clip at the house. You know, this is this is perfect, thank you. That's crazy. Yeah, I don't think I'd I don't think I'd seen that one in the wild before, you know. The occasional you want to buy some weed, maybe that makes more sense. Oh yeah, sure. I might look like I might want some. Yeah. Full gun, no, just just a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

It makes me wonder if it was like involved in something. He's like slowly trying to get rid of pieces of the gun.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Genius. Get your money back, King. You know, shout out.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Shout out.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Or it was involved in something, and somebody was just dumping shit around town, and he's like, I found this.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Or maybe he was like, yeah, maybe he was cracked out, and like dealer turned his back and he just grabbed an empty clip. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

I can see that. I can totally see that.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

But yeah, bizarre. Yep, turned him down, got a cold brew, came back to my hotel and he was gone.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Weird.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Yeah, shout out to Phoenix, man.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Strange place.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Yeah. Um, so that's my weird very loosely tied to Safari story. But I'm sure guns will be involved in our stories at some point.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Oh, for sure. For mine at least, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

I uh I didn't have anything like super Safari related. I'm gonna say that every fucking week, I swear to God.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

One of these days we're gonna roll something, we'll be like, I know the perfect story. Yeah. Right on theme.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Um, but so mine is super loosely related also. Uh, but I also had a it happened this week, so I guess it's like the weirdest story of this week. Um, but Arthur and I went to a bar right around the corner, and we're gonna go play trivia. And so we like go in and it's absolutely packed to the gills. What the hell? Yeah. And we're like, what is happening?

SPEAKER_00 6:05

I guess I don't want to dox it.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Hopefully that.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Yeah, it it's always packed, low-key.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Yeah, but like this one was like unrelentingly packed, like didn't make sense. So he was sitting there because he had like grabbed us a table before I had gotten there. But then as we look around, like more and more people are just coming into the bar. We're like, what the hell is this? They all had name tags, and we're like, is this like a church thing? Is this like what is this? And then we start to notice that all of them have like survivor headbands and like a year written on their name tag, and then somebody had like their name and then the survivor like underneath the their name.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Shut up. And we're like they were all cast members?

SPEAKER_01 6:54

So that's what we're wondering, and we're like, what is this? We like looked it up and they're like, the next episode of season 50 is airing tomorrow or whatever. So it wasn't that day, it was like the day after. And then we also noticed that they're like all age ranges, all types of people, and they're like carrying this book that's called Escape. And we're like, what the hell? So Brent shows up and he doesn't stay, but he just like he's like, I'm curious, so I'm gonna ask. So he asks somebody, and they're like, Oh no, some of us were on Survivor, but not all of us. We're just big fans of Rob's Rob from Survivor, like Boston Rob.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

One guy specifically?

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Yeah, apparently he has a podcast, and they're all like listeners of the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

I like I don't know how it's taken me this long to realize how big of a show Survivor really is, but I'm seeing people post about this shit everywhere. I think like I think Carl was like gonna try to audition for it at some point.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

I feel like he'd be perfect.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

But I saw he was like, he like met up with some one of the cast members from Survivor from a couple seasons ago.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

I don't know. I've never really I watched it like I think I watched Australian Survivor a little bit, like during COVID for some reason. But I haven't really like dove into it.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

I like it, but it's just like I don't know, I've been captivated by other stuff. Like I watched The Amazing Race. Nice. I thought that was like so much cooler. I mean, Survivor's cool, don't get me wrong, but like there's something about The Amazing Race where like they're doing challenges that are like more, I don't know, more interesting. Like they're having to go up to people and like try to find their way through countries that they haven't been before and they're like not using their phone, which is kind of like Survivor, but like Survivor feels more physical oriented as opposed to like I mean, I know there's the social aspect of like trying to not get voted off the island or whatever. Yeah, but at least with Amazing Race, there's like the timer element where they're like trying to get to the next station before like the time runs out. They're like going to a bunch of different countries, and like, yeah, I don't know. It just was more interesting to me than Survivor was. I watched like one season of Survivor.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Well, we gotta get Survivor Rob on the on the pod, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Yeah, Boston Rob, if you ever want to come through.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Tell us what's up with Survivor.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

I'm sure he's got so many stories to tell. He was also on Amazing Race.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Was he there? No.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

No.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

He wasn't there. No. It was just like hundreds of fans of him just chilling.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Yeah. And the funniest part was we were like, oh, maybe they're here for the game, and the only game that was on was the Italy versus US world baseball game.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Oh, the baseball classic or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

And we're like, they can't be here for this.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Yeah. I mean, that can't really be much of a game, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:45

It was so boring.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

How good can Italy be at baseball? No offense.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Italy Italy won. They killed it.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

They beat the United States. Yeah. Because all of our best players are playing for other countries. I was gonna say a lot of it.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Japan and Dominican Republic and a lot of non-Italians were playing for Italy.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

What? How can you do that?

SPEAKER_01 10:05

I think it was like US people playing for Italy because they were an Italian bridge or something. I don't know. I might be wrong about that, but.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

You know what that meant? I get it. Yeah. I get it. We got nobody good in our own our own backyard.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

No. Not since paper.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

They bring football to the Olympics, and then we're crushing with with the the the NBA.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

You know.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

God bless them.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Should we play some property?

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Let's do it. Let's go. Whoa! Double you.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Do you want to go first?

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Yeah, I'll go first. I never knew have known what this feel uh what am I saying? I have taken no NyQuil yet.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Not yet.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

But I'm about to pour up tonight. I might do my little special that I did last night. Pour it up in the diet squirt. Um,

Roar

SPEAKER_00 11:12

okay. Don't read. Don't read it. Don't read it. I want to I want you to see if you can guess what this movie is. And if not, if you're not aware of this, I'm gonna pitch this to be the next movie night that we do because it's a fucking fascinating movie, and knowing all of the context that I'm about to drop on you is gonna make it s uh, I don't know if enjoyable. More enjoyable is the right term because it's really fucked up.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Okay, hell yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

But okay. No animals were harmed in the making of this film. 70 cast and crew members were. This is from I don't know, Robert Ebert or some shit.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Oh, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Uh a cross between a nature special, a home movie, and a snuff film.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Last one. Oh wait. Damn it, I did the same one twice. That's all you get. You get two. Okay. Uh okay, well, for those who haven't guessed it by now, we are of course talking about the 1981 film Roar.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Never heard of it.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Oh my god, okay. Oh, the qu oh fuck. The other quote was gonna be like, it's something like Jaws in the Jungle or some shit. Oh, hell yeah. Somebody said I thought that was a good one.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

I wouldn't have heard any of the quotes.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

More quotes doesn't help. Yes. In Hollywood history, there are plenty of films known for difficult productions, runaway budgets, clashing actors, dangerous stunts, but few movies are genuinely hazardous as the 1981 film Roar. A production so chaotic it's widely described as the most dangerous movie ever made. Over the course of the film's 11-year production, more than 70 cast and crew members were injured by animals, according to accounts from the filmmakers themselves.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

11 years is insane. Those poor crew people.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

I think it was like three years of straight shoot days. Um spread out amongst an 11-year period because of how fucked a lot of this was and people pulling financing, yada yada. You'll see you're gonna see. The project was created by director and producer Noel Marshall, who believed that lions and humans could safely coexist if the animals were raised around people from birth. He explained his philosophy in interviews at the time. This is him talking about the cast, if you want to call it that. None of the animals are trained, but they're not vicious either. A phrase that would come to bite him in the ass. Literally.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Uh, traveled to Africa in the early 1970s. They were staying in Zimbabwe, finishing a movie, uh, when they encountered a game warden's abandoned house that had been taken over by a pride of lions. Marshall later described the moment. We walked into this house, and there were lions on the furniture, lions on the stairs, and I thought, if only we could film this. And boy would they. Instead of treating the experience as a warning sign, Marshall saw it as inspiration. The original title for the film was literally called Lions, Lions, and More Lions.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

No, that's a terrible title.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Roar is kind of sick.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Roar is sick. Lions, lions, and more lions.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Cool title, cool poster.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

A little kid naming their bunny like bun.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

If this wasn't so fucked, the movie is kinda sick. Uh, anyway. During that time, Marshall and his family began housing lions first at his Sherman Oaks home. Whoa. Uh, and then later, a property he bought in Santa Clarita. The animal cast eventually reached 132 lions, tigers, leopards, cougars, and jaguars.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

That's insane.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Um, at its peak, along with several elephants and other animals. The animals were often allowed to roam freely throughout the house. Uh, Tippi later described the situation. We had lions sleeping in our beds, in the kitchen, everywhere. It was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

How are they not scared? Like one being like, hey, this is this is freaky as fuck.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

They are scared. They are scared. One crew member later recalled opening a fridge and finding a lion staring back at him from the kitchen. Lions are not in the fridge. Maybe it sounds like that, but I know I got it. Yeah, you can fill in the blanks there. The uh film itself followed a wildlife researcher living among lions, whose family unexpectedly arrives at his house. Hedrin had originally wanted Jack Nicholson for the role. Thank God. Uh he wasn't, so we could go on and win win a few Oscars. Still alive. Uh originally wanted Jack Nicholson for the role that Marshall ended up playing himself, while Hedron and her daughter, Melanie Griffith, played members of the family. So it's like a 16, 17-year-old Melanie Griffith. This noel guy is her stepdad, who's directing her in a movie with real untrained lions.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

That's insane.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Yeah. This guy, as you'll come to learn even further, is just bad shit.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

And Tiffy Hedron's like, yeah, okay, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

She'll like kind of well, we'll get into it. She condemns it later, but I'm like, You still allowed this to happen for a long time. So she's not like entirely innocent. But yeah. Marshall used the proceeds from his executive position on The Exorcist to help fund the film, leading to some of the leading some of the crew to believe it was plagued by the curse of the Exorcist due to its financial association. But once filming began, the production quickly spiral into chaos. Actors were expected to perform scenes surrounded by dozens of unrestrained lions. No visual effects, no barriers, no stunt animals. If a lion jumped on someone during filming, it stays in the movie. That was the motto. In one infamous scene, a lion climbed onto a table and knocked multiple actors to the ground while the cameras kept rolling. Another scene shows dozens of lions flooding through a doorway and piling onto Marshall.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

The moment looks choreographed, but it wasn't. Marshall is actually being pinned down by real animals. Crew members later said that during filming, the safest place on set was inside vehicles where they sometimes hid while lions roamed nearby.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

That's insane.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Cinematographer Jan DeBant, who later directed Speed, uh suffered one of the most severe injuries during production. While filming a scene, a lion attacked him and tore into his scalp.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

He later described the moment. I was trying to shoot the scene, and suddenly the lion grabbed my head.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

What a crazy quote.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

The injury resulted in more than 200 stitches. Despite the attack, he came back to finish the job. Oh my god. Now that's dedication. They just don't make him like they used to.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

When I was on set.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

A lion bit my head off. Uh Dibby Hadron was also seriously injured when a lion bit her in the head during production.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

They're all going for the head.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Uh she said, looking back, it was stupid beyond belief. No doubt.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Understatement.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Her daughter, Melanie Griffith, was also mauled during filming and required reconstructive facial surgery afterwards. By the way, if this is in the movie. Um? Yeah. There's a scene in the house where a lion is like biting, scratching, and like playing with her, not letting her go. He left it in the movie. She's saying they had a safe word which he would just ignore.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Uh, specifically for Melody Griffith.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

That's so fucking.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

I don't know if it's because he's like, This is my own stepdaughter, whatever his crazy power trip was on this. But it sounds like she's saying no, no, but she's saying no. Like she's calling out for him to s to cut to stop. It's in the movie. Um, the assistant director was bitten in the throat by a lion. Another crew member was attacked so badly that doctors feared he might lose his leg. Uh, not to mention Marshall himself was repeatedly injured throughout the production. At one point, a lion repeatedly picked him up by the neck during filming. Crew members intervened before the animal could do serious damage. Despite all of this, Marshall refused to shut down the production. Then in 1979, the project suffered another disaster. A flash flood hit the ranch where the film was being shot, destroying large portions of the set and animal enclosures. Equipment, props, and buildings were washed away. It was shut down for months. Um, by the time filming finally wrapped, the project had taken more than 11 years to complete.

unknown 20:09

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Marshall had personally spent 17 million dollars of his own money selling many of his assets to keep the film alive. Which is this guy had a vision. That's a lot of fucking money in the late 70s.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Real? How does he even have that much money?

SPEAKER_00 20:24

I think just producing other being an EP on other stuff. I don't know. Nuts. A lot of this money is from his exorcist uh earnings.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

I mean, maybe he was cursed.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

I believe it. Yeah. This is some exorcist shit. This is this behind the scenes is scarier than the actual story of the Exorcist.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

For real.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

When the movie finally premiered in 1981, audiences were stunned by what they saw. Scenes show actors surrounded by dozens of lines climbing on furniture, chasing characters through the house, and occasionally knocking people to the ground. Because the animals are real, many of the reactions on screen are genuine, obviously. And after all that, the film was not a commercial success, grossing two million dollars all in. But decades later, it developed a cult reputation largely because of the unbelievable production story behind it. After the production of Roar and release of Roar, I don't know if this had anything to do with it, uh Marshall and Hedron divorced in 1982. Shocker. A year later. Um, with Hedron saying Marshall would constantly become aggressive when they fought, leading her to secure a restraining order against him. Fair, girl. Yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_01 21:35

If he's willing to literally throw you to the lions, then I would get a letter too.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

And she's also like, Melanie is my daughter, and you're literally throwing her to the lions. Yeah. Like out of control. Yeah. But the this restraining order stated that he could not physically abuse her, okay, uh, or come within twenty feet of their home. And for Him to also seek psychiatric care. So we could just chill 21 feet away on the sidewalk. Marshall's son John would confirm that the d that the divorce was due to the events that happened during production.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

I'm sure.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

No shit. I don't know if we had time for it, but if you want to check it out later, I got a clip of all of the uh on screen attacks.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

Although we should.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

It's like twelve minutes long, so.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Or you can watch the movie. It's honestly like.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

I feel like we should watch the movie.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

It's so fucked up that it's like, you know, not to be like a masochist, but it's just like so darkly interesting in that way that it's like very entertaining. Bad bad word choice, but it's just a fucking bad shit, insane ride. You should check it out.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Um. But yeah, 11 years onset, more than a hundred big cats, dozens of in dozens of injuries, and a finished film that plays less like a scripted movie, and more like a safari that went wildly dangerously off the rails.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Damn. That is a crazy story. I've never heard of any of that.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

It's like it's probably the most insane production I can think of outside of like the Hertzog. I don't know if you've seen that Hertzog shit, the Fitzgeraldo production. They have that documentary, The Burden of Dreams. You know, honestly, I could have done the Burden of Dreams. I could have done that movie for this too.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Is it like Safari also?

SPEAKER_00 23:32

It's no, uh a little bit. It's a jungle. Oh.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

It's like I did think about that too. It was like, do I do a jungle thing? But then I was like, eh, I feel like I gotta go safari.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

It's like just as insane in its own way, but like it's basically he's making this movie about a guy who's trying to pull like a steamboat over a mountain and like get this opera house built in the Amazon rainforest. And there's like warring tribes and like the casting crew like hate each other. Herzog like uh holds his main actor at gunpoint is the urban legend. Yeah, he threatens to leave and he pulls a gun out. Uh but yeah, that's that could be its whole own podcast episode as well.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

We should, yeah, that's a great one. I'm sure jungle will come up some sometime.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

We gotta do like a cursed productions.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Oh, that's a great idea.

Tsavo Man-Eaters

SPEAKER_01 24:25

So to kind of segue into my story, it's also going to be about some uh lions mauling people's heads. I'm going to talk about the Savo man-eating lions. The current Savo lions are found in the region of Southeast Kenya. It's often referred to as the land of giants or the true last wilderness. The area consists of the Savo East and the Savo West National Parks. The 22,810 square mile area is famous for its iconic, red-dusted elephant herds, dramatic volcanic landscapes, and the historic man-eating lined legend. The legend started back in 1898 when a railway went under construction in an effort to link Uganda with the Indian Ocean. The British colonials began building above the Savo River, creating camps that spread over eight miles of land and consisted of thousands of Indian workers. The project was overseen by John Henry Patterson, who is the lieutenant colonel commissioned by the Uganda Railway Committee in London. Almost immediately after his arrival in present-day Kenya, lion attacks began to take place on the camps and workforce. He wrote, When I landed in Mombasa, I fully expected to encounter many trials and hardships while engaged in building the railway through an inhospitable and savage territory. I anticipated engineer difficulties, perils from sunstroke and fevers, and possibly scarcity of food and water. But never for a moment did I realize that the African wilderness held in its mysterious recess two prowling demons who looked upon myself and my workmen as a sort of manna sent down from heaven for their special delication.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Dude, people are not writing like this anymore.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Honestly. That's badass. I mean, yeah, there's some, you know, not kosher shit anymore, but crazy verbiage. In it's yeah, I could never write writing a novel. Yeah. I mean, if you've got nothing else to do, I guess it might.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

I don't.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

All other difficulties were as nothing compared to the terrible toll of human sacrifice exacted nightly by these savage monsters who made the Savo their headquarters and gave to that the district an evil reputation which lasts to this day. He wrote that in his popular book, The Man Eating Lions of Savo.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Okay, so it is from a book. Yeah. Okay. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

The two mainless male lions began over the course of nine months to stalk the tents and drag men from their tents at night to devour them.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

He recalled in his personal writings that I had been only a few days in Savo when one or two workmen mysteriously disappeared. I was told that they had been carried off from their tents and devoured by lions. At the time I did not credit this story and thought much more likely that the unfortunate men were victims of foul play. They happened to be very good workmen and had saved a fair number of rupees, so I thought it was quite likely that some scoundrels from the gangs had murdered them for the sake of their money. This suspicion, however, was soon dispelled. I was aroused at dawn one morning by a man who came rushing to my tent to tell me that one of my workers, a fine, powerful Sikh, had been seized during the night and carried off by a huge lion. I immediately caught up my rifle and ran to the spot to find out if the man's story was correct, but the moment I reached the workers' camp, I found ample evidence that the gruesome tale was all too true. The lion's pug marks were plainly visible in the sand, while the furrows made by the heels of the unfortunate victim showed the direction in which he had been dragged away. Moreover, one of the workmen had actually witnessed the whole occurrence, which he quaintly and graphically described. Sabe, he said, I was awake and lying next to the worker who was asleep when the big lion put his head in the open door. My head turned to water when I saw him so near me I could not move. He looked at me first and then sing, and through the darkness and through the kindness of God he took the worker by the throat instead of your slave. The unfortunate one cried out, Let go, threw his arm up around the lion's neck, but the great beast dragged him from his bed and carried him off while I lay paralyzed with fear, listening to the terrible struggle which went on outside the tent door. The worker fought hard, but what chance did he have? Was he not fighting with a lion? After hearing this vivid account of the tragedy, I at once set out to track the brute, and in a short time came up to the spot where he had devoured the unfortunate worker. Here a dreadful spectacle presented itself. The ground was all about covered with blood, morsels of flesh, and the larger bones, but the head was left intact, save for a couple of holes made by the lion's tusks. It was the most gruesome sight I'd ever seen. It was evident from the marks all around that the two lions had been there and probably fought for possession of the body. I collected the remains as well as possible and buried them under a heap of stones. The horrified, staring eyes of the severed head seemed to watch me all the time, for I did not bury it, but I took it back to camp for identification before a medical officer. Before returning, I traced the lions for a considerable distance further along the river, but finally lost all trace of them on some hard rocky ground. This was my first experience of the man-eaters, and I vowed then and there I would spare no pains to rid the neighborhood of the brutes.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

This guy's a fucking badass.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

He's like such a poet, too, with all the words. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

What was his name again?

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Uh Patterson.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Like what's his name? Just Conrad? The Congo story?

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

I mean, this guy it it's kind of similar in the sense that he like goes on a bunch of Safaris in his life, and then he ends up becoming like a uh commander or something, or maybe a colonel or a lieutenant, I don't know. The ranking, but for World War II.

unknown 30:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

And then he like becomes a like uh anti-Holocaust, obviously as he should be, but like a super like advocate for Jewish people during World War II.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

This era of like manly man adventure writing is kind of badass, I'm not gonna lie.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Between like the Teddy Roosevelt, Hemingway, yeah, Heart of Darkness, this guy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

I saw another story when Percy Fawcett 2 where the Teddy Roosevelt was like on a safari, and I'm pretty sure it was him, but he like got charged by a herd of elephants, and so he ducked behind a termite mound. And they avoided it because it was that big and that hard to like step on that if they did it would have like pierced them. Which is crazy. There was an interval of several months when the attacks had ceased, but word then trickled in from other camp encampments nearby of similar lion attacks. When the lions ultimately returned, the attacks att intensified with almost daily killings. Crews, angered by the amount of killings, tried to scare off the lions and build camps and bombas. Pardon my French, I don't know if that's how we say it.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

When I think of bombas, I think of those those like giant margarita glasses. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Yeah, you can have a black and tan in that.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

I could go for a bomba.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

In this context, their thorn fences made out of whistling thorn trees. But the effort was no use. The lions leapt or crawled their way through the fences to get into the camps still. Patterson noticed that in the beginning their attacks would consist of one at a time, but as they became more brazen, both would tear through wrecking havoc. As the attacks mounted, hundreds of workers fled from Savo, halting construction on the bridge. At this point, colonial officials began to intervene. According to Patterson, even the district officer, Mr. Whitehead, narrowly escaped being killed by one of the lions after arriving at the Savo train depot in the evening. However, his assistant, Abdullah, was killed while Whitehead tried to escape with four claw lacerations running down his back. So his assistant took the L for him. Uh not fucked up.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

That, you know, poor one out for Abdullah. I will say, coming home with that scar.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Crazy.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

Sick. You just take your shirt off of the beach and it's good, it's like four giant.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

I'd be like, oh yeah, my assistant just, you know.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

It was mauled by a lion in Uganda. Terrible.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

Along with the obvious financial consequences of the work stoppage, Patterson faced the challenge of maintaining his authority and even his personal safety at the remote site against the increasingly hostile and superstitious workers, many of whom were convinced that the lions were in fact evil spirits, come to punish those who worked for Savo, who worked at Savo, and that he was the cause of this misfortune because the attacks had coincided with his arrival. Which they did. Eventually, other officials arrived, with a reinforcement of around 20 armed soldiers to assist the hunt. With his reputation, livelihood, and safety at stake, Patterson, an experienced tiger hunter from his military service in India, undertook an extensive effort to deal with the crisis.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

Yeah, this guy's a big game hunter, so Yeah, I'm like, how many of these tigers need to be hunted?

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

No.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

He's definitely taking this opportunity and running with it.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Yeah, it makes me wonder if these lions are really he's just coming up with a reason to go.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

Patterson set traps and tried several times to ambush the lions at night from a tree. After repeated, unsuccessful attempts, he shot the first lion on December 9th, 1898. Twenty days later, the second lion was found killed. The first lion that was killed measured nine feet eight inches from nose to tip.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Good lord.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

It took eight men to carry the carcass back to camp. Patterson wrote in his account that he wounded the first lion with a bullet uh in the leg. Patterson wrote in his account that he wounded the first lion with one bullet from a high caliber rifle. This shot struck the lion in its hind leg but it escaped. Later it returned at night and began stalking Patterson as he in turn tried to hunt it. He shot it through the shoulder, penetrating its heart with a more powerful rifle, found it laying dead next morning not far from his platform.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

Yeah, I'm always just like, are these guys like sitting around the bar just being like, Yeah, it shot him, but you know, it just glanced him, so he started hunting me back. Like what you shot this line and it specifically tracked you down to like come get his revenge?

SPEAKER_01 35:04

I know like tig stories of tigers doing that, where like they'll stock somebody for like 400 miles and find them.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Yeah, I guess I've heard that about polar bears too.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

They're uh apex predators.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

That's sick.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

The second lion was shot nine times, five with the same rifle, three with a second rifle, and once with a third rifle, six finding their mark. The first shot was fired from atop a scaffolding that Patterson had built nearby to kill the lion. Two shots from the second rifle hit the lion eleven days later as it was stalking Patterson and trying to flee. When they found the lion the next day, Patterson shot it three more times with the same rifle, severely crippling it, and shot it a third time with the third rifle, twice in the chest and one in the head, which killed it. He claimed it died nine on a fallen tree branch, still trying to reach him. Ultimately, the death toll was guessed to be around 135 workers over the span of a few months, according to Patterson.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

No way.

SPEAKER_01 36:05

But the exact number is unclear. At the end of the crisis, the Prime Minister of the UK, Lord Salisbury, addressed the House of Lords on the subject of Sabo man-eaters. He said the whole works the whole of the works were put to a stop because a pair of Manning lions appeared in the locality and conceived a most unfortunate taste for our workmen. At last the laborers are entirely declined to carry on unless they were guarded by iron entrenchments. Of course, it is difficult to work a railway under these conditions, and until we found an enthusiastic sportsman to get rid of these lines, our enterprise was seriously hindered.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

This sounds like a glory campaign for Mr. Patterson.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

You know you're just walking in the house and it's like he's got line rug in the living room. He's got a line rug in the bedroom. Oh lions everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 36:55

He did take the skins home.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Making him rugs for 25 years before selling them to the Field Museum of Natural History in 1924 for $5,000.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

Not even a donation.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

Not even a donation.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

He must have needed the cash. The Hey, five grand in 1924 was probably pretty good.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Um the lions arrived in an incredibly poor condition before they were reconstructed with their original skulls and now are on permanent display. In 2001, a review of causes for the man-eating behavior among lions revealed that the proposed human toll of a hundred or more was likely an exaggeration. And it was more likely the death toll was twenty to thirty-one victims.

SPEAKER_00 37:35

You know, the more you tell the story, the more victims you add, you know, you start attacking on. Oh, for sure. I will say, if these lions truly killed 30 people, that's kind of a lot.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

It's pretty crazy. And they kind of like uh prove it. Um the reduced total was based on the review of the original journal journal. Um, however, the same study also noted that the journal refers only to Indian workers, and that Patterson stated that the casualties were much higher in the African worker population. Um, but those numbers were not documented.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Yeah. Scientific research suggests that human c consumption can range as high as up to 75 people through the analysis of their teeth. It also proves that the two lions were brothers and they had cared for and groomed one another found by the DNA analysis.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

They can learn all that from I don't know when they did the analysis, but just from their teeth? That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

2001.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Yeah. So like more than a hundred years later.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

I'd check my teeth and be like, this guy's had a lot of four for fours.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

That's a lot of spindrift.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Mm-hmm consumption is very high. Yeah, spindrift.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

So, why did they choose to eat people? Some theories suggest an outbreak of Rinder pest in 1898, which devastated the lion's usual prey, forcing them to eat outside of their norm. That they may have been accustomed to look finding dead humans in the Savo River crossing. Slave caravans that were headed to the center of the East African slave trade in Zanzibar routinely had to cross there. Studies indicate that the lions most likely hunted the humans out of necessity because of scarcity of food or an alternative to hunting other prey due to dental disease. In 2017, a study by Bruce Patterson found that one of the lions had an infection at the root of his canine tooth, making it hard for a particular lion to hunt. They typically use their jaws with their canines to grab large prey, such as zebras, wildebeest, and suffocate them. The unbelievable story became an inspiration for many films and books. One most notably was The Ghost in the Darkness, starring Val Kilmer playing Patterson.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

Badass. I have never heard of that.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

I hadn't either.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

But I'm just like so curious. These guys would be rolling in their grave if they saw Noel Marshall doing it on purpose.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Yeah. And of course, his own personal book, The Maneaters of Savo and Other East African Adventures, by J.H. Patterson himself. Patterson went on to serve several more wars and many other safaris, shot other large game, of course, in his expeditious life. He served in World War I, becoming a big advocate for the justice of Jewish people and the stock of the Holocaust before he eventually died in 1947, passing away in his sleep in Bel Air, California.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

Whoa. How does he get to Bel Air? That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

I yeah, I I don't know. I genuinely, like, I kind of skimmed his.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Did he get into production?

SPEAKER_01 40:38

Biography a bit, but not that I'm aware of. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

He served in He died just after World War II ended.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

Did I say World War I? Um I'm gonna repeat that just in case.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Well, maybe it was World War I, right? Didn't you say this was in 19 uh or 1898 when this happened?

SPEAKER_01 40:59

Yeah.

unknown 40:59

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:00

Yeah, first world war.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

Yeah. He died after World War II, so he probably just was old.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

But he just knew about the Holocaust would be crazy. The battle between the lions and the workforce of the railway will be an unforgettable one, as one of the most intense, bizarre, and captivating stories of the Kenyan safari. The Savo Lions will be two lions that will be notorious for the chaos caused during their lifetimes and after. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

These

Outro

SPEAKER_00 41:27

you could say these lions were brothers, right?

SPEAKER_01 41:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:31

They're born to bicker.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

Uh they're born to Real Lion King.

SPEAKER_00 41:37

Born to I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

Rip each other's heads off?

SPEAKER_00 41:42

Be hungry until they had a snicker. You can cut that out. It's fucking stupid. I'm just looking for a button, man. Somewhere. I was trying to find a button. Yeah. Just button it up. I would love a sponsored us. That's awesome, and that book is now on my reading list because I think I've done my tour of the of the Manly Man uh jungle adventure books and somehow not came across the Savo the Savo boys.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

Yeah. Insane. And he just like, you know that have you seen up?

SPEAKER_00 42:24

Yeah, I've seen up.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

You know that one guy who has the blimp and he's like old and he's got like all the trophies and shit behind him. He's got like he just reminds me of this, you know?

SPEAKER_00 42:36

Yeah, there's no Pixar adaptation.

SPEAKER_01 42:39

He's like crotchy and kind of evil, but he's like also kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00 42:43

They just had a different view of killing lions back in these days.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Yeah, they were like, oh, that giant thing really killed it.

SPEAKER_00 42:51

Yeah. I mean, you know what? Out of all the big game hunts, I feel like there's a cutoff for big game. I'm like, for some reason, I'm like, ooh, that's not cool, but it was back in 1898. It was 1898, you know. That shit was cool. They weren't even thinking about that until all the tigers are gone suddenly because of people like Patterson. But I'm like, maybe maybe this one's okay. If they took out 30, 30 guys.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

Yeah, I mean, that is pretty crazy that they were like, you know, so on it. And it's it's nuts because they're like, we think it's because they had like a decrease in prey, there wasn't enough around, and then also the fact that they might have gotten the taste for human like consumption because of the slaves that got dropped in that in that area, and it's like, ooh.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

Well, I'm like, if I'm one of these brothers, I'm like, you see all those tents? Remember that guy that we had the other night? They're literally just packaged up all over this place. And they sleep all night. They're just doing nothing all night. They're laying there. Like, let's go, grab one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:57

Can you imagine like you're in your tent and then All of a sudden there's a line like in your tent with you, that'd be terrifying.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

Yeah, I've been there.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

Hopefully that's gonna be us at the end of the year.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

Uh hopefully not.

SPEAKER_01 44:12

Oh well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

Hopefully not that part.

SPEAKER_01 44:16

Um but yeah, so that's I think that's all that there is for this episode. Um, but if you guys have any crazy safari stories, like please let us know. Hopefully you're not fucking big game launchers nowadays, but otherwise, um I would love to hear about your guys' um experiences in in the safari and what you're what you've experienced, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:42

You if you've been to like a rainforest cafe recently, maybe something like that. That's getting just as rare. Yeah. Big that's the that's my big game hunt. Right. I did actually see one in Vegas.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

You gotta get the uh lava volcano cake or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

And I close my ears during the thunderstorm because it's just so scary. Don't don't do it. Don't do the sound. I'm scared.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

Um, yeah, and then if you guys want to, you should send us the stories to born to pickerpod at gmail.com. B-O-R-N-T-O-B-I-C-K E-R-P-O-D. Nice at gmail.com. Um follow us on Instagram at the same spelling, born to picker pod Born to Picker Pod.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

B2B, B2B sales.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

Uh B2B Pod. And then we're also on Spotify and um Apple Podcasts. Send to your friends and your family. Um, and we'd love to hear from you. And let us know who won this episode, who won the last episode, if you got any random other stories that you want to send in to us, we'd love to read what you guys have for us. Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

Drop us a tale or two.

SPEAKER_01 45:57

Hey. I like the pun.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

That's yeah, that's what I was gonna that's what I was going for. Oh yeah. Totally.

SPEAKER_01 46:06

Um thanks again and tune in for the next one.

SPEAKER_00 46:11

Peace.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

Bye.