If you haven’t already, meet the Honey Badger, voiced by Randall. Dubbed the “Crazy Nastyass”, this fearless creature fights all kinds of wild life in order to eat and take whatever it wants, and basically takes no shit off anyone and doesn’t give a shit about anything. In this book, he basically gives us the lowdown on other ugly, crazy, nastyass creatures that are found in the wild, some of which are endangered animals.
Pop culture idiot that I am, I first heard of the honey badger, and resultant phenomenon of Randall, when I was sitting in a bar with a friend, looking over the cocktail menu. There was one called a honey badger, no doubt full of crazy, nastyass ingredients, which I can no longer recall. She found it very amusing. I had no idea why this was so funny. She was shocked Ihadn’t heard, “Honey badger don’t care. Honey badger don’t give a shit.” Noted. I probably would not have picked up a copy of this book without having had that conversation.
Randall takes an irreverent approach (understatement of the year) in describing the beasts mentioned in his book. His view is that the average person really doesn’t want to be bored with scientific classifications and boring details of animal existence. We want the nitty-gritty. What they look like, what disgusting things they eat, how they mate and how they fight. Quite a few of the animals featured are badasses of the animal kingdom. The Tasmanian Devil is nicknamed ”Friend of Satan”, and a picture of it is captioned, “We’ll come out and play, but then we’ll have to bite your face. OK?” Yikes.
I didn’t read it all in one sitting. I found it was better, and much funnier, to approach each animal anew. If you missed all the details on the Honey Badger, not to worry, he’s the first animal profiled in the book, and then such creatures as the the Opossum, the Aye Aye, the Pink Fairy Armadillo, the Tasmanian Devil, the Emperor Tamarin, the Tarsier, the Solenodon, the Wombat, the American Bullfrog, and more. The language is vulgar (much more so than what’s in this review). The mating habits of the animals along with their anatomy, are provocatively discussed using slang and off-color humor, and the pictures are plentiful and hilariously captured. It makes a great gift for the animal lover in your life…ahem…as long as they are of a certain age. Recommended.
