Carole Baskin Is Starring In *Another* Upcoming TV Show
The incredible popularity of Tiger King has created an entire cottage industry of spinoff projects. There's one docudrama at NBC/Universal starring Kate McKinnon as Carole Baskin, and a competing one at Amazon starring Nic Cage as Joe Exotic. Netflix reportedly has a second season in the works, and there's rumors of a Ryan Murphy drama series as well. ID has a separate docu-series. Plus, Carole Baskin has gone on Dancing With The Stars, and now she's getting another series of her own. According to Variety, Carole Baskin is starring in a show about animal cruelty, coming from ThinkFactory Media.
Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness was, first and foremost, a show about Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage, aka Joe Exotic. The project initially started as a story about the eccentric Exotic and his Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park. The idea was to explore his nontraditional relationship and document his 2016 run for President of the United States and 2018 run for Governor of Oklahoma. It only expanded to focus on Carole Baskin when the story of their rivalry took a bitter turn.
Baskin, the CEO of Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Florida, presents herself as an animal rights activist who had deep concerns about how the tigers at Greater Wynnewood were being treated. Exotic countered that she's just a rival who is threatened by his success and her complaints are just a ploy to remove the competition. The fact is, neither zookeeper comes off very well in the documentary. Baskin has been very vocal about how unhappy she was with how the show edited her for public consumption.
Now Baskin seems to be angling to reintroduce herself to the public, first with a turn on DWTS, and then with a new ThinkFactory series. According to Variety, Baskin and her husband Howard will star in the new unscripted series, "exposing those who engage in animal cruelty."
The Baskins released a joint statement along with the announcement:
This is a chance for us to use our new platform to battle the everyday evils facing big cats and so many other animals. Working with Thinkfactory on this show will help us further our life's mission, while bringing important stories and information to 'cool cats and kittens' across the country.
Despite the statement, ThinkFactory Media is an odd choice of partner. The company produces WE tv's Mama June: From Not to Hot and TLC's Strange Love, aka series not known for flattering portrayals of their subjects. Considering Baskin's distress at how she was portrayed on Tiger King, it will be interesting to see how she's presented this time around.
The series does not as yet have a title or network associated with it, but it probably won't be long before it's picked up on a network or streamer.
