IT HAPPENED AGAIN LAST NIGHT. I don’t know who made this decision–and I can’t decide if it’s an excellent decision or a terrible one–but someone at OBP/PBS has decided to air a documentary called Ferrets: The Pursuit of Excellence. I’ve caught snippets of it for a while now, but never the whole thing; somehow I only run into this documentary when it’s either extremely late at night or when I’m nursing a hangover. But I get really excited whenever I stumble upon it, as I did last night/this morning, because Ferrets: The Pursuit of Excellence is quite possibly the most fucked up thing I’ve ever seen.
Obviously, it’s less about the actual ferrets and more about ferret-obsessed people, every single one of whom is relentlessly, utterly depressing.
Ferrets is just one in a series of four documentaries by Mark Lewis about “the ambition, the determination and the passion of those who pursue distinction in unconventional fields,” according to PBS, but I can’t imagine any of Lewis’ other documentaries even hold a candle to this terrifying, amazing film about ferret people. Every time Ferrets is on, I find it impossible to turn it off–whether you’re watching these people win ribbons at ferret shows or watching them gleefully slide their ferrets across their kitchens’ linoleum floors, the whole thing’s just riveting and creepy and sad and hilarious and bizarre.
Anyway, after last night I decided I was going to buy Ferrets: The Pursuit of Excellence on DVD so I could finally watch the whole thing, but it turns out it’s on a few more times in the next few days. Unfortunately, it looks like OPB’s trend of only showing this batshit craziness in batshit crazy time slots looks to continue: It next airs tomorrow morning (Thursday, August 28) at 4 a.m. on OPB’s Channel 10, and again on Sunday, August 31, at 9 am on OPB’s Channel 10.1.
I have entered these times in my iCal. I wholeheartedly recommend that you do the same.
Glad to know I’m not the only one who’s been horrified/titillated by watching this.
I have 4 ferrets. They have their own room in our house. By many people’s standards, I’m crazy.
But THIS disgusts me. Most of the examples of housing shown in this documentary were beyond abusive and neglectful, either by too little room or or sparse cages.
And the singing stroke-victim-looking woman – seriously, could you represent ferret lovers any worse?
Are you glad to see me or is that a ferret in your pants?
I have three ferrets myself. I watched this show and I had to turn away from from the TV a few times because I couldn’t believe my eyes. They could easily do a similar show about dog or cat obsessed people. I had to ask my freinds repeatedly if this was for real. Good for a laugh though. FERRETS ROCK!
I know the people in this documentary – one of them is my roommate, a highly-respected veterinarian in the ferret community. The “singing stroke-victim-looking woman” is a well-known ferret shelter operator who had been being interviewed for nearly 6 hours. The people who were interviewed at length were also somewhat appalled at the choices made when the film was cut — the producers seemed to be going out of their way to make everyone look crazy/obsessed. These are some of the nicest people you will ever meet, and they all love and take superb care of their animals.