An American comedy show that staged a grisly celebration of the shark killing of Auckland man Adam Strange will not be aired on New Zealand television.
The Jeselnik Offensive show, hosted by Anthony Jeselnik, featured a segment on the death of Strange and staged a “shark party” on the Comedy Central pay network.
The company that brings the show to New Zealand, Viacom International Media Networks Australia & New Zealand, released a statement today saying the segment had been pulled.
Vice-president and general manager Rebecca Batties said the reaction from New Zealanders had been “a strong one”.
“We regret any offence caused, particularly to the Strange family and the Muriwai community,” she said.
“We take our responsibility as a programmer as well as the feedback we receive from our viewers very seriously.
“To that end, we have removed access to the segment on ComedyCentral.com for New Zealand and Australian audiences, and it has not and will not air in New Zealand.”
This week, Muriwai Volunteer Lifeguard Service chairman Tim Jago said members had initially hoped the video would disappear unnoticed.
“It is absolutely disgusting and abhorrent,” he said.
“We had hoped that if nothing was said about it it would simply disappear without ever seeing the light of day.”
But it had been found and was attracting heavy media interest, he said. “There is no humour at all in it.”
Jago said that if the item had been trying to make a point about exploitation of sharks, picking on Strange was the wrong way to go.
“Mr Strange and family and friends are all sea people; they know about sharks and their place in the ocean. They would never have exploited sharks,” he said.
During the segment, Jeselnik, 34, noted that a great white shark had attacked a man in New Zealand.
“Was he killed” he said to his laughing audience. “You bet your sweet a… he was killed, and he had a family and everything.”
He then launched into a music and dance sequence featuring leggy women in shark suits.
Jeselnik said sharks usually ate seals and did not like human flesh. “That is why tonight is so special.”
More sharks were killed by people, he said, and added that when “a shark kills a man you’ve got to give thanks”.
With a picture of Strange on the screen, Jeselnik said: “Let’s not forget the man who made this all possible – smile you son of a bitch.”
The poster was expanded to show that this year sharks had killed one person, while people had killed 17 million sharks.
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The dance sequence continued with some seeming eroticism between Jeselnik and a shark woman, and a bleeding surfer.
Jeselnik then moved on to an item about President Barack Obama being gay before dealing with porn in the car and elderly people.
