'Grizzly Man Diaries' - Timothy Treadwell's Final 48 Hours Airs Friday

Did you ever see Werner Herzog’s amazing documentary, “Grizzly Man”? (if not, run don’t walk) Well, the final episode of “The Grizzly Man Diaries” the sort-of prequel to the remarkable Herzog documentary airs on Animal Planet this Friday at 9 p.m. EST in the U.S. The series showcase tons of unused footage of the delusional fruitcake Timothy Treadwell, the bear-o-cologist/ wilderness “expert” who dropped out of society to hang out with grizzly bears only to be eaten by the hands of one when his fey, whiny voice ultimately became too unbearable. 😉 This final episode documents the final 48 hours of his life before he became Grizzly bear brunch. Goddamit, we wish we had Tivo, we don’t watch much TV, but love us some Animal Chanimal [ed. can I get a ‘whatwhat’ for Meerkat Manor? That show is the jam].

A new, skinny, older bear arrives on the scene. Timothy Treadwell calls the new bear “Oly,” a nickname for Big Old Bear. Timothy theorizes that Oly is probably in trouble underfed and confused in his new surroundings. His theory is bolstered by the fact that both Cracker and Downey refuse to share the creek with Oly and even challenge him to a fight. Timothy startles a bear on one of the bear trails. It’s Oly. The encounter is unnerving for both bear and man, but passes without further incident. That night Timothy records in his journal that his sleep was disturbed by a terrible nightmare of being eaten alive by a bear. This is Timothy’s last diary entry

APlanet has parts of Treadwell’s unseen written journal online, as well as, some never before seen video (god, he’s such a fey cheeseball, but it’s hard to not watch him). Note there’s a lot of twisted takes on YouTube of Timonthy Treadwell’s “last moments,” which are just gags, but this clips purports to be the real thing and it’s so vague it could be easily be fake or real (of course it’s only audio, as that’s all their ever was).

Here’s a 10-minute edit of “Grizzly Man.” The film is a must see [ed. did you know that Chicago avante garde musician Jim O’Rourke and heralded British folky Richard Thompson (of Richard and Linda Thompson and Fairport Convention) contributed music to the score? Thompson wrote most of the music]