spinofflive
Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

Pop CultureJanuary 30, 2022

Ranked: All the hornbag energy from the animals in The Mating Game

Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

She’s just a girl insect, standing in front of a boy insect, asking them to shag her.

We are all animals floating on the great ark of life, but some of us have more two-pronged penises than others. Welcome to The Mating Game, TVNZ 1’s new nature series that captures the extraordinary lengths the world’s animals will go to to get lucky. Sir David Attenborough talks us through all the creature sex, reminding us that the end goal of the mating game is to create a new generation. This is the circle of life, friends, and you can keep your smutty jokes to yourselves.

Just kidding. If you want smut, then The Mating Game is one hour of prime time television filled with animals rooting in a variety of fascinating, often enlightening ways. Perhaps you’re taking notes. There’s no judgment here, for we could all learn a thing or two from the argus pheasant, who makes the effort to tidy up before he tries his luck with his lady friend. It’s the little things that make a difference.

The Mating Game confirms that every animal is a hornbag, even the ones at the bottom of the ocean. Let’s take a closer look at some of the show’s more memorable shagging strategies, ranked in order of hornbaggery. Yes, it’s a word, Attenborough said so.

10) Zebra

Here for the right reasons (Photo: TVNZ)

If the male zebra was human, he would be on Married At First Sight. He’s toxic masculinity in stripe form, a territorial beefcake who uses those strong teeth and full lips to bite the arses of rival males, and not in a good way. Someone call John Aiken, I’ve got 20 lady zebras ready to write “leave” on their stripey parchment.

9) Topi 

On topi the world (Photo: TVNZ)

The female topi is fertile for one day each year, and the lads really make the most of it. One male topi was so distracted by all the sex that he forgot to eat and drink. Exhausted, he was eaten by cheetahs. Let that be a lesson to us all.

8) Chameleon

The look of love (Photo: TVNZ)

It’s hard to believe this quirky loner struggles to pull, but since he only comes down from the trees when he’s feeling fruity, it’s tricky to find a mate. A charming dance in front of one potential sweetheart resulted in nothing but an early night and a lonely bed. Better luck next time, horn boy.

7) Kangaroo

Mood (Photo: TVNZ)

The biggest kangaroo wins the girl, which is why kanga males spend their lives fighting each other like Hugh Grant and Colin Firth in that scene from Bridget Jones’ Diary. Luckily it’s up to the female kangaroo to decide when she’s ready to bang, while the other kangaroos watch and wait. Awkward.

6) Flatworm

Oh, behave (Photo: TVNZ)

This old charmer woos its lover with three words: two pronged penis. The joke’s on them, because every one of this flatworm species has a two pronged penis. Oh, how they must laugh afterwards.

5) Nursery web spider

I’ve had a lovely time, thank you (Photo: TVNZ)

An absolute slag and cunning as hell, the male nursery web spider is so desperate for a root that he tricks his spidey girlfriend with the gift of a half eaten fly. “Both sides seem content. She gets a meal, he gets to mate,” Attenborough says. Circle of life, right there.

4) African termite

Queen (Photo: TVNZ)

Nothing but admiration for the African termite queen, who makes one egg every three seconds. Her partner’s only job is to mate with her, she has huge ovaries and a quarter of a billion offspring, but does she complain? No. She squeezed out 10 more eggs in the time it took you to read this, and if she had the energy, she’d probably live laugh love until her ovaries exploded.

3) Bowerbird

Loves a good stick (Photo: TVNZ)

Like Romeo said to Juliet: show me a hornbag and I will show you my impressive tower of sticks. The bowerbird has big stick energy, spending his days stacking twigs and his nights wooing the ladies with his hilarious impressions of other birds. He’s laughing the chicks into bed, and why not? Bird foreplay never gets old.

2) Seahorse

Giddy up (Photo: TVNZ)

These ocean equines aren’t looking for meaningless rumpy-pumpy on the seafloor. They want a partner who takes the time to get to know them, someone who enjoys watersports and long walks along the beach while they discuss the latest episode of Succession. Only when they’re both ready will the female seahorse insert 300 eggs into her boyfriend’s belly, because this is what romance looks like in 2022.

1) False garden mantis

Send my love to your new lover (Photo: TVNZ)

Some might think chewing off your lover’s head during sex is a bit drastic, but to them, we say “bon appetit, fuckers”. This insect proves there’s never a bad time for a snack, and like many busy mums, the female mantis is an expert multi-tasker. Does Mr Mantis give a shit about his noggin being nibbled off mid-coitus? Not a jot. “His abdomen will continue mating with her for several hours before all signs of life disappear,” Attenborough tells us, and thus, the bar is set. Chef’s kiss, Mother Nature.

The Mating Game screens on TVNZ 1 on Sunday nights and on TVNZ OnDemand.


Follow The Real Pod on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast provider.

Keep going!
How you respond to this group of people says everything about you.
How you respond to this group of people says everything about you.

Pop CultureJanuary 28, 2022

Below Deck: Mediterranean is the best reality show on the seven seas

How you respond to this group of people says everything about you.
How you respond to this group of people says everything about you.

While we wait for the local reality machine to kick in into gear in 2022, Alex Casey makes an impassioned plea that you all watch Below Deck: Mediterranean. 

After watching Below Deck: Mediterranean in its entirety, I became a different person. I walked around the house demanding in a shonky South African accent that the chief stew (my partner) commences dinner service (kibbles) for the primary guest (the cat). The car became the tender, the kitchen became the galley, and I considered buying a red polo shirt and a black skort not once, not twice, but three times. I became a Below Deck Med Head and I’m bloody proud of it. 

Now, as we twiddle our thumbs and wait for the likes of Celebrity Treasure Island, Drag Race Down Under, Mystery Love Island Adjacent show and all the other reality delights we’ve been promised to arrive on our screens this year, I implore you to get onboard with Below Deck: Mediterranean. Following the exhausted, cranky crew who work on horrible super yacht charters for the filthy rich, it is the perfect rat king of reality television elements that delivers something for absolutely everyone. 

Because nobody asked and I’m sick of writing this out on toilet walls, here is my thesis. 

Below Deck: Mediterranean is Love Island

Romance is a Below Deck cornerstone, as each season the brand new crew members from around the world couple up, couple swap and uncouple at a rate of knots that would make Captain Sandy haul anchor. Whether it is Hannah “getting a text” on the giant communal iPad from a flirtatious guest in season two, or the love triangle of Malia, Wes and Adam on the very same charter, fans of Love Island will froth Below Deck: Mediterranean harder than the jacuzzi jets on a crew day off. 

Tfw someone reads your texts on the iPad

Below Deck: Mediterranean is Too Hot To Handle

In Too Hot To Handle, a sentient yet prudish air freshener punishes hotties for hooking up by taking money off them. In Below Deck, the same tension exists without any of the ridiculously contrived dystopian premise. The more that the crew pash, the more distracted they are at work, and the less money they get in their tip envelope at the end of the charter. No air freshener required.

Below Deck: Mediterranean is Masterchef

If you like kitchen nightmares and succulent seafaring meals, Below Deck: Mediterranean has that too. Every season a single chef with weird tattoos and a death wish gets thrown into the purest of hells, faced with supply issues, demanding guests who want a bowl of white gumballs in the middle of the sea, crappy kitchens, endless dietary restrictions and, in the case of Mila in season five, only a recipe for oven tray nachos in their arsenal. 

Below Deck: Mediterranean is The Masked Singer

Whether it is Roy Orbison (Jr), baseball legend Johnny Damon, or Mr Skin, who I genuinely thought was made up for a gag in Knocked Up, the D-list celebrity guests that brave the Below Deck: Mediterranean gangway will have you humming “who is it, who is it, who is it underneath the mast”. 

Below Deck: Mediterranean is The Apprentice

If you watch it in chronological order, Below Deck: Mediterranean follows the journey of certain crew members as they forcefully ascend through the strict boat hierarchy, gaining new positions and stripes on their epaulettes in a system that is not dissimilar to shows like The Apprentice and Undercover Boss. Every episode is packed with what is essentially employment drama – who will Hannah appoint as second stew? Which deckhand will Captain Sandy let drive the boat out of the port? And who will hear “you’re fired” over a weed pen in a handbag? I’ll never tell. 

Below Deck: Mediterranean is Piha Rescue

What’s cool about being rich as hell in international waters is that, even if you are ratarse drunk, the only thing standing between you and your jet ski dreams is a wee man named Colin in a red polo shirt. The amount of treacherous rescues on Below Deck: Mediterranean rivals the most dramatic moments in Piha Rescue, whether it is drunk deckhands slipping off the lazarette or guests having heart murmurs on an inflatable banana. BYO life jacket. 

Angry rich guests fight on Below Deck: Mediterranean

Below Deck is The Real Housewives of Everywhere

The dinner service on Below Deck: Mediterranean is a show within a show, as the audience takes the side of the bemused, exhausted interior crew watching rich idiots slur nonsense at each other from behind crappy Look Sharp Venetian masks. And when they really get into it (it being the wine), the drama rivals any good Real Housewives food fight. 

Below Deck is Man vs Wild

And while all of this drama is happening onboard, it is easy to forget that they are all in the middle of the fucking Mediterranean sea, which any seafarer will tell you is some of the most tumultuous water in all of the… sea. In a matter of minutes, the weather can change from sun-soaked bliss to black clouds and lightening bolts. It is rare that a charter goes by without nearby boats sinking, jellyfish stinging up a storm or anchors getting tangled overnight like necklaces in the bottom of a jewellery box. Outdoors with Geoff could never. 

Below Deck Mediterranean is available to watch here on Netflix

But wait there's more!