History YMMV / CrocodileHunter

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: The show is far more popular outside of Australia than inside. Part of it is the CulturalCringe discussed below, and the other part is... well, it just isn't as impressive for people who actually ''[[WorldOfBadass live]]'' in Australia.

* CrazyAwesome: Let's see... gleefully jumping on large predators, grabbing venomous snakes by the tail... admit it. This guy was nuts, and we all enjoyed watching the man perform.

* AlasPoorScrappy: Irwin was [[NeverAcceptedInHisHometown hated by some in his home country]] thanks to being the living embodiment of every negative Australian stereotype out there. Come his death, absolutely no one [[NeverSpeakIllOfTheDead bashes him anymore]]. Quite a few Australians went on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against stingrays at large when it happened, a fact that a good portion of everyone involved [[WhatTheHellHero actively called them out on]].

* NeverAcceptedInHisHometown: Irwin himself was this among a substantial portion of the Australian population for a time - not because he was a bad man in any way, but because of his embodiment of Australian stereotypes as a performer popular overseas, giving the impression that all Australians are that reckless in the face of obvious dangers. [[NeverSpeakIllOfTheDead This pretty much completely evaporated with his death, though]].
** There's also a degree of this feeling towards him in conservationist circles, since a lot of untrained folks often try to replicate some of the stuff they saw him do on TV, managing to severely hurt themselves or the animals.

** In 2000, Steve Irwin appeared in a commercial for [=FedEx=], in which he's bitten by a snake and says the antidote is being shipped via [=FedEx=] because in this business "if you're not absolutely sure, you're absolutely dead" and is then told antidote has been sent by a different courier and falls over dead. Six years later...

* BadassDecay: [[JustifiedTrope Following Steve's death, the Irwins' television work has understandably become far tamer, not the least because the man's kids are now driving most of it.]] As of the late 2018 premiere of ''Crikey! It's the Irwins'', Bindi was only just this side of adulthood and has grown more interested in the research side of the house, despite capturing her first croc at age ''five'' (albeit a "harmless" baby freshie). As a result of new regulations brought about by the "Baby Bob" incident, where Steve brought the infant Robert in with him for a croc feeding, Robert couldn't start getting down and dirty with the crocs quite as young as Bindi or Steve did. There's been almost no focus on the Australia Zoo's animal rescue activities, which is where most of the craziness came from. Even the interactions with crocodiles have mellowed out, and are now more methodical than the frenetic pace at which Steve's croc captures went. For instance, when trapping crocodiles for research nowadays, they no longer use the counterbalanced net traps that Steve favored and instead exclusively use soft-sided crate-style traps that don't get tangled in the croc's jaws (which happened constantly), and the ropes used to hold the jaws closed are secured in a way that doesn't require the use of a knife to remove them. There is a chance, however, that the action level might ramp up as Robert gets older.

** Similarly, his sketch in the ''Dr. Dolittle 2'' movie, where a croc, off-screen, bites his arm off.

* CrazyAwesome: Let's see... gleefully jumping on large predators, grabbing poisonous snakes by the tail... admit it. This guy was nuts, and we all enjoyed watching the man perform.

* AlasPoorScrappy: Irwin was [[AmericansHateTingle hated by some in his home country]] thanks to being the living embodiment of every negative Australian stereotype out there. Come his death, absolutely no one [[NeverSpeakIllOfTheDead bashes him anymore]]. Quite a few Australians went on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against stingrays at large when it happened, a fact that a good portion of everyone involved [[WhatTheHellHero actively called them out on]].
* AmericansHateTingle: Irwin himself was this among a substantial portion of the Australian population for a time - not because he was a bad man in any way, but because of his embodiment of Australian stereotypes as a performer popular overseas, giving the impression that all Australians are that reckless in the face of obvious dangers. [[NeverSpeakIllOfTheDead This pretty much completely evaporated with his death, though]].
** There's also a degree of this feeling towards him in conservationist circles, since a lot of untrained folks often try to replicate some of the stuff they saw him do on TV, managing to severely hurt themselves or the animals.

* AlasPoorScrappy: Irwin was [[AmericansHateTingle hated in his home country]] thanks to being the living embodiment of every negative Australian stereotype out there. Come his death, absolutely no one [[NeverSpeakIllOfTheDead bashes him anymore]]. Quite a few Australians went on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against stingrays at large when it happened, a fact that a good portion of everyone involved [[WhatTheHellHero actively called them out on]].

* BadassDecay: [[JustifiedTrope Following Steve's death, the Irwins' television work has understandably become far tamer, not the least because the man's kids are now driving most of it.]] As of the late 2018 premiere of ''Crikey! It's the Irwins'', Bindi was only just this side of adulthood and has grown more interested in the research side of the house, despite capturing her first croc at age ''five'' (albeit a "harmless" baby freshie). As a result of new regulations brought about by the "Baby Bob" incident, where Steve brought the infant Robert in with him for a croc feeding, Robert couldn't start getting down and dirty with the crocs quite as young as Bindi or Steve did. There's been almost no focus on the Australia Zoo's animal rescue activities, which is where most of the craziness came from. Even the interactions with crocodiles have mellowed out, and are now more methodical than the frenetic pace at which Steve's croc captures went. For instance, when trapping crocodiles for research nowadays, they no longer use the counterbalanced net traps that Steve favored and instead exclusively use soft-sided crate-style traps that don't get tangled in the croc's jaws, and the ropes used to hold the jaws closed are secured in a way that doesn't require the use of a knife to remove them. There is a chance, however, that the action level might ramp up as Robert gets older.

** Basically any joke or comedic segment about Steve getting dismembered or even dying is going feel terribly wrong nowadays. All of these run in the face of some very sad conversations he'd had with Terri in private, relayed in ''Steve and Me'', about whether she'd still love him if he was dismembered or disfigured in the course of his work, followed by Terri gently reassuring him that [[TemptingFate nothing would happen]].

* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments
** Steve playing with a village's domesticated mongoose in "Island of Snakes". [[CutenessProximity He just cannot stop cooing over the thing.]]
** In ''The Crocodile Hunter'' episode "Faces in the Forest", Steve has not one, but two very sweet encounters with female orangutans, a mother with a juvenile, and an expectant mother. The orangutan sanctuary staff warned Steve that the mother with the child strongly disliked people and to not even attempt approaching her. He ignored this and climbed into her tree to say hi to which the mother responded by... nestling herself next to him and showing him her very wiggly child. The pregnant orangutan let her touch her belly and feel her unborn baby move, which unfortunately ends up crossing over into a TearJerker. He attributed the good encounters to him being a new parent himself at the time.
** Meta: [[https://www.reddit.com/r/wholesomememes/comments/853v2i/we_never_deserved_steve/ A Tumblr thread]] speculating about whether animals, especially crocodiles, go to heaven ends up on the subject of Steve showering them all with affection, including the stingray that took his life.
---> '''Commenter 1:''' "Steve would probably pat it and say 'Sorry I spooked you mate, gosh your a beauty! You must have grown three times since I last saw you!'"
---> '''Commenter 2, in response to Commenter 1:''' [[TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth "We never deserved Steve Irwin"]]
** In a more meta-sense, the sheer number of people who cite Irwin as a childhood inspiration for a love of animals and zoology deserves a mention. As one popular post put it, Steve encouraged kindness towards animals in the same way that Mr. Rogers encouraged kindness towards your fellow man.

* TearJerker:
** Not only Steve's death, but finally after nearly 8 years, we hear [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeydzMjP4Oo the truth of circumstances surrounding Steve's death]] from a cameraman who was with him at the time.
** Steve's last words, according to the crew was that the stingray ''[[FriendToAllLivingThings didn't mean to hurt him]]''.
** Everyone who watched Steve's film work knows about Sui, the Irwin family's beloved Staffordshire bull terrier, but before Sui, Steve met Chili when he was living in the bush, and Chili was his first croc-hunting dog. Steve talked about Chili a bit in the special "The Steve Irwin Story", and you can see him start to cry when he gets to how she died- a hunting accident, caused by a local who tried to shoot the pig she'd caught for Steve to bait his next crocodile trap with. The loss devastated young Steve, and his father came out to the bush to comfort him, dismantle the croc traps, and help give Chili a burial.
---> '''Steve, looking at Chili's grave:''' "I'll never forget you, Chili Dog... one day we'll hunt together again..."
** In ''The Crocodile Hunter'' episode "Faces in the Forest", Steve has a sweet encounter with an orangutan pregnant with her first baby, where she lets him feel her unborn, nearly full-term child move in her belly. The tears don't hit until later in the episode, when the mother-to-be is found dead. The fact that her death was ruled to be of natural causes (an infection, or pregnancy complications) as opposed to a rogue poacher in the sanctuary or something only lessens the blow a ''tiny'' bit.

* BadassDecay: [[JustifiedTrope Following Steve's death, the Irwins' television work has understandably become far tamer, not the least because the man's kids are now driving most of it.]] As of the late 2018 premiere of ''Crikey! It's the Irwins'', Bindi was only just this side of adulthood and has grown more interested in the research side of the house, despite capturing her first croc at age ''five'' (albeit a "harmless" baby freshie). As a result of new regulations brought about by the "Baby Bob" incident, where Steve brought the infant Robert in with him for a croc feeding, Robert couldn't start getting down and dirty with the crocs quite as young as Bindi or Steve did. There's been almost no focus on the Australia Zoo's animal rescue activities, which is where most of the craziness came from. Even the interactions with crocodiles have mellowed out, and are now more methodical than the frenetic pace at which Steve's croc captures went. For instance, when trapping crocodiles for research nowadays, they no longer use the counterbalanced net traps that Steve favored and instead exclusively use soft-sided crate-style traps that are easier to free the croc from, and the ropes used to hold the jaws closed are secured in a way that doesn't require the use of a knife to remove them. There is a chance, however, that the action level might ramp up as Robert gets older.

** In ''The Crocodile Hunter'' episode "Faces in the Forest", Steve has a sweet encounter with an orangutan pregnant with her first baby, where she lets him feel her unborn, nearly full-term child move in her belly. The tears don't hit until later in the episode, when the mother-to-be is found dead. The fact that her cause of death was ruled to be natural causes only lessens the blow a ''tiny'' bit.

* BadassDecay: [[JustifiedTrope Following Steve's death, the Irwins' television work has understandably become far tamer, not the least because the man's kids are now driving most of it.]] As of the late 2018 premiere of ''Crikey! It's the Irwins'', Bindi was only just this side of adulthood and has grown more interested in the research side of the house, despite capturing her first croc at age ''five'' (albeit a "harmless" baby freshie). As a result of new regulations brought about by the "Baby Bob" incident, where Steve brought the infant Robert in with him for a croc feeding, Robert couldn't start getting down and dirty with the crocs quite as young as Bindi or Steve did. There's been almost no focus on the Australia Zoo's animal rescue activities, which is where most of the craziness came from. Even the interactions with crocodiles have mellowed out, and are now more methodical than the frenetic pace at which Steve's croc captures went. For instance, when trapping crocodiles for research nowadays, they no longer use the counterbalanced net traps that Steve favored and instead exclusively use soft-sided crate-style traps that are easier to free the croc from, and the ropes used to hold the jaws closed are secured in a way that doesn't require the use of a knife to remove them.

* BadassDecay: [[JustifiedTrope Following Steve's death, the Irwins' television work has understandably become far tamer, not the least because the man's kids are now driving most of it.]] As of the late 2018 premiere of ''Crikey! It's the Irwins'', 20-year-old Bindi has grown more interested in the research side of the house, despite capturing her first croc at age ''five'' (albeit a baby "harmless" freshie), and as a result of new regulations brought about by the "Baby Bob" incident, where Steve brought the infant Robert in with him for a croc feeding, Robert couldn't start getting down and dirty with the crocs quite as young as Bindi or Steve did. There's been almost no focus on the Australia Zoo's animal rescue activities, which is where most of the craziness came from. Even the interactions with crocodiles have mellowed out, and are now more methodical than the frenetic pace at which Steve's croc captures went. For instance, when trapping crocodiles for research nowadays, they no longer use the counterbalanced net traps that Steve favored and instead exclusively use soft-sided crate-style traps that are easier to free the croc from, and the ropes used to hold the jaws closed are secured in a way that doesn't require the use of a knife to remove them.

* BadassDecay: [[JustifiedTrope Following Steve's death, the Irwins' television work has understandably become far tamer, not the least because the man's kids are now driving most of it.]] As of the late 2018 premiere of ''Crikey! It's the Irwins'', 20-year-old Bindi has grown more interested in the research side of the house, despite capturing her first croc at age ''five'', and as a result of new regulations brought about by the "Baby Bob" incident, where Steve brought the infant Robert in with him for a croc feeding, Robert couldn't start getting down and dirty with the crocs quite as young as Bindi or Steve did. There's been almost no focus on the Australia Zoo's animal rescue activities, which is where most of the craziness came from. Even the interactions with crocodiles have mellowed out, and are now more methodical than the frenetic pace at which Steve's croc captures went. For instance, when trapping crocodiles for research nowadays, they no longer use the counterbalanced net traps that Steve favored and instead exclusively use soft-sided crate-style traps that are easier to free the croc from, and the ropes used to hold the jaws closed are secured in a way that doesn't require the use of a knife to remove them.

* BadassDecay: [[JustifiedTrope Following Steve's death, the Irwins' television work has understandably become far tamer, not the least because the man's kids are now driving most of it.]] Bindi, who only recently came of age, has grown more interested in the research side of the house, and as a result of new regulations brought about by the "Baby Bob" incident, where Steve brought the infant Robert in with him for a croc feeding, Robert couldn't start working with the crocs quite as young as Bindi or Steve did. There's been almost no focus on the Australia Zoo's animal rescue activities, which is where most of the craziness came from. Even the interactions with crocodiles have mellowed out, and are now more methodical than the frenetic pace at which Steve's croc captures went. For instance, when trapping crocodiles for research nowadays, they no longer use the counterbalanced net traps that Steve favored and instead exclusively use soft-sided crate-style traps that are easier to free the croc from, and the ropes used to hold the jaws closed are secured in a way that doesn't require the use of a knife to remove them.

* BadassDecay: Following Steve's death, the Irwins' television work has understandably become far tamer, not the least because the man's kids are now driving most of it. Bindi, who only recently came of age, has grown more interested in the research side of the house, and as a result of new regulations brought about by the "Baby Bob" incident, where Steve brought the infant Robert in with him for a croc feeding, Robert couldn't start working with the crocs quite as young as Bindi or Steve did. There's been almost no focus on the Australia Zoo's animal rescue activities, which is where most of the craziness came from. Even the interactions with crocodiles have mellowed out, and are now more methodical than the frenetic pace at which Steve's croc captures went. For instance, when trapping crocodiles for research nowadays, they no longer use the counterbalanced net traps that Steve favored and instead exclusively use soft-sided crate-style traps that are easier to free the croc from, and the ropes used to hold the jaws closed are secured in a way that doesn't require the use of a knife to remove them.

** Basically any joke or comedic segment about Steve getting dismembered or even dying is going feel terribly wrong nowadays. All of these run in the face of some very sad conversations he'd had with Terri in private, relayed in ''Steve and Me'', about whether she'd still love him if he was dismembered or disfigured in the course of his work, followed by Terri gently reassuring him that nothing would happen.

** Steve used to say in several ''Crocodile Hunter'' specials and talk-show interviews that if he were to ever be killed or eaten by wildlife, he wanted the cameras to keep rolling, joking about squeaking out a last "Crikey!" as a hypothetical monster crocodile swallows him whole. A small film crew was with Steve when he had his accident with the stingray, and according to his wishes, they filmed it. Terri was given the only copy of the footage after a handful of crew watched it, and she immediately had it destroyed.