During a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, host Joe Rogan had a moment of comic realization while talking with documentary filmmaker Eric Goode and director Jeremy McBride about their new HBO series “Monsters of God,” a five-part look at the exotic reptile trade. Right at the top of the conversation, a connection formed that neither guest seemed fully prepared to own.
Rogan set the stage quickly, noting that the show “may or may not be responsible for Florida having 500,000 pythons.” Goode laughed along before offering what he called the “more reasonable” theory behind the infestation: irresponsible pet owners releasing their animals once they got too large to manage.
“People buy them when they’re this big,” Goode said, “and then when they’re 15 feet they let them go cuz what do you do?”
That is when Rogan turned the question directly back at his guest. “Is that what you did?”
Goode admitted he had kept a Burmese python as a teenager in the 1970s, even describing a photo of it draped around his neck. But when pressed on what ultimately became of the snake, his answer raised more questions than it answered.
“I have no idea what happened to it to be honest,” Goode said. “I think when I went to college briefly I gave it to someone and then I don’t know what happened to. But I gave my whole managerie away to people when I went to college. I had reptiles in my room.”
Rogan seized on the gap immediately, pointing out that handing off a large constrictor carries a different weight of responsibility than, say, rehoming a small dog.
“Is there an extra level of responsibility when you’re giving away monsters?” he asked. “If you have a Chihuahua and your friend’s like I’ll take her, I love her, you don’t really have to worry. You have a python. You’re giving away a python.”
Goode acknowledged the point but stopped short of any outright confession, and the exchange ended with laughter rather than a formal indictment. Still, the irony was not lost on anyone in the room.
Here was a man helping produce a documentary series exploring how the exotic pet trade reshaped Florida’s entire ecosystem, sitting across from Joe Rogan, casually admitting he had once given away a 15-foot Burmese python to an unknown recipient in an era with virtually no oversight.
Florida now contends with one of the largest invasive reptile populations in the world, with Burmese pythons having spread through the Everglades and surrounding regions over the past several decades.
Scientists point to a combination of pet releases and other factors, though no single cause has been confirmed. Whether or not Eric Goode’s teenage python played any part remains, as he might say, debatable.
