Snakes on Film

You wouldn’t normally see a Burmese Python (Python molurus bivittatus), albino or otherwise, in an exhibit otherwise filled with African animals, coming-to-life-due-to-an-Egyptian-artifact or otherwise. Last I checked, Burma (Myanmar, whatever) wasn’t in Africa. What you want is an African Rock Python (Python sebae), which, as far as I know, doesn’t come in albino. Mind you, African Rock Pythons are pretty unpleasant snakes (certainly compared to the more placid Burmese), so maybe you don’t want one of them.

Cartoons with anthropomorphic animal characters are a special case here on Snakes on Film: when you’re dealing with a movie full of intelligent talking animals, you can hardly quibble about snakes with blinking eyes, eyebrows and eyelashes — even flowers in their hair on their head — and that can hear other characters and talk back to them. Pointing out that snakes are deaf and don’t have eyelids is kind of beside the point. Pandas can’t talk either, you know.

But I do have one bone to pick about the highly enjoyable Kung Fu Panda: if one of your kung fu masters is a viper, wouldn’t it make sense for said viper to do what vipers do naturally, rather than try to thwack, strangle and otherwise hiiii-yaa their opponents. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for Viper to have inflicted a venomous KUNG FU NOM on Tai Lung? Otherwise, what’s the point of being a viper?