Raccoons Can't Fight City Hall

August 14, 2013 5:13 AM

Mark Brown, costar of a viral video perhaps best known as "Hillbilly Dances with a Raccoon", is seeking a pardon from Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam (R), after his pet raccoon Rebekah was placed into state custody. (Previously)

Brown's Youtube Channel features raccoon-related Christmas Stories, cola taste tests, endorsements for Hannah Montana products, and most recently, a direct appeal to viewers to help support the family's legal fees in their custody battle.

posted by Benjy (45 comments total)

OK, the Hannah Montana Coon Repellant commercial is cute.
posted by zarq at 5:22 AM on August 14, 2013

"Mark Brown took in the raccoon after he said it was going to be killed after the racoon went after chickens at a local high school."

I miss the South.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:26 AM on August 14, 2013 [11 favorites]

is there no justice?
posted by echocollate at 5:27 AM on August 14, 2013

Ugh, wish I hadn't called it. I hope he gets his buddy back.
posted by Atreides at 5:32 AM on August 14, 2013

The governor has a raccoon?
posted by Ironmouth at 6:41 AM on August 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency paid Brown a visit.... saying it's illegal to keep a wild animal as a pet.

Over the past 25 years I've witnessed dozens of well-meaning people make pets of deer, raccoons, gray squirrels, flying squirrels, skunks and other wildlife. I visited a couple that had a female deer living inside their home, another that had a small buck that followed their kids around like a dog.

These stories rarely have fairy tale endings.
posted by three blind mice at 6:42 AM on August 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

As cute as that guy's videos are, I am really not ok with keeping wild animals as pets. I hope that Rebekah is released if and only if she isn't too "institutionalized" to survive in the wild again.

If she can't go back to the wild, then Mr. Brown seems like the obvious choice for caretaker, but something really should be done to keep from from harbouring poached animals in the future.
posted by sparklemotion at 6:44 AM on August 14, 2013

The raccoon prefers Pepsi to Coke? I think it might be an imposter from the North.
posted by aught at 6:58 AM on August 14, 2013

"Mark Brown took in the raccoon after he said it was going to be killed after the racoon went after chickens at a local high school."

I miss the South.

I used to work for a program that gave grants to start agricultural projects in schools all over the state. Some of our best sites were in the Bronx, and a lot of them kept chickens to keep pests down. The kids loved them.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:13 AM on August 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

I think Hobo Joe here has a pretty shaky grasp a governor's job description.
posted by Optamystic at 7:22 AM on August 14, 2013

The raccoon prefers Pepsi to Coke? I think it might be an imposter from the North.

Bear in mind that the South is the domain of calling every kind of soda (the objectively correct word, though I'm willing to be tolerant of people who say "soda pop", heretics though they be) "coke".
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:27 AM on August 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

OK, why does Youtube autoplay the next video on Firefox, and why is there no way to stop it?

That is one fat raccoon. That can't be good all by itself.
posted by dirigibleman at 7:29 AM on August 14, 2013

I say lock the raccoon up and throw away the key. You liberals are always trying to pardon every damn criminal by blaming all their problems on "society" or some such hogwash, but the fact is that if this raccoon wasn't guilty of something it wouldn't be in jail, would it? And please don't give me a lecture about my "non-raccoon privilege," 'cos I'm a CHICKEN and we have it much harder than they do, what with our propensity toward cowardice and the fact that you human beings are always frying us in oil and eating us with 11 secret herbs and spices. It's the secrecy we find most insulting, actually - I mean, what are you trying to hide - oregano? Who fucking cares!!! Just stop frying us in oil and consuming our body parts, you assholes - Jesus.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 7:35 AM on August 14, 2013 [27 favorites]

aught: "The raccoon prefers Pepsi to Coke? I think it might be an imposter from the North."

I was betting on the RC Cola myself.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:47 AM on August 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

Now, if the raccoon was a Moxie loyalist, that would be suspicious.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:54 AM on August 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

Just stop frying us in oil and consuming our body parts, you assholes - Jesus.

I choose to read this as a statement by Jesus about the world's most delicious communion.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:04 AM on August 14, 2013 [11 favorites]

Deep Fried Communion Wafer is something you'd find at a church fair in the Deep South.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 8:12 AM on August 14, 2013 [14 favorites]

My family kept two raccoons for a couple of years half a century ago. Got 'em as kits after a tornado knocked down their home and killed their mom. Hans and Fritz were family members, but not really pets. We let them roam free every spring and returned every year until they didn't. They were smart and interesting and very much individuals with different personalities, and my childhood is richer from having known them. I would ride around the neighborhood, "Rascal" style, with Hans in the basket of my bicycle, leaning into the wind with his natural goggles. Hans was the cuddly one. My sister still has bite marks from Fritz.

The gent keeping that 'coon as a pet wasn't doing it any favors. The 'coon in the video is obese and probably has related health issues as a result of being fed stuff like soda. I'm guessing it stayed put because of all the free calories.
posted by kinnakeet at 8:14 AM on August 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

three blind mice: "The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency paid Brown a visit.... saying it's illegal to keep a wild animal as a pet.

These stories rarely have fairy tale endings."

In Wisconsin, recently, they killed a poor little fawn at a fucking SANCTUARY because of this rule. An Illinois family found a wild fawn lost by himself, so they brought him to the sanctuary. They were going to get the fawn back to an Illinois sanctuary that would take it. The DNR raided the place, guns drawn as if in a drug dealer raid, and bagged the poor creature and took it out.

I can understand to one degree, but seriously.
posted by symbioid at 8:17 AM on August 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

> found a wild fawn lost by himself

Unlikely. That's how they're supposed to behave, hunker down and don't move. The mother watches from a distance if there's a predator sniffing around the area. People who take baby animals out of the wild assuming they're abandoned don't understand this.
posted by hank at 8:32 AM on August 14, 2013 [7 favorites]

Pope Guilty: "...soda (the objectively correct word, though I'm willing to be tolerant of people who say "soda pop", heretics though they be)..."

One of the things that I really hate about moving to central Indiana, where we both live, is that these hateful people have perverted my childrens' minds and caused them to forsake their birthright. "Soda" is only appropriate when used to refer to sodium hydroxide or other noxious chemicals that contain sodium. It certainly doesn't refer to anything that anyone would want to drink! I taught them the only true and correct word for a soft drink:

pop
posted by double block and bleed at 8:32 AM on August 14, 2013 [5 favorites]

There are open garbage cans behind out house, and we're right by the river, and Omaha is sort of a wild place anyway, so out behind the house is a sort of ongoing menagerie of wildlife, all of whom seem vaguely put out by our occasional presence. They all have their own personalities -- baby possums are ridiculous and constantly get trapped in garbage cans, making me wonder how any of them survive to adulthood. The neighboring cats stalked the area for a while until I started making a habit of squiring them with supersoakers to keep them from mass murdering any other small animal they see; they have learned to avoid the perimeter of my house. We have gotten skunks before, who seem comical from a distance but we give them a wide berth. The raccoons always seemed the surliest; they get out of the neighbors trash can like a drunk at closing time, staggering away, looking at us through the back window with shifty eyes and a seeming chip on their shoulder, like they don't want to fight, but they're not going to back away from it either.

I couldn't imagine wanting to hang out with one of them. Racoons always seemed like trouble to me.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 8:36 AM on August 14, 2013 [4 favorites]

The typo on this post keeps bugging me. Raccons! Like Neocons, but something...else.
posted by agregoli at 8:44 AM on August 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

My family kept two raccoons for a couple of years half a century ago.

We didn't deliberately keep Ray and Bea around, but they kept on coming back to the porch like clockwork. They liked hanging out in the window and teasing the cats, tapping on the glass like it was a fish tank. We didn't put food or garbage out there, and we never saw the cans out back get broken into (except by that damn king possum), but it was the middle of the woods, so I'm sure there were plenty of pickings. It did get kind of creepy when they started bringing the quintuplets and lining them up on the sill, though. We called them The Raylettes.

My current cat comes from the feral cat colony from those same woods, and her mask is remarkably raccoon-mask-shaped. Makes you wonder.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:59 AM on August 14, 2013 [9 favorites]

Ricky says it best
posted by NiteMayr at 9:21 AM on August 14, 2013

They liked hanging out in the window and teasing the cats, tapping on the glass like it was a fish tank.

At my grandmother's house they used to mount the stairs to the second-floor porch to watch the TV just on the other side of the sliding door.
posted by yerfatma at 9:23 AM on August 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

I understand why you shouldn't keep wild animals as pets, but there's a part of me thinks that unless someone, somewhere at some time didn't do exactly that, then we'd have no domesticated animals at all.

Which has led me to wondering which idiot first thought to make a wolf a friend. Who was this crazy person, and how can I buy them a drink?
posted by zoo at 9:39 AM on August 14, 2013 [6 favorites]

Mod note: Title raccoonified.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:39 AM on August 14, 2013 [6 favorites]

Which has led me to wondering which idiot first thought to make a wolf a friend. Who was this crazy person, and how can I buy them a drink?

I suspect that, after you build the time machine, you'd have to cut open the wolf's stomach. It was the idiot who heard about that first guy and said "I can do that better" who really deserves the drink.
posted by Etrigan at 9:46 AM on August 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

unless someone, somewhere at some time didn't do exactly that, then we'd have no domesticated animals at all.

But our domesticated animals mostly became domesticated around the same time that humans did.

Encouraging Wolfiewolfiepoo to hang out a little closer to your lean-to/straw hut is a lot different than bringing a wild creature into your modern home and feeding it soda[pop].
posted by sparklemotion at 10:00 AM on August 14, 2013 [3 favorites]

You can totally breed animals to be domesticated. I'm honestly surprised that somebody hasn't bred domesticated raccoons.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:25 AM on August 14, 2013

Because they are claw-y, rabid, face-eating machines?
posted by Optamystic at 10:38 AM on August 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

can you imagine the amount of hair that gets caught in that shower drain?
posted by angrycat at 10:42 AM on August 14, 2013

(I'm referring to the video of the guy in the shower with his little friend)
posted by angrycat at 10:56 AM on August 14, 2013

I was in Philly last weekend, hanging out having a smoke on my friends side stoop when I felt a tickle on my foot. I thought the cat had gotten out, but when I looked down there was a raccoon sniffin' up on my toes. He noticed me noticing, stood up and put his hands on my knee, and then scampered off. It was a city miracle!

I taught them the only true and correct word for a soft drink:

pop

Yeesh. Let's settle this once and for all - there is only one name for carbonated beverages, people:

sticky fizz-jizz

Let's put all this ridiculous naming contention behind us once and for all.
posted by FatherDagon at 11:11 AM on August 14, 2013 [1 favorite]

The asshole down the street (the one with the huge rebel flag on his truck) shoots the raccoons with a BB gun to keep them away from his garbage. So they dig through mine instead. So do his five dogs that he lets run loose.

Like I said: asshole.
posted by double block and bleed at 11:23 AM on August 14, 2013

The big issue right now with raccoons is Baylisascaris, which in some areas of the US affect the majority of the raccoon population. The worms produce over 100,000 eggs per day, stay viable in the environment for a long time, and can be tracked around on paws and fur. Exposure is hazardous to humans and can produce irreversible brain damage, resulting in blindness, seizures, and Alzheimer's-like deterioration of brain function. Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia are noted as particularly problematic areas. It's being recognized in the literature that the problem is likely worse than originally thought since it's difficult to diagnose without an autopsy.

Because of this, pet raccoons are unfortunately a very serious matter. Unless the owner is aware of the issue and the raccoon is being looked after by an informed veterinarian, I don't have a whole lot of sympathy. I'm not sure I see any of this here.
posted by crapmatic at 12:24 PM on August 14, 2013 [4 favorites]

I have a hard time believing that a chicken couldn't outrun that chubby-assed raccoon.
posted by Foam Pants at 1:05 PM on August 14, 2013

squiring them with supersoakers

I am imagining Bunny in full neon raver camo, earbud in place, scanning for danger to his feline clients, making take-the-point cover-hopping motions and hand signals, and so forth.
posted by mwhybark at 2:36 PM on August 14, 2013

Man, you're reading out loud from my wish book.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 4:07 PM on August 14, 2013 [2 favorites]

Deep Fried Communion Wafer is something you'd find at a church fair in the Deep South

I suspect you could find them in some booth at the MN state fair.



Incidentally, just read that the wolves that domesticated dogs derive from are likely extinct.
posted by edgeways at 7:17 PM on August 14, 2013

Meh, I've seen racoons that come when called, even when strangers are around.
posted by wierdo at 12:18 AM on August 15, 2013

Raccoon rescue
posted by homunculus at 1:20 AM on August 15, 2013

Bold yet sassy.

There are people that breed raccoons and keep them for pets, with different color varieties. While I doubt they're truly domesticated, I'm sure they're on their way.

Most states (but not all) have licenses you can get for wild animals. Usually it's a "fur" permit, but they're frequently obtained for pet animals.

I often wonder.. Since the theory of how dogs and cats domesticated by hanging out around the structures of humans, how long before something like raccoons, possums or even foxes. There was a documentary that followed the urban life of foxes a few years ago. It featured a number of foxes that would sneak I through cat flaps when the owners were asleep, and the humans were none the wiser.

Also, raccoons have the softest hands and make the sweetest trills when young. I bottle fed a few a number of years back. I was baby sitting them for a friend of the family. I wouldn't want them as a pet, but that brief experience was amazing.

My best raccoon story though isn't my own. A friend, living down south, lived with a bunch of people in college. One much older guy had a pet raccoon that would come and go as it pleased. My friend generally avoided the raccoon, as it was usually grouchy. But it loved parties, and it would frequently join it's owner, her and other roommates to parties. There it wasn't grouchy, it would ham it up and run from person to person and beg for snacks, or steal mostly empty beer bottles and drink from them, eventually returning to the car and waiting for everyone else to head home.

Well one night she goes to a party on her own, taking her pickup truck. Only as she's about to leave, the raccoon jumps through the open passenger side window. She had not been that close to the raccoon, not alone at least. So she tries to shoo it out of the truck. It doesn't budge. She gets out, opens the passenger side door, encouraging it to get out. It still doesn't budge. So not knowing what to do, she gets back in. The raccoon plops down on its haunches, lowly looks at her, then at the road. So she drives this angry, grouchy raccoon to the party. Where it proceeds to eat, get drunk, and pass out back inside the truck to be driven home again.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 3:26 AM on August 15, 2013 [7 favorites]

Guy Tries To Shoot Raccoon, Sneezes, Shoots Himself Instead
posted by homunculus at 3:35 PM on August 27, 2013 [1 favorite]