90's commercial selling EXTREME nature/animal documentary video set?

March 28, 2016 1:17 PM

My Googling is coming up with nothing - details I can remember below.

I was trying to tell someone about this and now I can't find any evidence of it existing on YouTube or via Google.

This was in the US - I think this was a typical sales commercial like you would see in the 90's for CD compilations or Time Life book series, but this was for a nature documentary set. By typical I mean narrator, lots of hype, phone number to call and order. Can't remember if it had the classic blue order screen at the end or not.

Each video in the set covered a different topic, and the advertising was super trashy, which I can remember thinking was weird at the time. Like one of the videos in the set was about animal sex/breeding, and lots focus on animals eating other animals, lions chasing down gazelles and that kind of thing. For some reason I feel like it had a Jerry Springer style aesthetic, WILD and EXTREME and YOU WON'T BELIEVE YOUR EYES and so on.

This might not be much to go on, thanks for any ideas!

posted by imabanana to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

If you're searching for 90's, you might want to search for 2000s as well. I remember making fun of these ads when I was in undergrad - could have been early 2000s.
posted by Elly Vortex at 1:21 PM on March 28, 2016

Best answer: Could you be thinking of When Animals Attack? The linked video is an ad for when it originally aired as a special, but I feel like I remember seeing ads for VHS copies too.
posted by contraption at 2:17 PM on March 28, 2016

I feel like I know exactly what you are trying to find. I always remember a scene of Killer whales coming out the water at shore and throwing sea lions around. I always thought the name of this was in my head, but can't get it to come out.

Off to google-fu as well.
posted by kpraslowicz at 3:02 PM on March 28, 2016

Best answer: Yeah, the old "Trials Of Life" series was rebranded as "When Animals Attack" or something, with trashy late night ads: "Find out why we call them ANIMALS!" See previous AskMe here: http://ask.metafilter.com/279636/Savage-Wildlife-or-something
posted by The otter lady at 5:30 PM on March 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Are you thinking about the TV series with the commercials where they'd play something that sounds like some imitation of some Native American music? It would show lone pictures of tigers out to hunt or something.

I felt like it was around during the VHS tapes you'd watch in school, the ones with "The rain forest, the tropical rain forest" song.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 2:18 AM on March 29, 2016

On preview, The otter lady has what I'm talking about, and it was called "The Trials of Life." On youtube with phony music too.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 2:19 AM on March 29, 2016