I recently went to Utah for a friend's wedding, and while in Salt Lake City my girlfriend and I opted to take a geriatric bus tour of the sights. As the tour guide drove by the site of a former zoo he told us about Shasta the liger. The liger, known to many as Napoleon Dynamite's favorite animal, is the cub of a male lion and a female tiger. The tour guide told us that Shasta was born because the zoo was short on cash so when a male Bengal tiger died they moved the female into the lion cage, and, well, one thing led to another. Shasta was ginormous (14 feet long), but also sterile and mentally retarded. Needless to say, I found this absolutely hilarious. After some hastily-done internet research, I wrote a song about her called "Shasta the Lonely Liger." Below is a recording of the song for your listening pleasure...Hit play and enjoy!
This song is free to distribute. Load it on your ipod, email to your friends, or better yet forward them a link to this page. I want everyone to hear the good news about Shasta!
Right-click to download
THE QUOTE FROM NAPOLEON DYNAMITE CONCERNING LIGERS
Deb: What are you drawing?
Napoleon Dynamite: A liger.
Deb: What's a liger?
Napoleon Dynamite: It's pretty much my favorite animal. It's like a lion and a tiger mixed... bred for its skills in magic.
FACT OR FICTION? ANSWER: FICTION!
Ligers don't have magical powers -- but due to missing the gene that regulates growth, ligers do get magically huge! It is currently unverified whether they are magically delicious.
THE TRIVIAL PURSUIT INCIDENT: COINCIDENCE OR FATE?
On New Years weekend I drove up to a bed and breakfast in New Hampshire, and I brought the liger song on a CD to play for my friends there. The chorus got stuck in their heads so everyone was super-pissed at me. Fast-forward to New Years Day, just past the stroke of midnight. We've just done our toasts, and we decide to play a round of Trivial Pursuit. On my turn, I roll the dice and land on a Science question for a pie piece:
"What animal is the result of the mating of a male lion and a female tiger?"
Now, I'm usually a skeptic about coincidences, but this is just too much. What are the chances that I would be dealt a liger question that fateful night? Why is my life now revolving around ligers? What does it all mean?!
Answer: It means that ligers are awesome.
By the way, I ended up winning that Trivial Pursuit game. Go ligers!
MORE LIGER PICTURES!
This is an actual picture of Shasta the liger -- she's currently stuffed and on display at Brigham Young University.
This just shows how big ligers can get. It's probably unwise to hug one like that, but Seigfried and Roy aren't known for their safety skills.
Here's what a male liger looks like. They look pretty cool. But nobody's cooler than Shasta!
The song above was written and recorded by Bayard Russell ©2006 -- vocals by Bayard Russell and Rachel Knopf. It should not be sold commercially without written consent.