Manny Puig

Manny Puig
Manny Puig
	Puig in 2005
Born	January 25, 1955 (age 69); Cuba
Other names	Sharkman, Tarzan
Education	Gainesville High School
Occupation	Wildlife entertainer
Years active	1999–present
Website	mannypuig.com

Manny Puig (born January 25, 1955)^[2]^[3] is a Cuban-born American wildlife entertainer who is known for his encounters with dangerous animals such as sharks, black bears and American alligators.^[4] He has made frequent appearances on the television shows Jackass and Wildboyz and also on the Animal Planet show Gator Boys.^[5] He is also known for hosting Outdoor Channel's "Savage Wild".^[6]

Puig has appeared in numerous documentaries as an animal expert and even appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and on Shark Week.

Early life

Puig was born in Cuba^[7] and immigrated to Florida with his mother, where he became interested in wildlife. Living so close to the Florida Keys only increased his interest in animals. In his youth, Puig traveled into the Everglades with only a frying pan and a shotgun. He learned to hunt deer at an early age and started hand-catching small American alligators underwater in his teens.^[8]

Career

In the late 1990s, Puig worked with Mehgan Heaney-Grier and Mark Rackley, both in training Grier as a free diver and in filming underwater encounters with animals such as alligators and sharks.^[9] Rackley worked as a spearfisherman and underwater videographer. Puig had experience as an animal handler on movie sets^[10] and had learned how to ride and handle alligators in their environment.^[9] The trio formed a company named Extreme Encounters, and the footage they produced led to the Animal Planet series titled Extreme Contact.^[10] The 20 episode series featured the trio in cage-free encounters with sharks, alligators and other aquatic wildlife.^[11]

Puig advocates a basic approach to wildlife and denounces the use of safety gear such as cages, protective clothing and diving apparatus. He states that he has a great respect for the Native Americans because of their interaction with the land and their survival skills. His interests also include history, art and geography documentaries. He spends his free time working on sculpting, hand-crafting medieval weapons and hunting tools.^[12]

Puig has appeared on the television program Jackass, in Jackass: The Movie, Jackass Number Two, Jackass 2.5, Jackass 3D, and Jackass 3.5. In these projects, he is credited as an expert on predatory animals. One of Puig's stunts is featured in the second film, where he dives with Steve-O around hammerhead and other dangerous sharks. Steve-O recalled the segment in his autobiography, stating: "The following day, Chris Pontius and I were scheduled to swim with great hammerhead sharks, accompanied by Manny....with the butt piercing wound still fresh, swimming with sharks might not have been very smart, but Manny wasn't worried about it....In retrospect, the fact that Manny was the arbiter of what was safe and reasonable is hilarious. He hatched and okayed plenty of ideas that were clearly not okay. So you knew if he said no to something, that meant "FUCK NO!" As it happened, Manny had no problem sending us swimming with great hammerheads."^[13]

Puig is also featured on the MTV program Wildboyz, where he resumes the role of a predatory-animal expert. Some of Puig's stunts on Wildboyz include having a snapping turtle lock onto his hand. According to Chris Pontius on the special features of one of the Wildboyz DVDs, he heard Puig scream for the first time in his life when he had the snapping turtle bite his hand in the Deep South, United States.

After finishing the second Jackass movie and with the final season of Wildboyz having completed, Puig produced his own film entitled Ultimate Predator. The film shows him interacting particularly with sharks. The film also features adventures with Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius. and Jeff Tremaine. Towards the end of filming Manny left the set due to a confrontation with fellow wildlife expert David Weathers, Manny was quoted as telling him to “treat animals with the respect they deserve”, they eventually settled the dispute.^{[citation needed]}

During Discovery Channel's Shark Week in 2003 Puig was profiled for an episode entitled "Diary of a Shark Man".^[14]

Puig also appeared on "Feeding Time" during Discovery Channel's Shark Week in 2007.

Puig was featured on the Outdoor Channel show called Savage Wild. The episodes of Savage Wild take place in the Everglades and surrounding environs near Miami, Florida and range from Puig hunting a wild boar with only a rudimentary spear, or carefully maneuvering through the water with a monster alligator, or handling highly venomous wild snakes, such as water moccasins, in their natural environment.

Puig's left middle finger was amputated after a rattlesnake bite.^[15]

Filmography

Films

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2002	Jackass: The Movie	Himself	Guest appearances
2006	Ultimate Predator	Himself	Direct-to-video Producer
2006	National Lampoon's TV: The Movie	Manny the Gator Guy	Direct-to-video
2006	Jackass Number Two	Himself	Guest appearances
2007	Jackass 2.5	Himself	Guest appearances
2009	Jackass: The Lost Tapes	Himself	Direct-to-video Archive footage Guest appearances
2010	Jackass 3D	Himself	Guest appearances
2011	Jackass 3.5	Himself	Guest appearances

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1999	The Unexplained	Himself	1 episode
1999	Run for Cover	Himself	TV special
2000-2001	Extreme Contact	Himself	20 episodes
2000–2001	Jackass	Himself	4 episodes Guest appearances
2001	Deep Diver	Himself
2003–2006	Wildboyz	Himself	12 episodes Guest appearances
2003–2007	Shark Week	Himself	2 episodes
2003	MTV Video Music Awards Latinoamérica 2003	Himself	Presenter
2006	Late Night with Conan O'Brien	Himself	1 episode
2008	Jackassworld.com: 24 Hour Takeover	Himself	TV special Guest appearances
2009	Savage Wild	Himself	Host Writer
2012	Gator Boys	Himself	1 episode

References

^ Puig, Manny. "Manny Puig - Facebook". Facebook. Retrieved June 9, 2022.
^ Cocking, Susan (March 25, 2012). "'Pork Choppers' Take Down Wild Pigs from the Air". The Miami Herald. p. 15D. Wildlife wrangler Manny Puig, 57, of Miami—host of The Savage Wild on the Outdoor Channel, says helicopter hunting is not for him.
^ Puig, Manny (January 25, 2020). "Happy Birthday Manny!#Happy Birthday#mannypuig,##outdoorsman". Instagram. Retrieved July 12, 2022.
^ Manny Puig- An Evening with a Spearing Guru Freedive Blog. March 12, 2012. Retrieved September 17, 2015.
^ "Manny Puig". IMDb.
^ Channel, Outdoor (December 6, 2012). "Savage Wild | Outdoor Channel". outdoorchannel.com. Retrieved March 25, 2018.
^ Cocking, Susan (July 29, 2006). "Primitive fishing presents challenge". The Vindicator. Archived from the original on July 2, 2019. Retrieved July 10, 2019.
^ Dreaming of the Deep: The Life of Manny Puig (Video) Outdoor Channel. 24 July 2014.
^ ^a ^b Nielsen, Kirk (January 15, 1998). "Do Not Try This at Home!". Miami New Times.
^ ^a ^b Tresniowski, Alex (September 8, 1997). "Diving Belle". Retrieved February 28, 2010.
^ "Extreme Encounters Episodes". Retrieved February 28, 2010.
^ TV Survival Dreaming of the Deep: The Life of Manny Puig (video) Outdoor Channel. 24 July 2014.
^ Stephen "Steve-O" Glover, 2011, "Professional Idiot: A Memoir, pp. 133-134.
^ Kurr, Jeff (August 12, 2003), Diary of a Shark Man, Shark Week, retrieved January 7, 2023
^ "Manny Puig - Steve-O's Wild Ride! Ep #75". YouTube. September 23, 2021. Archived from the original on December 18, 2021. Retrieved September 23, 2021.