Frasier The Lion was an early ’70s sex icon, famed for spending his retirement years banging his way into scientific history. A short documentary from Popular Science looks back on the history of this dynamo and, along the way, helps show that the sexual revolution wasn’t confined just to humanity.
Frasier was brought to a Los Angeles safari business in 1970 as a 19-year old former circus lion. He was old, underweight, toothless, and his tongue constantly hung out because his jaw muscles were weak. Though expected to be put down, he ended up spending his final years gaining recognition for fathering 35 cubs over less than 18 months. He was such a hit with the lionesses that they’d “[bring] him food and [stand] guard” around him. Scientists were confused why the lionesses weren’t more interested in younger, healthier lions. They figured that Frasier, having grown up elsewhere, didn’t register as a family member to the lionesses, who would’ve been wary of mating with lions they’d grown up with from cubs. We should also suggest the possibility, not supported by any science, that his mates just couldn’t resist the relaxed swagger of Frasier’s always-drooping tongue.
Though he died in 1972, not long after his remarkable fuckstreak, the horny old dude was immortalized in pop culture. Not only was he featured in an especially great episode of The Leftovers, but he also starred in a bewildering movie called Frasier The Sensuous Lion (later renamed Frasier The Lovable Lion) where, thanks to a voiceover, Frasier teaches a virgin scientist his tricks, making him perhaps the world’s first and last lion pick-up artist.
Let’s remember him not for his role in giving us a whole class of professional scumbags like Mystery or leaving dozens of fatherless children behind, but for something else. Let’s think of Frasier The Sensuous Lion as the foremost example that age is really just a number—that life isn’t over until you’ve stopped living it.
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