Discovery Channel Grylls its survivor guy

I’m crushed. You mean that Bear Grylls doesn’t really sleep in caves or hollow trees or lean-tos, that instead he overnights in motels while supposedly fighting the wild?

Grylls, whom my brother calls “that cute little British Man,” is the star of my favorite television show, “Man vs. Wild.” And the show has him going everywhere from the Australian Outback to the Costa Rican jungle to the Rocky Mountains, parachuting in and supposedly living off the land.

Yet it’s not true. The Discovery Channel has admitted as much.

Actually, I don’t care. I never really believed that he drank his own urine, bit the head off a snake and then ate it whole, ran rapids just because it seemed the best way to find civilization. It always seemed a bit melodramatic and, well, scripted.

But Grylls is still entertaining. He’s supposed to be a motivational speaker, which may be true. I don’t find him particularly inspiring, but that doesn’t matter. He has sense of humor that the “Survivorman” guy lacks, and he isn’t half as ridiculously jingoistic as the host of “FutureWeapons” – who likely isn’t as good a shot with a .50-caliber sniper rifle as he claims to be.

So I’ll keep watching “Man vs. Wild,” believing what I want, rejecting what I see as too silly to believe. I’ll just accept it as good fun. Kind of like “Meerkat Manor” with a “cute little British guy.”