Yahoo Finance’s Editor-In-Chief Andy Serwer sat down with Eric Goode, Director of the popular Netflix docuseries ‘Tiger King’ to discuss the comparisons between Joe Exotic and President Trump.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: Well, if you're like me and like a lot of people around the US, you have been indulging in something called "Tiger King" on Netflix in your evenings, when you're stuck at home. Our Editor-in-Chief, Andy Serwer, had the chance to sit down with the director of the docuseries, Eric Goode, and talked about comparing the sort of main character in the series, Joe Exotic, to Donald Trump.

ERIC GOODE: I think you can see parallels between Joe and our current president. They both ran for president. Imagine if Joe had become president. No, you can't-- you know, you can't make these people up. You know, I mean, how can you-- you know, I think if we pitched this as a scripted series or scripted feature, you know, people would have thrown this back in our face, because it just is unbelievable, really. How can you have characters like this? You know, I think some of it is-- it's just not possible. But truly, reality is stranger than fiction.

JULIE HYMAN: Truly, it is. Andy Serwer is with us now. Andy, one of the things that strikes me as well, watching this thing, is that there's sort of this queasy fascination, right, because some of the stuff the characters on the show are doing-- it's not great. And I'm curious-- you know, Eric Goode making this-- he was there, witnessing all of this-- what that experience was like.

ANDREW SERWER: Yeah, I mean, it's out there. Forgive me for my "Tiger King" hat I've got going on here. It's a train wreck. And Americans love train wrecks. And we have a long history of that. Reality TV is basically, you know, all train wrecks, or a lot of it is. And Eric is a guy, though, with a really fascinating background.

He's been in the business of running nightclubs, bars, and restaurants in New York City as well as being an artist. So he's had this, like, longstanding fascination with counterculture and cutting-edge things. I remember going to one of his clubs, Julie, in the 1980s, the early 1980s, called the AREA, which was downtown.

And it was really a wild, crazy scene down there. I mean, like, you can't even talk about it on the internet today, maybe even. But you know, he just-- he went out there, and he sort of, like, talked about how he triangulated into it. He runs this thing called the Turtle Conservancy.

So he's sort of interested in wild pets and the pluses and minuses of all that. And then, he was looking at reptiles. Then, he got into these big cats. And then, the people there are just like, as he says, you know, you just can't believe they're real.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Hey, Andy, I'm hooked. The team was talking about it, so we started watching. And wow, because the way they craft it, there's a tease about, oh, but you didn't know this. But I ask this seriously-- did he address the fact that none of the people in this seem to have their teeth? They have horrible-- have you seen it-- just terrible teeth. Now, I'm only at episode two, so I don't know if they address it. But are they getting free dental for their part in this show?

ANDREW SERWER: You know, it's funny. One of Exotic Joe's spouses talks about the fact that he got dental work done, Adam, and maligned Eric Goode for not showing scenes after he got his teeth fixed. So I guess it is somewhat of a running theme. But you know, it speaks to, you know, people in America not having good health care, maybe, or not taking care of themselves.

And I think sometimes, you know, a lot of us live in a, you know, a bubble here in New York City or the coasts and don't realize, you know, look. I mean, Joe Exotic's running a roadside zoo in, you know, Oklahoma and, you know, at one point, sort of making a pretty good living. But he had 230-plus tigers out there, and they cost $3,000 a year to feed. And he's charging people, and it's a whole side of the country that maybe we don't see unless we really get outside of New York City and the coasts.