Killer Whale Tries Improv (But With Better Results Than Kramer)

A 30 year old killer whale got tired of the same old routine and decided to shake up the show a bit:

SAN DIEGO — A killer whale that dragged a trainer under water during a show at SeaWorld Adventure Park, breaking his foot, may be allowed to perform again, park officials said Thursday.

"Animals who have been involved in incidents like this in the past have been allowed to continue performing," SeaWorld San Diego spokesman Dave Koontz said.

Hey, that's a better deal than Kramer got for his improv screw-up.

Peters, 39, remained hospitalized with a broken foot after the whale grabbed him and twice held him under water during a show. He had a fractured metatarsal in his left foot but was in good spirits, Koontz said.

I'll bet he's in good spirits. It's not often you can play "sea lion" to a killer whale's rendition of "top line predator" and get away with just a broken foot. So what went wrong with the veteran performer?

Koontz said the 30-year-old orca had been performing most of her life and was familiar with the routine.

"She's been one of our strongest, most consistent performers," he said.

I'm guessing she was bored. As Rush suggested on his show, she might have looked at the tourists in the stands and thought "I'm doing all this work for these yahoos? And just for a few fish? The heck with that - let's play killer whale and sea lion."

In the wild killer whales are known to grab sea lions by the flippers and throw them up in the air. She might have thought that kind of improv would be a little over the top, and the last thing she wanted was to make people so mad she's have to go apologize to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (though being predominately black, she probably could have gotten away with it).