UPDATE IN THE COMMENTS SECTION: Film at eleven?
Although Australia offered a full state funeral, in accordance with his status as a national hero/monument/insane mascot, Steve Irwin‘s family have decided to have a private funeral for him.
from The Australian, via an Absolute Stranger.
Australian
07 Sep 2006STEVE Irwin will be buried in private after hisfamily declined offers of a state funeral, with his father Bob yesterday saying the international celebrity should be remembered as an ordinary bloke.
The laconic, slightly built retired reptile farmer was obviously grief-stricken but he faced the public because it was what his “mate” Steve would have wanted.
Similarly, he declined offers by Prime Minister John Howard and Queensland Premier Peter Beattie for a state funeral.
“He’s just an ordinary bloke and he wanted to be remembered as an ordinary bloke,” said the 66-year-old Mr Irwin, whose two-year-old grandson Bob was named after him.
As Queensland police yesterday locked footage of Irwin‘s death by stingray in a safe, his manager John Stainton said the film was so harrowing it should be destroyed to prevent it ever being made public.
If you go to the front page, you can see that this post has, get this, 4100 comments. For a man who didn’t blog, that’s one hell of a blogstorm.
raincoaster 
In his will didn’t he specify that his remains were to be partially eaten, dragged away, buried in an undisclosed location and consumed over the next several weeks?
So like him to give it all back to the co-stars that made him famous!
Gin-and-tonic to a six-pack of Unibroue the footage hits Fox news in ten weeks or less, and YouTube about thirty seconds afterwards.
Fox doesn’t even know where Australia is. The cops have the tape, and unless someone makes a seven figure offer I doubt that thing will see the light of day. The Aussies would kill anyone who leaked it.
After downloading, of course.
Fox owns Oz. They have a massive studio right on Darlinghurst Road, Sydney, and fully half the channels broadcast in that market were theirs last I saw.
Where’d you think Howling Mad Murdoch was from, anyway?
I know Murdoch is from there, but do you think the knuckledragging jingoists he owns around the world could locate one another’s countries on a map? Puh-leeze.
But in any case, it looks like Steve has the last word:
http://www.celebrific.com/steve-irwin-death-footage-may-be-broadcast/
The tapes are still being held by Queensland police, but Irwin’s family is determined to respect Steve’s last wishes and allow the footage to be broadcast.
Irwin once stated, “My number one rule is to keep that camera rolling. Even if it’s shaky or slightly out of focus, I don’t give a rip.
“Even if a big old alligator is chewing me up I want to go down and go, ‘Crikey!’ just before I die. That would be the ultimate for me.”
An source reported, “This is exactly what Steve would have wanted. He knew the dangers and was totally up for the cameras to get everything.”