Scientists find out what’s inside the elephant Channel 4

Inside Nature's Giants

Channel 4, 9pm

GATHER round people, gather round. Channel 4 has chanced upon a hit formula. And that formula is cutting up dead things. This has all the advantages of reality TV (you don’t have to pay the main participants) and none of the frustrations (you can drive a sharp knife into their chest).

It pioneered this ratings winner when it screened the first human ­autopsy in 2002. Then, professor Gunther von Hagens – the auteur of dead-people slicing – upped the ante by cutting up “plastinated” people for three separate series (this was essentially the move from normal TV to HD in the world of body cutting entertainment).

After its switch to slicing open living people in the recent Operation: Surgery Live, the question on every donor card-carrier’s lips was: what’s next?

Well Channel 4 has ­answered: it’s going to cut up an elephant. And a crocodile, a ­giraffe and a whale. But first, an elephant.

And the result works like all the others: it’s both must-watch TV and utterly horrific.

For instance, did you know an elephant’s guts produce 2,000 litres of methane a day? You will watching this – the first thing they do is jab a massive knife in its side to release it.

You know those high-pressure jet washers they use to blast graffiti off walls? Well imagine one that just blasts high-pressure fart gas and you’ll have an idea of the ­effect. It’s awful. The scientists don’t know whether to laugh or suffocate.

Of course, it’s educational, so we’re presented with a ­series of questions and before a scientist can say “I know”, we’re slicing open a part of the elephant to find out (or rather Dr Joy Reidenberg is – a disturbing woman who loves her job too much).

How can they digest all that grass? Let’s open the gut and see. Isn’t the trunk a wonder of ­nature? Yes, and let’s cut it in two and see how wonderful it is. How do its feet hold its colossal weight? Let’s buzz-saw one in half and find out. Why do elephants never forget? Well, if you’ll pass that hacksaw…

OK, they don’t do the last bit. And as sensationalist as it is, you have to admit, it’s a great way of learning about their anatomy.

Surely a celebrity dissection show isn’t far away – one where Danny Dyer has to cut open a sea lion, but while the sea lion is alive. Or an actual celebrity dissection. Possibly with Danny Dyer. And while he’s still alive…

You see? The possibilities are endless.