Discovery Channel, Bear Grylls Part Ways Over 'Man Vs. Wild' Terms

Pour a warm glass of your own urine, then raise it to one now-departed Discovery Channel favorite.

A Discovery rep has reported to E! Online that the network has "terminated all current productions" involving itself and "Man vs. Wild" star Bear Grylls.

That rep also claims that the sudden split has sprung from "a continuing contractual dispute" between the two parties that apparently just couldn't be survived. Discovery has aired the wilderness-survival docu-drama since 2008.

For a British Army Special Forces vet who crushed three vertebrae in a 1996 free-fall parachuting accident in Zambia, it's been a pretty sweet ride. Grylls has parlayed the gig into his own measure of pop-culture notoriety, ala "Dirty Jobs" creator Mike Rowe's own Ford endorsement deal. "Man vs. Wild" depicted Grylls being deposited with a crew into the globe's harshest environments and filmed demonstrating various survival techniques using what theoretical resources the immediate surroundings might provide.

Among fans, frequent instances of Grylls drinking his own urine for hydration's sake, eating many an interesting-looking insect or arachnid and at least once squeezing water from an elephant turd became somewhat of a trope.

Though some critics shamed early episodes for lacking transparency about Grylls sometimes being advised by consultants on some survival methods, the show's popularity endured. Grylls would later be joined on special editions by actors Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell and Jake Gyllenhaal. He's also become a spokesman at various points for Sure deodorant in ads parodying "Man vs. Wild", in the first-ever major ad campaign for luxury retailer Harrods and for a U.K. Ministry of Defence anti-drug ad campaign.