Don Meier was so strict about the voice and the appearance of people that there were like eight or 10 people from the world of zoos that were interviewed and they never made it, there with Don. You had to be have just the right kind of voice and the… Read More
Well, was I the second guy to Marlin?… Read More
Did I have a problem with that?… Read More
Not really. I had stopped doing the show in the 70s, and the thing that was very (laughs) interesting, Don Meier was a fanatic on how you use your voice. Don Meier had been an announcer. He had a wonderful voice and he kept trying to, when we were narrating,… Read More
He wasn’t the kind of guy they would just pat you on the back saying, see how the hell are you?… Read More
Marlin was very astute. And that’s why I say he was very comfortable as being one of the original type of zoo directors. There’s one way to describe Marlin. So dedicated to the world of zoos that you could see that come through. And he was able to express himself… Read More
Now, were you comfortable being the second guy to Marlin?… Read More
Oh, I had no problems with that. I really…… Read More
(sighs) My relationship with Marlin Perkins, I always… I got to know Marlin’s family quite well naturally, and I really respected his wife, Carol, who just passed away a few weeks ago, a month or so ago. Carol was sort of the person behind the scenes you might say, who… Read More
We’d have to take flights down and do the program. The lead-ins to the show were often done in St. Louis at the end of the Wild Kingdom. And I remember sometimes they went out and had a few more… Don Meier, I don’t wanna hesitate to say he enjoyed… Read More
Marlin was very formal in some ways. Read More
And when I started going on location, I often was able to work as a director as well as being on camera. That’s a little hard to do. Marlin by the way, he was on camera, but Marlin didn’t necessarily get involved in the format of the show or what… Read More
He was funded by Mutual of Omaha so much for show, and he knew how to allocate that, and keep the costs to a minimum when we went to location. Yeah. Read More
Did you over the years working on Wild Kingdom, did your working relationship between you and Marlin change over the years?… Read More
Well, I knew from the very beginning of the Don Meier, it had a lot of experience. And Chicago used to be the center of television, the central focus. And Don Meier was the producer that started Dave Galloway off. They used to be in Chicago. Hugh Downs, Don Meier… Read More
In those days on film it was so overpowering to watch the action. You didn’t wanna be talking abstractly about something on your narration that didn’t have anything to do with what you’re seeing. That’s one of the first rules, even when you’re lecturing, you gotta talk about what people… Read More
And Don Meier would build visually up to a point of action just before you went to a commercial. So you would build the action with the narration and then you’d go to commercial and you’d do another segment. And Don was very tuned in to all that. And he… Read More
He would sometimes go on location, but and it’s interesting now that we’re talking about it, that Don Meier didn’t necessarily give rules and regulations, but he was very quick to spot what made good television?… Read More
Did he say, this is what I want you to do, this is what you’re gonna expect. No. (laughs) He never discussed any roles. I think what they did… I think he was happy that I was a zoologist. I wasn’t just the front man, see. I got involved in… Read More
And I had to sort of play a role as a backup person with Marlin, which was fine with me, but I was more or less focusing on the fact that I was a zoologist and he was a scientist too. He was a herpetologist. I think that was one… Read More