But one of the most, it was so funny what was happening to me, but I have some Amerindians in the Amazon. This was actually before World Kingdom. And they had heard that I wanted to film in big anaconda, but I didn’t tell him to bring it into camp,… Read More
So anyway, they brought it into camp and I had to dig a hole in the ground and let this snake come back and try to recover from all the damages it obviously had. And I put it in there for about a month and it started obviously feeling better. Read More
He was scared of spiders. He just about went crazy when he saw a snake. And here it was I wanted him to film me trying to measure this big snake. Well, he refused to do it for a month or so. And finally, (chuckles) I convinced him that he… Read More
A reporter. That’s generally they’re interested in conflict or dangerous situations usually. And it’s a little bit funny. I can think of other things… I’ve gotta think…… Read More
That’s a good question is what were some of the funniest things?… Read More
So he wasn’t sure whether I’d had a concussion or what. So I woke up a little bit later at 90 miles an hour, trying to get to the hospital in what was in soldiery ’cause he didn’t know quite what happened, but he had his survival kit with him. Read More
So I couldn’t be on camera for a while without a hat. And it was quite an experience, but it was also rather hilarious when I found out what he had done to me. A lot of people like to hear stories. Read More
One of the first questions they asked me is what almost killed you?… Read More
Can you describe maybe something up your mind from a funniest time that happened to you while doing that filming?… Read More
There were so many different times. I was trying to think of some of the funniest times (chuckles) that we ever had. Well, there were a lot of things that didn’t work very well. And if you don’t mind a little storytelling, I can tell you a couple of those… Read More
And this was a pretty big giraffe. There were three Africans in the back of this open Land Rover. And at that time I had the camera and I was trying to film all this. I was sitting in the passenger seat and the trouble is, Tommy was a pretty… Read More
The Africans had the loop and the long pole and I was filming. But he hit a hole in the ground that was dug by an aardvark quite deep. Well, this caused the Land Rover to come to a automatic stop. So three Africans went 20, 30 feet over our… Read More
Okay?… Read More
And as you were in the mountains at 7,000 feet and the deer running, you would bring your helicopter up, and I would fire this net gun over the animal, and then they would put the skids. It was usually quite angled. So they’d put the skid down and you’d… Read More
And so we use that situation, but that’s one reason I think that Wild Kingdom was successful that we got along well with some of the departments of wildlife around the country and around the world. Yeah. Read More
And it was great that we worked with local wildlife organizations often. For example, when we went to New Zealand the red deer is up in the mountains in New Zealand. And we knew from some research that there was a capture group, commercial capture group who would fly helicopters… Read More
And they started overpopulating the areas, especially the red deer up in the mountains. So we got involved with the head of the helicopter company who had a freighter anchored off doubtful sound down on the coast. And he had flies helicopters from there, and his people would catch these… Read More
And then break off the limbs at the top of the tree, which were quite small up there. Then the helicopter would come in about a hundred feet up, and come down and you would go from the top of the tree up to the skid of the helicopter. That’s… Read More
And I had to be very careful in how I suggested. I said, “Hey, that would never be the case in the world, “in reality.” So I had to keep them on that track of being real. And you’re walking a very fine line there. But I did have some… Read More
Typical filming day. Yeah. Well, we would occasionally on location, Don Meier was smart enough to say, well, let’s do three or four different programs while we’re in Africa or while we’re in South America or whatever or even out in the Western if we went to Alaska, we would… Read More