Well, when I came back from Africa, I was there. I was not there to… I didn’t plan to go to Africa to catch animals and bring them back to the United States. As I said, I didn’t necessarily plan in the future too much, but I had been working… Read More
I think January, 63. Let me back up a minute, because you said that you were in Africa, you brought animals back on a boat. Read More
And my question is, why were you collecting animals in Africa to bring them back?… Read More
Where were they going?… Read More
What are you doing?… Read More
You don’t have a joB, do you?… Read More
Or do you?… Read More
Well, I had a friend who was… Goes back he had been my major professor in college in Indiana, and he had a farm. So I would go until something happened. I was staying on his farm with all my animals doing a little bit of lecturing and that sort… Read More
And then Marlin went out. They had had in Zoo Parade, Mutual of Omaha had done a couple of commercials on Zoo Parade. So Marlin had Don Meier went out to talk with the chairman of the board of Mutual, whose name was VJ Scott. And he had the astuteness… Read More
You’re in Chicago?… Read More
Yeah. Read More
Can you see that headlines on the Chicago paper?… Read More
Jim Fowler’s eagle consumes a little white fluffy poodle in Lincoln Park. That would’ve been the end of my career in Chicago with Marlin. So anyway, I dove on the line, cut me right down in the hand. But I saved the life of whoever it was eagle was going… Read More
Yeah, I had training on television. And I was very comfortable in being Marlin sidekick. Marlin, by the way, I wanna back up a little bit. One of my sister-in-laws was very stewed and she had been watching through the 50s. She had watched Zoo Parade. Marlin’s show. Marlin was… Read More
And of course he had that look that was recognizable. His rather astute white hair, et cetera. She said to me, when I got back from Africa, she said, “Jim, you really ought to get tied “in with Marlin Perkins.” I hadn’t thought about that much before that, but she… Read More
And I had to be very careful that the eagle couldn’t reach out off my arm and grab me in the stomach even though it was perfectly relaxed when it was with me. They do have an aggressive, competitive attitude. I don’t try to judge an animal. I judge it… Read More
So anyway, I had the line always down on the ground and I would walk over it. So if anything happened, I had access to it immediately. Well, the eagle was starting to fly down to me. There was an associated press photographer over here, taking photographs, and the eagle… Read More
So I didn’t know which one the eagle was going after, but it was in a beeline, (laughs) hopefully that, well, I thought it was a poodle. I glimpsed at the… I dove for the line, but I looked at the Associated Press photographer. And he had a look of… Read More
And he wanted… They wanted me to fly the eagle, the harpy, which was wild caught. It was an adult and they wanted to do the story. The first show for Wild Kingdom was named “Attack and Defense”, which is even then television, you know, like the dramatic part of… Read More
So I didn’t wanna take a chance, now I got to explain to you an eagle can’t look down at his leg. There’s set of (indistinct) around the leg, but the eagle does know he’s attached to anything. They had no idea of that, so that light line, nylon line… Read More