Oh, the tea party turned out to be a fun, mixed bag. What happened was, again goes back to Frank Schmick, the park commissioner who had money, and time, and traveled, and enjoyed himself and came back one time from a visit to the London Zoo. And he said, “Fisher,”… Read More
I learned the hard way about not to move a chair in the studio ’cause there was a certain union for that. And not to try and change a light somewhere, there was a union for that. Not to pick up the carrying case, and a lot of learning went… Read More
And a lot of people would watch it having breakfast and then go to school. And I don’t remember quite how it came about, but someone from GN said, if I’d be willing to do a sorta five or eight minute insert twice a week in the Ray’s show. And… Read More
It went on for, I don’t remember now, 12 to 15 years. And I’d be walking around the zoo, and kids would be following me, singing the theme song about green alligators, and long-necked geese and stuff like that. Ray remained part of Chicago an icon, he was also in… Read More
And I’d say, no, thank you. And happily, in retrospect, our local station, WGN in Chicago pursued the fact that they thought Lincoln Park, Chicago Zoo, Chicago TV Station that they’d like to try and start up some things. So I told them, “If you go down “and talk to… Read More
But when Marlin left and went to St. Louis and I took over, of course, everybody wanted to know when I’m gonna be on television. And my answer was, at that particular moment in time negative, because by the time Marlin left, there were a lot of difficult ill-feelings between… Read More
So for, I would think can’t remember exactly, maybe a couple of years, when I’d be asked about, are we gonna do some TV work?… Read More
Oh, it turned out to be incredible. I never dreamed that it could or would be that. My television experiences are strange one because after all I followed Mr. Television of Chicago, the country, the world. My predecessor, Marlin Perkins was a full-time, incredible TV person. Marlin developed an early… Read More
Oh, I think that there’s no question that the contact was important. And I think that you develop a personal relationship with people over a period of time, and they know that they can call and you get an answer. So sure, over a period of time. Then when the… Read More
What kind of impact did your television appearances have on the zoo, in its development?… Read More
Was it important to have a continuing media presence for the zoo?… Read More
So I think that on balance, we came out on the plus side of the media issue, Mark. Read More
If I wasn’t, of course, I couldn’t. I felt that instead of having all the various professional staff and the animal care people interacting with the press, that it made a little more sense that they try to deal directly with me. And I think over the years, I found… Read More
We tried to deal openly and it paid off so that my recollections are that there are a few people in the media, and I can’t remember all their names, who had a special zoo interest. And they would come to the zoo on their own without necessarily being told… Read More
Well, I guess I can say in retrospect, I was truly fortunate. First of all, the zoo is not a separate entity. The zoo is owned and operated by the Chicago Park District, and the Park District had a full-time PR staff. So that these were people that looked after… Read More
We had an animal that was, I think, gonna go from Cleveland, I can’t remember if it was a male or female, to the Bronx Zoo in New York. And the newspapers got hold of the story and they decided to play it up, and pretty soon, next thing I… Read More
How did you define your role working with the press?… Read More
Some came from captive breeding, some had never bred. And the feeling was that this group were to tell other institutions how to move their animals around to encourage the national captive breeding program, and to minimize inbreeding. The problem with the gorilla SSP that I ran into very quickly. Read More
And how did that aid in the changing of the zoo philosophy about gorillas?… Read More
Well, it certainly was a first for me and for the gorillas, but it also was a forerunner of other species. The SSP means Species Survival Plan. And what that means is that if, for example, you’ve got two gorillas, and Joe down the road got three, and someone else… Read More