Thursday, October 06, 2011

Tarzan The Ape Man #2

One of the first animal sequences involves some hippos that menace the safari led by Jane’s father (C. Aubrey Smith) and his young partner (Neil Hamilton – best remembered as Commissioner Gordon from the 1960s BATMAN TV series.) In one scene, four hippos advance in a body on the principals. It is my understanding that, in 1931, hippos were still not overly plentiful on the West Coast. If that was the case, where and how were the filmmakers able to come up with four of them for this scene?
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Posted by Buckles at 10/06/2011 04:59:00 AM

5 comments:

Richard Reynolds said...

MGM’s Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) used 7 circus hippos belonging to Ringling, 6 common hippos and one pygmy. They were - -

Lotus, female - - From Al G. Barnes based across town in Baldwin Park. She was the oldest having joined Gollmar Bros. in 1903.

Tambon (or Bontam), male - - From Sells Floto circus in Peru. He was acquired as a calf for the 1911 season. He arrived in Denver with his dam in Nov. 1910, but she seems to have died before the 1911 season got underway as there is no record of two hippos with SF. Tambon was virtually hand raised and was, therefore, quite imprinted by humans. That may explain why he was such an unusually tractable adult male, often photographed out on the lot with folks.

Alice, female - - From Hagenbeck Wallace circus in Peru. She was acquired by that show in 1915 and was with it through 1935. She gave birth to three viable calves.

Jimmy, male pygmy hippo - - From Peru winter quarters. He was the first circus pygmy hippo in USA. He was acquired by H-W around 1923. Was loaned to the Honest Bill motorized show in ’24 becoming the first hippo on a truck show. He also saw service on SF and lastly John Robinson which did not tour in 1931.

Victor, male - -. From Peru, winter quarters. He was acquired from the National zoo in 1921 by Mugivan and Bowers for their Howe’s Great London and Van Amburg show that was framed at the Hall Farm. He was on John Robinson later in the 1920s. He was a huge, tough male by the time of the movie.

Pinky, female. - - From Peru winter quarters. She was born to Alice while on the road with H-W in 1928. She does not seem to have toured after 1931. In the cut down after H-W was shelved in 1936, Pinky was sold by RBBB to Cole Bros. She was with it in 1936-38 and on it subsidiary Robbins Bros in the last part of 1938. She was sent to National zoo in trade for a pygmy hippo in 1939.

Unnamed calf - - From Peru. Born to Alice on H-W on the road in during 1931.

Not long after H-W and SF got back to quarters at the end of their respective 1931 tours, the animals were shipped to Los Angles for the filming. System baggage cars were used. In addition to the hippos there were elephants and zebras. Gordon Potter was on hand to witness the loading.

The hippo filming took place on Lake Sherwood, near Thousand Oaks, CA. From all that appears a series of stockades were constructed to house the hippos on the shore of the lake.

The huge male Victor smashed though to an adjoining pen and killed the pygmy Jimmy whose body was sent to the Los Angeles Natural History Museum. Victor also mixed it up with the older male Tambon and injured him badly. The late Col Woodcock told Joe Bradbury that Tambon never fully recovered. He went out with Sells Floto in 1932 but died right after the end of that tour, its last one ever.

Another casualty was the baby born in 1931. It stayed too long in the lake, contracted pneumonia and died.

MGM paid for the losses. The fees for the animal rentals must have been welcome income for the shows in that dreadful economic year.

I should add that in 1931 there was not a single hippo residing in California except Barnes’ Lotus. The first zoo hippo out there was Puddles that San Diego zoo got from Brookfield zoo in 1936.

06 October, 2011 19:32
Ole Whitey said...

This is an excellent account of this subject- Many thanks, Richard

07 October, 2011 03:27
Little John said...

Filthy Phil was a great elephant man, he drifted to CW and there perhaps saw his first elephant and thus found his gift to the world. This was years after Captain left for the bigger and better. Phil's claim to fame would be in some archive video of the first successfully filmed elephant birth filmed a CW. He must have lost his belt that day because his butt crack upstaged the whole event. After Monaghan sold the park to baseball, Phil got a job at the Central Florida Zoo. He thought he was hired to muck out the barns but discovered that he had been hired as the man in charge of what… maybe three cows? The name Babe comes to mind, but how many elephants have shared that name. Well Phil went to work on some badly neglected toenails, opened up a ride, and became a hero. My facts surely are jumbled so feel free to jump in. Anyway speaking of Hippo’s, when I went to visit Phil at the zoo, he gave me a couple of heads of cabbage and we went to the Hippo pound that was surrounded with do not feed the animal signs. Half of this pound was covered with lily pads and there was no hippo to be seen. You can probably imagine better than I can describe the wave from the pound when this Hippo knew that heads of cabbage were coming. Seeing the mouth of this Hippo the myth that a Hippo once swallowed a midget has much more creditability to me now.

07 October, 2011 22:46
Tony Greiner said...

With Carson and Barnes #2 in 1978 (Johnny Frazier, general manager) I drove the hippo truck. 'Albert' for 'Fat Albert' was on lease from Carson and Barnes. He loved to have his tongue scratched- and would open his mouth for me, and I would reach in and make my fingers like claws and scratch away. It is a wonder I still have arms. I had a lot of adventures with Albert that year.

07 October, 2011 23:29
Anonymous said...

When Shorty Hinkle left CBCB in 1974 his shot gun (me) took over chauffeuring Ms Otto from town to town.
I even got to move into the Hippo sleeper and was gently rocked to sleep every night.

My thank you gift to her the next season was a three day stay at South of the Border (on the way to Commack), blown engine.

The only rule was "the fat lady don't dance on the highway"

08 October, 2011 20:01

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