The old elephant pen in Naple's. In the early 70's Jungle Larry made the unwise management decision to hire three new people 2 from South Dakota and one from North Dakota to join another person from South Dakota already working at the African Safari. We all lived on the grounds of this wonderful jungle paradise in quaint housing provided by Jungle Larry's. Busch beer could only be had in Florida at the time and as we all had had our fill of Old Milwaukee, we would "sometime" over indulge. As young men tend to do, we would get stupid and do stupid things. If it was a moonless dark as pitch night we would go to the maintenance shop behind the show building and unplug the electric golf cart with a box on back that was used to deliver food to the animals as well as by the gardening crew. We would then drive over to this elephant pen and have time trial's racing the golf cart around the "jungle trails", starting and finishing at the elephants. One night Moon from South Dakota came around the corner to fast at the finish line and rolled the golf cart over, breaking the box off the back. We panicked, set he box back on the cart and took it back to the shop and plugged it back in, figuring no one would be the wiser. The next morning old Uncle Joe the black gardener who had worked at Caribbean Gardens for a couple of decades, loaded the box up with small banana trees, various other trees, shrubs, a bunch of case's of flowers and 6 buckets of grass seed. He backed out of the shop, put the cart in first gear and gunned it. The box sailed off the golf cart and slung trees, flower's, and seed all over the back lot. We all looked down at the ground, then quickly walked away to find something to do. I lowered my voice and asked Moon, "I thought you said you were going to come in early and reattach the box, you idiot." Moon alibied by saying "I did come in early, but I couldn't find a screw driver. Then the "Cowboy"(see below) wanted to go for breakfast at Lum's and I forget." Uncle Joe told Jungle Larry, "I know them boy's had something to do with this," but as there was no solid proof we were never brought up on charges. LOL
This elephant is Kiki who lived with Asian Babe when I worked for JL. The "Cowboy" trained this act which later included a chimpanzee riding with the lion.
A "handburger." Anyone who had the incredible experience of working for Jungle Larry, and a lot of future trainers did, will remember how he loved to perform and was quite a "hambone showman" with a unique schtick all his own. One of his "gags" in the lion act was to offer one of the lions a "handburger."
Jungle Larry and possibly Mark
Jungle Larry, and I believe it looks like Clark
Friday, March 9, 2012
The Tetzlaff's
Posted by
Wade G. Burck
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13 comments:
Nice thoughts on the 'ole' days.
As you say, the 'hambone' was fearless with his quips.
The one I cringed at the most was when a cat would crap during his routine and he would say clear and proud into the mike to the little blue haired ladies in the audience, "I said sit."
Those were the days. Dennis
Dennis,
He carried a squirt gun in his left rear pocket, when he couldn't get one of the males off it seat, and a 38 snub nose in his right rear pocket when he couldn't get them back on their seat. When he had to discharge the 38 he would tell the audience, "the water must have frozen." He made you play the "straight man" behind the door with the one foot by one foot mesh to see out. You were Dick Smothers and he was in his glory being Tommy. On busy day's he would give the Safari train drivers a heads up that he was going to come out of the "bush" either by the Vervet monkeys, the Celebes apes, or the White Palm walkway. The drivers were instructed to be on the look out and when he appeared they were to announce, "this is your lucky day ladies and gentleman. There is the world famous Jungle Larry now. He has been on a reptile capture safari in the Florida Everglades for the past week and has just returned." JL would wave, walk up, shake hands, and sign autographs. Corn fed hambone through and through.
Wade
Wade
Wade
Is that a champagne lion on the left?
Anonymous,
No it is not a Champagne lion, just light colored. JL had some beautiful "blond" lions. In the act picture above you can see one that I particularly liked, Bakuba on the far right. Some folks prefer the big black mane, but I have always liked the lions with big manes and little black. They were the one's JL exhibited as "Plains" lions.
Wade
Ok, we gave the old showman some post-mortem jazz but, as corny as he was, Larry had a sense of actually entertaining an audience.
Compare him to some of todays performers. I see more sour-pusses than showpeople now. They act like they have been forced into appearing in front of the audience.
One in particular was a recent cat act at Baraboo. The presenter never once acknowledged the full tent he could have entertained. Instead he made it clear he was bored to death with us and his tigers. Shame, shame.
Not one smile nor style the entire
17 minutes.
Dennis,
You said it, he loved performing and had a confident sense of himself. I was amazed over the years at how many people actually knew the name "Jungle Larry" and recalled his tv show with fondness. He was to the Cleveland area what Bozo was to Chicago without a doubt. No way can anybody convince me Jack Hanna didn't steal and mimic JL's schtick. JL was corn before the Crocodile took his first breath of air out of the womb.
Wade
Wade,
What became of Kiki?
Radar,
I have no idea, and oddly I just discovered there is nothing on the data base for Jungle Larry's African Safari, Caribbean Gardens, Naples Zoo, or Cedar Point? Kiki and Babe were gone when I went back to JL's in 1978 and they had three Africans named Wama, Rojo, and Duvu whom I also don't know what happened with them. That's your assignment, Mr. Phelps, should you decide to take it, find out why there is no record of Caribbean Gardens elephants.
Wade
Phelps reporting in:
I added the location and have six elephants in/out from Jungle Larry's so far:
Asian Babe; Africans Kiki, Congo, Wama, Rojo, Duvu
Wade, you asked Bob Cline, "Did Babe not get sold to Rex Williams?" I don't know if this is true, but it might help explain this picture of Kiki with Reed 2 in 1976.
>> http://bucklesw.blogspot.com/2006/04/roy-wells-1976-reed-2-and-kiki.html
Looks like the right size animal.
If the two of them were sold to Rex, they are gone by Circus Report's elephant census, published in January 1978. Only two Babe's are listed, one with Oscar Cristini and the other with D. Cristiani. I do not know who the latter is, nor who his two elephants 'Babe' and 'Suwan' were.
Wama, Rojo and Duvu have come up in conversations with several people, though it seems Duvu left earlier than the other two? Interesting stories of the two shooting up the 10 foot tall fence and teetering for a second at the top before toppling down and dashing for freedom on the other side. The same two performed in a leopard leash act.
Congo was reportedly sold to Peru, but the North American Regional Studbook for the African Elephant states she was retired to the Black Beauty Ranch / HSUS facility in Texas in 1989 where she died in 2001.
Radar,
Yes, I believe that is KiKi in the picture with Roy. Did Dallas Zoo have a Babe? I was told one time that was Jungle Larry's Babe. I don't know who trained Wama, Rojo and Duvu but they were probably the poorest trained elephants I have ever seen. By their personalities, I would be willing to bet a lot of "cowboy" went on.
Wade
According to the Studbook, the only Asian elephants Dallas had during the time frame was 'Mary' from Polack (1956-1981) and Savannah (1954-1981). Fort Worth had a 'Babe' but not until the 1990s. She was a former Circus World elephant.
Radar,
Where did the Circus World "Babe" come from?
Wade
Billy Smart.
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