”: a torrent of animals facts, muddy pratfalls , and unbridled enthusiasm for learning about wildlife in a particularly hands-on manner. To see Martin engage in an elephant dung “snowball fight” in Africa or Chris laughingly get a face full of raw fish guts as he feeds a young alligator is to understand the brothers’ charm. Perpetually clad in cargo shorts, Chris always wears green shirts while Martin dons blue so kids can tell them apart.
So they set about making their own nature documentaries. After graduating from Duke University with a degree in zoology, Martin worked as a research assistant to the Duke Primate Center’s Dr. Kenneth Glander on a howler monkey project in Costa Rica, then for Dr. Patricia Wright at her field station in Madagascar, then for Dr. John Terborgh in the Peruvian Amazon.
That led to Maryland Public TV funding the production of a pilot that would go on to win best children’s film at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Festival, prompting a meeting with PBS’ head of children’s programming at the time, Alice Cahn. Eaton and the brothers expected a series order of a handful of episodes. PBS wanted 50.
“A few production managers at the beginning, during the planning phase, quit because they didn’t think it could be done,” recalls Chris. “Logistically, they didn’t think it could be done, because we had this puppet lemur that was going to sometimes be the real lemur and we were going to cut back and forth between them … It freaked out a lot of seasoned television professionals.”
But in the middle of filming the first season, “Zoboomafoo” encountered an existential crisis. The show’s Canadian production partner Paragon Entertainment hit financial troubles, recalls Eaton, leaving a set full of crew and animals — and future of the Kratts — in limbo. After a tense few days, PBS ultimately decided to take over the production, allowing the series to live on.
“The ‘yummy mummies,’” chuckles Knapp at the memory of some of the mail they would receive. “There was a fan letter from this woman, and she was saying, ‘I was looking at Martin’s big blue eyes.’ And so we’d [rib] Martin and say ‘Where’s your eyes, Martin? Where’s your eyes?’ … We wanted to hear from the kids, not from the mothers.”“Zoboo is the real star here,” Chris good-naturedly deflects, quickly pivoting to the show’s ratings.
While it may be one of their lesser known endeavors — scarcely anywhere to be streamed, the first season of the show is on DVD and the second was never properly distributed — Eaton says Season 1 of “Be the Creature” is “some of the best things they’ve done.”
Love those guys.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: harpersbazaarus - 🏆 467. / 52 Read more »
Source: Mirror Celeb - 🏆 476. / 51 Read more »
Source: hellomag - 🏆 24. / 68 Read more »
Source: MTVNEWS - 🏆 479. / 51 Read more »
Source: usweekly - 🏆 390. / 55 Read more »
Source: Mirror Celeb - 🏆 476. / 51 Read more »