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Dan Haggerty on working with animals on the set of The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams
"If a writer wants a hippopotamus in a Jeep, you try to do it," said Haggerty.
While plenty of actors can easily gain a reputation for being temperamental on set, the diva-like behaviors of human performers pale in comparison to those of animal performers.
Obviously, an animal working in front of the camera isn't a new or novel idea; animals have performed in film and television for decades. Animal trainers spend their entire careers preparing animals to work on production sets. However, safety is the number one priority in any situation, and while some animals can certainly look cute and cuddly on set, it's important to remember that we're still watching wild creatures who have the potential to lash out and harm.
As an animal trainer himself, Dan Haggerty understood the effort it took to bring these creatures to the screen. Haggerty also starred in the series The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, where he frequently found himself acting opposite animals, as his character struggled to survive in the wild.
"If a writer wants a hippopotamus in a Jeep, you try to do it," said Haggerty during an interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The actor explained that he and the animal trainers on set worked hard to make their job look easy to an audience. "Animals get the glory and nobody wants to know how it was done," said the actor. "Writers can be brutal. They keep demanding more and more. Nobody has done what we've done with a grizzly bear, nobody."
Haggerty himself wanted to focus less on the animal aspect of the series and more on the humanity, though it put him at odds with those higher up in the series. "While Dan's ideas are good, we keep wondering if that's what the audience wants," said series producer Jim Simmons during an interview with the Des Moines Tribune. "I don't think the stories are all that important to the show. What's important is that audiences are tuning in to see the beauties of nature, and we are giving them shows that don't involve violence or men threatening men and animals."
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