Talk:Marine World/Africa USA

message: much of this article is utter nonsense. the park opened as marine world in 1968, it did not start as africa USA then 'merge' with marine world. there's no evidence that daktari was ever shot there, nor any star trek episodes. sorry, but the article is too broken for me to fix, maybe someone who has time and a clue can actually make it right. Anastrophe 03:41, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: unless you can provide a link to a verifiable source - not one that ultimately returns back to this article - all this other stuff unsourced, and i have removed it. i googled and googled and googled - and all the references either returned here eventually, or were to dead ends that provided no source (like the IMDB page that lists it as a shooting location for daktari - the entry is user-provided with no source, and likely they got the idea from this article again! Anastrophe 18:44, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: that only bolsters the facts as i've presented them. marine world/africa usa is in northern california, not southern california. it is 400 miles away from the afica usa site that page references. Anastrophe 18:49, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: furthermore, the site you references states that africa usa was created by Ralph Helfner, not Ivan Tors as the former version of this article incorrectly states! Anastrophe 18:52, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

text: excellent, thanks for the acknowledgement. i'll happily concede that the show may not have been shot in mozambique, although the liner notes seem to be a reasonably reliable source. perhaps it was shot in both locations?? Anastrophe 19:02, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

text: *I see this is the source that apparently claimed "Gentle Ben" was filmed at the first Africa USA complex. I don't think that's a particularly "excellent source" since it's not saying where it got this information and there are plenty of book sources with actual interviews by people involved in these shows.  Still, as far as I can tell that website is right about Daktari and the "Shore Leave" episode of "Star Trek" being filmed at least in part at Africa USA (there was some actual Africa footage in Daktari, and some footage from Vasquez Rocks in "Shore Leave").  I am still dubious about "Gentle Ben" being filmed there for the reasons I stated in the separate section on "Gentle Ben" below - plus the actors have given interviews saying that episodes of "Gentle Ben" were filmed really fast so they would be doing the whole thing in Florida I'd imagine, not getting additional footage at Africa USA...but still looking for an actual book, newspaper article, or something more than a website focusing on a different show and just mentioning "Gentle Ben" in passing to confirm that any of "Gentle Ben" was actually filmed at Africa USA in Soledad Canyon.TheBlinkster (talk) 16:53, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Nonsense?

message: I am thinking about merging this entire article to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom#History. The content is basically redundant. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 03:02, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge 

message: The thing that sticks out to me is that it says all of the animals died during the flood in Soledad Canyon, when in both "Beauty of the Beasts" and "Zamba", written by Ralph Helfer, he says ultimately only 9 animals died and the rest were all eventually recovered. I'd like to change this, but first know if anybody has evidence that supports what is currently up there before I do. The original facility he had was near Thousand Oaks in the Santa Monica Mountains, then he moved to the one in Soledad Canyon. I'm unsure of the dates, only that this happened between the 1950's and 1960's. I'm unsure if the original facility in Thousands Oaks was Africa USA, he just refers to it as the "ranch", where his affectionate training facility chain started. Not sure it's worth the mention in this particular article though. Otherwise, good on the Africa USA end. --Zen (talk) 03:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Soledad Canyon

message: I copy this from a removed edit by Arlene Zinkel of the main page because it is interesting stuff and if it could be sourced from valid documentation it could lead to good additions to the article. Judy was euthanized in 1999 due to arthritis attributed to leg deformities at age 33. Hektor (talk) 00:22, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: ABC Marine World

message: Do you have a source for the claim that Gentle Ben was filmed at Africa USA?  From what I've read, I know Daktari and some other Ivan Tors shows were shot at Africa USA, also that Africa USA provided the animals used on these shows and also on Gentle Ben.  However, everything I've read about Gentle Ben says it was filmed in Florida.  Which makes sense, as Gentle Ben was set in the Florida Everglades, so you would need a landscape that looks like Florida.  There are many books and articles describing how the bears would get very hot because they weren't used to the temperatures in Florida, how the main bear Bruno lived in an apartment in Miami with trainer Monty Cox, and how the Ivan Tors film studio in Miami was used for many of the scenes.  The filming locations I've found referenced so far for Gentle Ben besides the Ivan Tors studio include a remote area outside Miami, a botanic garden in the Miami area, and for at least one episode, the Miami Seaquarium.  I also have information that after the flood mentioned in this article (during which Bruno, the main bear who played Gentle Ben, was washed away and not found for two days) they relocated Bruno to Florida permanently and also eventually relocated a number of other Gentle Ben bears to the Homosassa Springs Attraction in Florida where Ivan Tors was planning to have an animal training facility. 
So if any of Gentle Ben besides maybe initial screen tests was actually filmed at Africa USA in California, I'd be interested in seeing a citation to a source.  I'm trying to fix up the Gentle Ben article.  Thanks, TheBlinkster (talk) 03:04, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gentle Ben filming location 

message: In doing research regarding Gentle Ben and its star Bruno the Bear, I happened to notice this discussion on the Daktari website.  In the comments, Ken Lynch (who contributes a lot of material to the Daktari fan site) states that he contacted Shambala Preserve and was told that they are NOT located on the former Africa USA complex, but rather on property acquired from Ron Oxley. https://daktaritvshow.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/the-story-of-africa-u-s-a-and-its-proprietors-animal-trainer-ralph-helfer-and-daktari-producer-ivan-tors/
I know from my own research that in the 1970s, Ron Oxley, who formerly had been an animal trainer working with Steve Martin and others on Gentle Ben and probably other productions, obtained a permit (with someone named Clyde Totten) to have an animal facility in Soledad Canyon near Saugus, "about a mile east of the ill-fated Africa USA complex" (source: "Wild Animals Will Get New Home", Los Angeles Times, Feb. 22, 1972).  Oxley's permit stated the address of his new facility as "7433 Soledad Canyon Road".  If you look on Google Maps, 7433 Soledad Canyon Road is at least a half mile west of Shambala Preserve, which is not only shown on the Google Map but has an address on its website of 6867 Soledad Canyon Road. So if Shambala Preserve is east of 7433 Soledad Canyon Road, and 7433 Soledad Canyon Road was a mile east of Africa USA, then it's pretty clear that Shambala and the former Africa USA are not on the same location...just what Shambala reportedly said to the person who wrote in. 
In the early 1970s, Ron Oxley was the trainer of Neil the Lion.  Oxley was also a friend of Tippi Hedren and was the one who suggested that she should get to know lions by having Neil the Lion live in the house with her and her family (including Melanie Griffith).  There's a recent Daily Mail article about all this here.  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2797870/tippi-hedren-reveals-regrets-letting-beast-share-family-home-letting-sleep-daughter-melanie-griffiths-bed.html  Therefore, it makes sense that Hedren would have bought land from him to open the Preserve.  It would not make much sense to operate the preserve on the former site of Africa USA because that place had already had at least one devastating flood (possibly more than one, I'm trying to sort that out, but at least one). 
I note that the source cited in the article for Shambala Preserve being the former Africa USA just links to the Shambala website - not to any specific source that says Shambala is on the site of the former Africa USA. Therefore I'm tagging that statement with "disputed-inline" .  This is significant partly because people might travel there wanting to see the filming location for Daktari (as the Daktari fan site points out), or even the "Shore Leave" episode of Star Trek, and despite some misinformation on the web to the contrary, Shambala Preserve location is not the location where that stuff was filmed. 
Edited to add, I see that the Bonanza website I am already questioning with respect to the claim about filming of "Gentle Ben" also claims Shambala Preserve renovated the former Africa USA site.  Two pieces of questionable info without a source cited on that website, in my mind, make it an untrustworthy source despite whoever is claiming that it's "excellent"...it's not excellent, it's not even good.  Maybe for Bonanza info but not for anything else! 
Side note:  I think at this point the article as regards the 1960s "Africa USA" animal training complex needs to split off from the rest of the article being about later tourist attractions. "Africa USA" as it's known to fans of the Ivan Tors animal shows and people who've read the books by people like Ralph Helfer and Pat Derby is a completely different thing than what this article seems to be about. TheBlinkster (talk) 16:43, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: *Ok, I've just found the 1968 address for "Africa USA" in a newspaper article:  8237 Soledad Canyon, Saugus, California.  (Source: "Fun and Games" (newspaper column), Long Beach (California) Independent, July 1, 1968, p. 1.) Again, if you google map this, you can see it is quite a distance west of Shambala Preserve.  I hope this puts the whole "Shambala is located on Africa USA site" business to rest.  TheBlinkster (talk) 17:58, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shambala Preserve is not on the site of the former Africa USA complex