25 Animal Magic

First  watched : Uncertain

Animal  Magic  came  back  for  its  latest  run  on   Tuesday  25th  November  1969. It  had  been  going  since  1962.

There's  a  popular  misconception  that  presenter  Johnny  Morris  was  the  real  life  keeper  at  Bristol  Zoo  who  became  a  TV  star  through  force  of  personality  but  that's  not  true  at  all. He  had  a  varied  career  as  a child  musician, solicitor's  clerk  , building  inspector  and  salesman  before  settling  on  a  farm  in  Wiltshire. He  made  his  debut  as  a  humorous  raconteur  on  BBC  Radio  just  after  the  war  and  enjoyed  a  parallel   career  to  his  farming  on  regional  radio  in  the  1950s. In  1960  he  was  engaged  to  narrate  Tales  of  the  Riverbank   and  Animal  Magic  followed  two  years  later. Despite  being  46  when  it  started  and  looking  somewhat  like  a  leathery  old  gnu,  Morris  immediately  connected  with  TV  audiences  and  the  show  was  a  success. His  onscreen  role  might  have  been  a  fiction  but  he  was  confident  in  handling  animals  through  his  farming  and  the  trick  worked

I  found  it  the  most  aggravating  of  programmes. Natural  history  was  another  early  interest  of  mine  and  the  paucity  of  factual  content  on  the  show  ( at  least  during  the  period  I  was  watching ) while  Johnny  did  his  Dr  Dolittle  thing  was  a  constant  source  of  frustration. The  comedy  was  feeble  and  all  the  animals  spoke  with  an  undifferentiated  West  Country  accent. I  don't  know  exactly  when  I  gave  up  on  it  but  it  was  probably  early  on.

The  series  ran  until  1983 when, in  an  early  example  of  what  you  might  call  political  correctness , it  was  axed  because  anthromorphism  ( attributing  human  qualities  to  animals )  was  deemed  unethical. Morris  didn't  take  it  very  well  and  never  worked  with  the  BBC  again. An  OBE  in  1984  was  little  consolation. He  busied  himself  with  environmental  work, did  the  odd  voiceover  for  commercials  and  briefly  re-surfaced  to  oppose  the  Newbury  By-Pass  but  was  generally  out  of  the  public  eye. In  the  mid-90s  he  appeared  on  Mariella  Frostrup's  video  review  show  to  talk  about  a  highlights  tape  ( although  most  editions  of  Animal  Magic  had  been  wiped )  and  was  still  narky  about  the  demise   of  the  show. He  was  on  the  verge  of  a  comeback  with  ITV  in  Wild  Thing  at  the  age  of  82  when  he  died  of  diabetic  complications  in  1999.