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ONG OF WILD LAUGHTER by Jack Couffer

ONG OF WILD LAUGHTER

By

Pub Date: April 29th, 1963
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Report repeated from the December 1, 1962 issue of the Bulletin when scheduled for earlier publication: ""Jack Couffer is an ex-zoologist who spent more than ten years filming wildlife and nature pictures for Walt Disney. His revelations should answer many of the questions about the techniques Disney's people use to accomplish their own kind of cinematic magic: how, for instance, an eagle named Lady comes to accept a funny little gosling as one of her own, how a wolf called Shadow is trained to cross a gaping abyss on a log not much wider than a toothpick, how a dog leaping for a doughnut can seem to be accomplishing a meaningful attack on a ferocious grizzly. Couffer has travelled with crew members to the Canadian Rockies, the Calapagos, the Grand Canyon, and Antarctica. He's been attacked by a jealous sea lion, mauled by a bellicose penguin, and humiliated at high noon by a cave full of urinating bats. He writes somewhat floridly and he's guilty constantly of an avowed pet peeve, anthropomorphizing. Nevertheless, his warmth and humor are fetching, his stories quite interesting, and his actors most appealing.