Part 2 of special report on animals with Daniel James (ZOOT), Caleb Ross (LEX), Meryl Cassie (EBONY) and animal trainer Carolyn Press
We asked some of the cast members to comment on their favourite animals in and out of the TribeŠ
“My favourite Tribe animal would be Lex the one eyed rat. He was really cool – white and with one red eye.” Caleb Ross
” Bob. He was trained to chase light so even when you shine a torch or the reflection on your watch he goes mad running around after it.” Daniel James
“Bob. He’s always well behaved on set and so friendly and my least favourite would be the pig. He smells and poos on set!” Meryl Cassie
Do you have a favourite scene that was shot with animals?
“In the flashback scene a had spiders and rats on me. I was more afraid of the rats than the spiders.” Meryl Cassie
“In series 1 Lex has to get rid of the cow. I had to shoo it away and it wouldn’t go. It just stood there. Everyone was screaming at the poor thing and it took ages. It was probably about a million takes to shoot this one tiny scene!” Caleb Ross
Daniel James says “Zoot didn¹t really have any scenes with animals. It would have wrecked his image man! But when I was filming The Enid Blyton Secret Series we had a Golden crested cockatoo called Goldie. It was massive, about the size of a rugby ball, if you could get a large rugby ball he’d have been that size.
One day when we were having lunch Goldie was sitting on my shoulder and we were all playing soccer and Goldie freaked out when the ball came towards us and it decided to use my nose to stop it from falling of. A very very painful experience.”
Insider information:
Bob always looks like he is looking at the camera or turning his head to look at the cast – but what he is really doing is following a light on the wall.
When the lamb was “born” he was already a week or two old. So he was painted with a mixture of jam and water to make it look like he was just being born.
When Ebony was being tortured by Spike, Meryl was more afraid of the rats than the spider.