Play School's Elaine Hudson, Don Spencer & Jan Kingsbury at Taronga Zoo early 1981 or could of been filmed in 1980 possibly (aired May '81). Initially thought was 1983 but wasnt when posted snippets of in 1983. Thanks again Zoofan' and Jambo for your insight at the time if you don't mind when you get a chance could you post again your info on at the time. Given was filmed 2 years earlier than had thought when posted snippets in Oct 2023, think the baby hippo must be the calf before Louise was born.
Trimmed down the episode so its just the animal footage with very little music and talking. First 7.5 minutes are the parts might be interested in watching: the
giraffes; the
chimp troop (interestingly cant tell if they had the exhibit to themselves or were still sharing with the jackals at the time, the latter certainly dont appear in the footage); a female
hippopotamus and her
baby; lovely Ranee the
elephant; the family of
spider monkeys; Don with keeper Gary/Garry feeding the
lion trio (1.2) in the old pit exhibit & 1.0 Quintus the
tiger in neighbouring old pit exhibit; followed by Elaine throwing fish with the pinniped keepers to the
sea lions in one of old pinniped pools during feeding time. After that its Jan on a lawn with keeper Debbie, meeting a
ringtail possum named Jack, a baby
bluetongue lizard & a
long-neck turtle in one of the interaction programs they ran for the kids back then; then with keeper Marion in the wildlife nursery with rescued orphaned male
wallaroo joey named Sky and orphaned 10-11 month old baby
bare-nosed wombat, and a rescued female (think
eastern grey)
kangaroo joey who gets a checkup by zoo vet Gary Redcliffe (the three of them are so cute); then the old farmyard area of the zoo (
pony named Turpin,
donkeys,
red kangaroos,
goats,
cows,
ducks and
turkey).
It's a sweet video though and posted the link for the full episode on the youtube page if anyone wants to show their kids as like classic Play School its still good watching for youngsters, even episodes from nearly 45 years ago.
); was something to do with a breeze (Antarctic one? from the south? believed would prevent health and discomfort issues for the giraffes during Hallstrom's time hey {possibly did}, but blocked the famous harbour view).