“That’s Incredible!” TV Show




Years ago there was a national television show called “That’s Incredible”.
I was called by my manager at the time to see if I could add some magic to a segment they were shooting at “Victor’s Restaurant” in Manhattan. The segment involved a 300-pound orangutan named “Mr. Jigg’s” who, for the evening, was going to be their bartender!
With instructions from his trainer (off camera), Mr. Jiggs could actually mix requested drinks for people at the bar — even complicated blended drinks.
It was actually pretty amazing to watch — although more than one time he would go to hand the drink to a patron and as the patron reached for his drink, Mr. Jiggs would pull the drink away and down it in one shot! After downing a few of those drinks he then forgot to put the cover on the blender when he turned it on and we had to stop shooting so everything could be cleaned up!
The producer wanted to add as much as he could to “punch up” the segment. In one scene, the light-heavyweight champion of the world Roberto Duran would arm wrestle with Mr. Jiggs. In another scene I was asked to do something magical and surprising.
So in my scene, I went to the bar and asked Mr. Jiggs for a “Lite Beer”.
The Orangutan would hand me a glass and a bottle of beer and I would pour the beer into the glass and let go of it as the glass floated in mid-air above the bar as it was being filled! I then looked Mr. Jiggs in the eyes and said, “Wow, that really is a lite beer!” to which Mr. Jiggs would turn to the camera, grin and laugh…
Well, each scene took awhile to film and as time went on, this huge “monkey” got drunker and drunker. As big as he was, Mr. Jiggs seemed docile and friendly enough — in fact, I learned that he liked his head to be scratched.
So as I was talking to the producer, I was sitting on one side of the marble bar and Mr. Jiggs was on the other and I was scratching his head. I stopped scratching for a moment to describe to the producer what I was going to do and Mr. Jiggs immediately grabbed my hand and put it back onto his head! Hey — I wasn’t going to argue with a 300-pound drunk “gorilla”, so I kept scratching!
As I talked, the 300-pound drunk mammal reached over with his arm and patted my head like he was saying “Good boy…”.
As I was talking, Mr. Jiggs reached over to pat my head again and suddenly grabbed my head and banged it down to the marble bar and everyone — including the patrons and film crew — jumped back in shock!
I was shaken, but fine. As I sat up and looked at everyone, Mr. Jiggs just laughed and laughed…
We shot the scene and it went well, but I learned the old showbiz adage the hard way…
… never work with animals!

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