October 2014 – Daktari TV Show

Our resident expert Ken Lynch provides some answers:

Judy’s television appearances

Judy appears to have featured in a lot of movies and TV shows prior to her part in Daktari. In particular, she appeared in two movies The Monkey’s Uncle (alongside Cheryl Miller – and including playing the tambourine on stage with The Beach Boys in the opening scene!) and Fluffy, several Flipper episodes, the Clarence The Cross-Eyed Lion film as well as the movie Birds Do It. She also appeared in quite a few Lost In Space episodes while still filming Daktari.

Addendum: It has come to my attention that Judy in fact, did not play Debbie the Bloop. According to Phil Heaton, Ralph Helfer (Judy’s trainer) posted on his Facebook page on August 8, 2019 that she had not played that role. Be sure and read his comments below for more interesting information on Judy and the chimp who played Debbie.

Post Daktari

After Daktari, I am only aware of one TV show in which she appeared – Ivan Tors’ Jambo alongside former Daktari ‘co-star’ Marshall Thompson. I found this link to a newspaper article from October 1969 that has quite a bit of information about this TV series (which eventually ran from 1969 to 1971) and mentions Judy several times.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&dat=19691010&id=cu1OAAAAIBAJ&sjid=tQEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2662,4345443

This video from Jambo features a preview for next week’s episode and closing theme to the Saturday morning anthology series that ran from 1969 to 1971. The show was a companion series to the prime time series, Daktari. (from YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHnNTNqxYcw)

Apparently, Judy also spent some post-Daktari time at an animal training school.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1356&dat=19690317&id=XIZPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=cAUEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3348,2806862

Ripe old age?

I also found an anonymous entry on the internet that suggests that Judy may have still been alive as late as 1979 (“I also used to care for Judy the Chimp from Daktari when the place in Grand Prairie was called International Wildlife Park in 1979. She was a very good girl. I remember asking her to gather up her orange peels and she would do it without hesitation. She would then bring them to me and hand them through the fence. She mostly stayed inside, and was turning gray.”)

I think the only way to confirm some of this detail, including when and how Judy died, would be to suggest that an enquiry be made to Ralph Helfer via his Facebook page or direct email as he seems to be very responsive to talking about his former pets. I’m sure he would be happy to provide some comment on Judy’s latter years.

Very cool! If you sign up for a free trial on the Warner Brothers site you can watch Daktari Season One online! Plus the other videos that Warner Brothers offers. Great way to catch up on favorite old TV shows that you can’t see anymore.

I wonder if a smart TV can pick this up? Anybody know?

Here’s the site: http://instant.warnerarchive.com/episodicproduct.html?productId=128979&ref=WACFBDAKPG&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Post&utm_campaign=WACFBDAKPG

Here’s where you can purchase the DVD: