November 2018 – Daktari TV Show

I got this email the other day:

I came across your wonderful Daktari retrospective website while looking for information on Africa USA. I run a website called startrekhistory.com, which delves into the production of the original series which ran from 1966 to 69. Part of the website is dedicated to location photography and one of the episodes, Shore Leave, was shot at Africa USA.

Best regards, Curt McAloney

He sent me this picture:

Many of the scenes were filmed around the pond which figures prominently in many Daktari episodes (I just saw it on Season 1’s “The Elephant Thieves.”) Others are filmed at the rock quarry in Soledad Canyon.

You can find out more about Africa USA (including the exact address) on Wikipedia. Using the address (8237 Soledad Canyon Road) I was able to find a listing on Realtor.com in 2012 with many new pictures. You can see it here.

I happen to be a Trekkie so I watched “Shore Leave” again the other night; it was cool knowing now where it was shot. There is some very interesting trivia on the episode on Wikipedia – in particular, this tidbit:

Production

Gene Roddenberry had been running flat out for two years without a break, first producing The Lieutenant, then selling Star Trek to NBC, and finally getting the series into production. Just after “Shore Leave” was approved for preproduction, his wife and doctor insisted that he take a vacation.

The script turned in by renowned science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon had emphasized the importance of fantasy as a component of relaxation, and the network was concerned that the script might be too surreal. Roddenberry assured the network that the script would be rewritten and the fantasy would be de-emphasized before he went on vacation. Unfortunately, this was not made clear to incoming operational producer Gene L. Coon, who did the rewrite and emphasized the fantasy aspect even more. Roddenberry returned the day before shooting was due to begin and realized that he had a problem.^[1] Sturgeon particularly objected to McCoy’s bringing back two women to the ship, believing it undermined the emotional tension between McCoy and Tonia.^[2]

The show was filmed in Africa USA, the same wildlife reserve where Daktari was filmed. Roddenberry set up shop under a tree with his typewriter, frantically rewriting and trying to stay ahead of the production crew. As a result, much of the dialogue is ad-libbed.^[3]

Even with Roddenberry’s rewriting, many of Coon’s and Sturgeon’s fantasy aspects remained, from an encounter with a samurai, to meeting a tiger (though the idea of Kirk wrestling the tiger was deleted, initially to the annoyance, but later to the relief, of William Shatner), and a scene using an elephant was cut before filming. (Gregg Peters, newly promoted to the rank of Assistant Director, had been detailed to take care of the elephant. During the shoot, the cast and crew teased him about the pachyderm, asking when it would be used. And for many years thereafter, when Peters attended Star Trek conventions, the fans would greet him with a chorus of, “Say, Gregg, when do you get to use your elephant?”) ^[4]

Because of Roddenberry having to rewrite the script on the fly, the episode took seven days to film instead of the usual six.^[5]