Filmed in Supermarionation by Stephen La Riviere

Author:Stephen La Riviere [La Riviere, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Century 22
Published: 2015-06-09T04:00:00+00:00

[77] What’s the chance of looking around the studios?’ We said, ‘Fine!’ and took him around the studio. When he came back he was absolutely full of it and he said to Derek, ‘So you’ve giving them an electric shock. What voltage are you using?’ Derek said, ‘Well, we’re being very careful. We’re only giving them 12 volts.’ He said, ‘12 volts!? 12 volts!? These animals have got very, very thick skin. Try turning it up to 60!’ So, we were all friends and when he left he said, ‘I’ve got two weeks holiday coming up. Could I come and work here and take care of the alligators?’ I said, ‘Yes’ and that was that.”

Electric shocks weren’t the only things used to keep the crocodiles in line, as Derek Meddings recalled on radio in 1993: “We used to sometimes put a little noose around them and pull them through the water because, like all animals, when you wanted them to do something they wouldn’t do it. We did have one large alligator which was something like five foot. I remember having it in the tank and I had to pull it towards the camera. […] We had it through a loop so that all you saw was the alligator coming towards you and the rope was concealed under the water. I stopped to regain my breath from tugging this thing through the water. And then I said to the crew, ‘OK, let’s go for another take,’ and I pulled the rope and there was nothing on the end. This thing had come free in the water. I’m sure it’s exaggerated but the crew reckon I leapt out leaving my boots in the water!”

Despite the reptiles’ extremely vicious appearance, only one member of the crew got seriously hurt. Lady Penelope was brought onto the set for a photo-shoot with the ‘alligators’ (even though she doesn’t actually appear in the episode) when one of them took a fancy to her and bit her leg off, leaving crew members frantically trying to remove the disconnected limb from the creature! The children were left unaware of the heroine’s major surgery, but any fears they may have had about the enormous creatures would have been dispelled at the end of the episode, when Tin-Tin presents Alan with “a special kind of pygmy alligator.” The final shot shows one of the miniature reptiles running around in a full (not puppet) sized bath, thus giving the game away!

Attack of the Alligators! was directed by David Lane, much to the annoyance of Alan Pattillo who, as the writer, had wanted to direct. The episode overran its allocated month’s filming. David Lane recalls: They had a closing date for the studio and I was shooting the alligator episode. That was the last episode to be shot (in 1965). Gerry said to me, “I don’t care what you’ve shot, we are closing the studio on Friday. So wherever you are, that’s it. End of story. We did a forty-eight hour shoot.

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