Here's another one my Dad was peripherally involved in...

Remember back when the movie industry was doing all these films about animals going crazy and attacking people? It really started with "Jaws". Then we had movies about grizzly bears, piranhas, flying piranhas, birds, frogs, worms, rats, chinchillas, whatever...

So, during the 80's sometime a Hollywood filmmaker comes to my Dad's design company with a script about alligators going crazy and attacking people en masse in the Everglades. The script was the usual terrible schlock, with lots of blood and explosives and action. The gators were to be led by a gigantic King gator who was about as long as a Greyhound bus and far meaner. The hero gets to battle it out in the climactic scene with the King gator. Uh-huh.

Well, in due course of time a truck arrived with about 30 fiberglass alligators in the back, including one monster specimen. These were to serve as the initial models on which to base a few actual working robots that would swim, open their jaws, roll their eyes, and so on.

This would have been an enormous project, quite beyond the capabilities of my father's company, in my opinion. Fortunately, the deal fell through, as Mr. Hollywood failed to secure necessary funding.

The fiberglass gators remained, stacked in a huge pile at the back of the model shop area. They got really dusty after awhile, but never failed to attract the attention of visitors.

My father finally closed the whole thing down in the early 90's, and was faced with the problem of what to do with the leftover machinery and other stuff. He sold most of it in an auction, but the gators remained.

He finally went to the Indian Band Office (Rama Reserve), on whose property the business had been located, and offered to give them the alligators.

They accepted!!! Most of the gators disappeared into people's back yards, and have served to amuse many children, but the King gator was displayed proudly on the front lawn of the chief's house for a number of years.

I kid you not.

There's a new chief now in Rama, and I'm not sure just where the gator is...but I daresay he's still around there somewhere.

- LH