Volume 1, No. 20. November 20, 2001
Truth semen
Terry Wolf, wildlife director at
the Lion Country Safari in Loxahatchee, Florida, has become something of a television
star as the butt of many jokes, a phrase you can take quite literally in this
case. With a stint on Comedy Central already to his credit, Wolf will appear
today on the television game show To Tell The Truth where the panel will
determine which of three contestants is the real African elephant semen extractor.
If everybody is entitled to 15 minutes of fame, Wolf is reaching 30-plus minutes,
a path to notoriety that passes through the urethra of Bulwagi, Lion Country
Safari's 20-year-old bull elephant. He can thank the zoo's director of public
relations and marketing, LJ Margolis, who first heard of Wolf's work during
her interview for the job. "Immediately my little mind went 'Press! Press! Press!'"
she said. Though her superiors at the zoo weren't sure semen extraction was
the kind of story a family park should tell, the local newspaper got a hold
of the story a couple months later: "I don't know how," Margolis said with more
than a dribble of slyness in her tone.
Local press coverage led to a morning radio show broadcasting a live profile
on Wolf and Bulwagi and posted photos on its web site. Stuff, a magazine
for men, picked up on the photos and ran a story, which caught the attention
of Jon Stewart's The Daily Show on Comedy Central. "They didn't make
fun of the animals, they made fun of me," Wolf said of his Daily Show
segment, which tracked Wolf as if he were an endangered species, being as how
he is an elephant semen extractor. "I was kind of concerned because they can
make you look like a jerk real easily. They told me they wouldn't do that, and
they didn't."
Next, To Tell the Truth came calling, and not only did the producers
put Wolf and two impostors on their show, they used this particular segment
as part of their fall sweeps campaign. Wolf had 30 minutes to coach his fellow
contestants, one of whom sells peanuts at Dodger Stadium. "The two people I
had with me really paid attention and tried," he said. For a schedule of the
show's airing, visit http://www.totellthetruth.tv/tune_in.html.
Ours being a virtual publication, we'll attach a paragraph below with the game's
results after today's airings have concluded.
His occupation may garner the initial attention of show business, but Wolf's
personality and quick wit make for a good fit with his comic hosts. "When the
high point of my day is massaging an elephant's prostate, you have to look at
the bright side," he said. He partners with semen extractors working with two
bulls in "a little zoo in Orlando" (i.e., Disney's Animal Kingdom), but, he
boasts, "Frankly, Bulwagi's semen is the best."
"Terry lets me ridicule him on
national television and he just grins about it," Margolis said. "Every zoo PR
person should be so fortunate as to have a Terry Wolf to work with."
As for his own fame, Wolf sees it as advancing education about the elephant
artificial insemination program itself, which has resulted in a total of five
pregnant cows since April at Six Flags Marine World in Vallejo, California,
and the Toledo Zoo in Ohio. "Anything for baby elephants: that's my motto,"
he said. "Anything we can do to educate people, whether it's comedy, nature
shows, THE LOOP, whatever it takes, that's fine with me. My ego is such it can
take a little kicking around, anyway." He's also keeping his minutes of fame
in perspective. "I'll be a lot prouder when those baby elephants are born."
Fooled a
few
The segment opened with Kelly Crofton,
a hostess at an Italian Steakhouse, holding up her armed sheathed to the shoulder
in a plastic glove and saying, "My name is Terry Wolf, and I use this to help
make baby elephants." The third contestant, Terry Wolf himself, is 6-foot, 6
inches tall, and when he held up his gloved arm it likely sealed his fate. "All
three panelists who picked me said it had to be me because I had the longest
arms," he said. The other panelist and the audience voted for No. 2, Mort Rose,
the peanut vender at Dodger Stadium. Ironically, Wolf received the fewest audience
votes, 27 percent, behind Rose's 38 percent and Crofton's 35.