NEWS REAL\Wart hog heaven\For Disney artists, inspiration comes from the L.A. Zoo.Byline: Terry Hardy Daily News Staff Writer It's hard to think of a wart hog wart hog a grotesquely ugly member of the family Suidae, or wild pigs. They have large wart-like structures on the face, enormous sickle-shaped tusks, a misshapen head and run with their long tail held rigidly erect. Called also Phacochoerus aethiopicus. , who spends its time wallowing in mud, as glamorous. But the wart hog, a tunnel-digging meerkat meerkat: see mongoose. meerkat or suricate Colonial species (Suricata suricatta) of the mongoose family (Herpestidae). It is a burrowing carnivore found in southwestern Africa that differs from mongooses in having four (rather than and a lion stretching in the dirt at the Los Angeles Zoo The Los Angeles Zoo founded in 1966, is a large zoo located in Los Angeles, California, USA. The Zoo, located in Los Angeles' Griffith Park, is home to 1,200 animals from around the world. are inspiration for movie-star personalities. Walt Disney's artists spend countless hours at the Griffith Park Griffith Park is a large public park at the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains. It is situated in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The park covers 4,210 acres (17 km²) of land, making it one of the largest urban parks in North America. zoo sketching the denizens there for animated movies such as "The Lion King," "Beauty and the Beast Beauty and the Beast is a traditional fairy tale (type 425C -- search for a lost husband -- in the Aarne-Thompson classification). The first published version of the fairy tale was a meandering rendition by Madame Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, published in ," "Fox and the Hound," "Rescuers Down Under," "Jungle Book" and "Robin Hood Robin Hood, legendary hero of 12th-century England who robbed the rich to help the poor. Chivalrous, manly, fair, and always ready for a joke, Robin Hood reflected many of the ideals of the English yeoman. ." Zoo administrator Manuel Mollinedo said the exposure "has had a dramatic impact on the animals' popularity. You'll see children rushing over to the meerkats and the wart hogs because they were in 'The Lion King.' "And the wart hogs in particular are not the typical animal that kids go out of their way to see. I even hear children walking around singing the songs from the movie." At a time when the troubled zoo has struggled to upgrade its facility while coping with limited revenues and low attendance, the association with Disney films is one of its few bright spots. "They see our name at the end of the movie in the credits, and I think it helps to subliminally change people's opinion," Mollinedo said. Animators from the Burbank studio frequently can be seen sketching on the grounds; all they need to do is flash their credentials to gain entry to the nearby zoo. "Sometimes there's only so much you can grasp from a book or a video," said Mike Surrey, supervising animator for the meerkat Timon in "The Lion King." "At the zoo, you can look at them in three dimensions, smell them, get a good sense of what they're like. It's always easier to draw from life." FILM The popular Italian film "Il Postino" ("The Postman") will be released in 250 theaters beginning Friday - the widest release yet for a foreign movie, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Miramax, the distributor. The 250-screen release surpasses the wide distribution of the Mexican movie "Like Water for Chocolate," which played in 180 theaters at its peak in 1992. Miramax also is waging a campaign to bring "Il Postino" to the attention of academy members who will be making Oscar nominations. CAPTION(S): PHOTO Photo (1--2) Above The result of hours spent by Disney artists at the Los Angeles Zoo "The Lion King's" Pumbaa the wart hog, left, and his meerkat sidekick The first popular popup program for DOS PCs, introduced by Borland in 1984. Sidekick included a calculator, notepad, calendar, phone dialer and ASCII table and popularized the concept of a terminate and stay resident (TSR) utility. , Timon. Right A tunnel-digging meerkat can be an inspiration. David Crane/Daily News (3) BROOKS |
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