Youth may be wasted on the young, but fame is definitely wasted on animal stars.
All the benefits of making it in Hollywood the bulging bank accounts, impossible dinner
reservations and endless groupies don't mean a thing to our four legged friends.
And when you strip away the perks, what's really left is the pressure to perform and
the dire consequences, if you don't.
Sadly, when it comes to Flipper, Mister Ed or Bubbles the Chimp, making it in Hollywood
was the worst thing that happened to them.
Michael Jackson's Bubbles
Once one of the most famous primates in the world, Bubbles was essentially joined at the
hip with music superstar Michael Jackson.
Since 2005, Bubbles has enjoyed a well-earned Florida retirement, but sadly, it took many
years to get there.
In the '80s, you couldn't blink without catching a glimpse of Bubbles.
The chimp slept in a crib in Jackson's bedroom at Neverland Ranch, and even used his toilet.
The King of Pop adopted Bubbles from a research facility in the early '80s, with one report
claiming Bubbles was previously ripped from the arms of his mother, as a baby.
But as Bubbles grew up, he grew unmanageable even attacking a young Rashida Jones at one
point, as she told Desus & Mero .
"I got attacked.
By just like any old monkey?
No by Bubbles.
Bubbles.
Michael Jackson"
The superstar soon unloaded him on an animal trainer, before the Center for Great Apes
welcomed him in in 2005.
The Today Show's J. Fred Muggs
Back in 1953 The Today Show was the new kid on the block, and it was tanking.
Host Dave Garroway wasn't moving the morning needle, so the news program brought in a chimp
to co-star.
J. Fred Muggs the chimpanzee instantly turned the show into a smash, by some accounts earning
NBC an extra $100 million in the process.
Viewers couldn't get enough.
But one person had his fill: Garroway.
According to rumor, the jealous co-host started lacing Muggs' orange juice with Benzedrine,
hoping to amp up the animal and create a scene on air.
Muggs would last five years on the show, surviving a rumor that he bit his co-star, as well as
engaging in on-set tantrums that became legendary.
Muggs was finally replaced by the younger Kokomo Jr., in 1957.
And by 1972, Muggs had retired from showbiz.
He now lives in Florida, still going strong in his sixties as of 2018.
Flipper's Kathy
Kathy the dolphin was one of five porpoises to play Flipper, and she was definitely the
one who met the saddest end.
According to animal rights activist and former dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry, she actually
chose to end her life rather than endure captivity.
O'Barry was actually the one to capture Kathy in the wild and train her into the Flipper
she would become.
As O'Barry recalls it, she swam into his arms, then held her breath and sank to the bottom
of her tank.
"She swam over, looked me right in the eye, took a breath, and just held it."
O'Barry told TIME,
"These are self-aware creatures with a brain larger than a human brain.
If life becomes so unbearable, they just don't take the next breath.
It's suicide."
Mister Ed's Bamboo Harvester
"Hello, I'm Mister Ed"
A horse is a horse, of course, of course…but Bamboo Harvester, who played Mister Ed on
the popular series for years, is also famous for the mystery surrounding his demise.
While Mister Ed has a permanent burial site in Oklahoma, series star, Alan Young, claimed
a stunt horse used for promotional shots, and who passed away in 1979 was the one actually
buried in Oklahoma.
The real Mister Ed allegedly met a much more sordid end nearly ten years earlier, according
to Young, one of Bamboo's caregivers accidentally administered a lethal dose of tranquilizer
in 1970.
Suffice it to say, the good people of Oklahoma weren't happy with the revelation.
One writer claimed, in Weird Oklahoma,
"Multiple dogs have played Lassie, and none of them are considered 'false' Lassies.
Therefore, we say Tahlequah is indeed the final resting place of everyone's favorite
talking horse."
Life of Pi's King
The American Humane Association has one job and that's to protect animals.
But, as The Hollywood Reporter uncovered in 2013, things aren't always what they seem.
Gina Johnson was a monitor for the AHA on the set of Life of Pi.
Her job was to make sure King the tiger, was treated responsibly.
During one particularly challenging shot, King had to swim in a tank of water, but something
went wrong.
As Johnson emailed a colleague in 2011,
"Last week we almost f------- killed King in the water tank.
[…] This one take with him just went really bad, and he got lost trying to swim to the
side […] damn near drowned.
[…] I think this goes without saying but DON'T MENTION IT TO ANYONE, ESPECIALLY THE
OFFICE!
I have downplayed the f--- out of it."
The AHA responded to the controversy, saying Johnson "probably overreacted" and pointed
to the fact that though he may have almost drowned, King "continued to work."
The Milo and Otis cats
Children's film, The Adventures of Milo and Otis, features a kitty cat and a puppy dog
who are best friends.
But if legend is to be believed, the truth is far darker.
According to The Cultural Gutter, when the film originally debuted in Japan in 1986,
it was geared toward adults, with a number of harrowing scenes that were eventually cut
from the American version.
Chatran the cat — renamed Milo for American audiences — was soaked in freezing cold
water, thrown over a waterfall and off a cliff into the ocean.
According to rumors, one of Japan's biggest animal-rights groups allegedly stated that
a third of the 30 cats used for the film did not survive filming.
While Columbia Pictures sweetened up the story for American audiences, many disturbing stunts
still made the final cut, but what really happened to the animals involved is something
we'll never know.