DATE: Sunday, August 3, 1997                TAG: 9708010233

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E18  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   74 lines

CRITTERS ARE BOFFO BOX OFFICE

WHILE I WAS trying to take notes for this story, my pen was removed, gently, by Zachary. He smelled it, bit the end and then looked apologetically at me, as if to let me know he knew he shouldn't have done this. A clammy little paw pressed the pen back in my hand.

Zachary is a capuchin monkey, one of the stars of ``George of the Jungle,'' the Disney flick about a clumsy Tarzan-guy, played by Brendan Fraser. The movie is surprising everyone with its clout at the box office.

The monkey was accompanied by his trainer, Gary Gero, who runs an organization called Birds and Animals, Unlimited. All the Disney people have to do is pick up the phone. Gero, who lives with his animals outside Los Angeles, can deliver.

Zach, though, was not the star monkey. The veteran was Binks, from South America. He's appeared in ``Outbreak'' (causing an international virus scare) and ``Ace Ventura: Pet Detective'' (causing Jim Carrey to make faces).

``Binks got very attached to star Brendan Fraser,'' the trainer divulged. ``They were like playmates.''

``Binks tried to entertain at all times, and he expected instant rewards,'' said Fraser, who studied Binks' body language for his own character. He said he wanted to move like a monkey.

The biggest star, though, was Tai, an Indian elephant who is a veteran of 28 years in movies, including starring roles in ``The Jungle Book,'' ``Operation Dumbo Drop'' and ``Larger Than Life.'' Gero said Tai never missed a cue, but there was a mishap on the first day of shooting when a bird unexpectedly flew over, causing the elephant to swing its trunk and hit Fraser.

``I saw stars,'' Fraser said, ``but Tai actually apologized. I went over and, in a stern tone, said `Don't do that to me again.' Her trunk came up and she kissed me, kinda. I think that's what she was doing. You could tell that she really felt badly about it.''

Tai had hours of makeup every day, with artists applying gray and brown tones to keep her colors consistent. Between scenes, she lived in a double-truck trailer filled with hay. ``It isn't true that she works for peanuts,'' her trainer said.

Tai got major computer animatronic aide in portraying Shep, an elephant who thinks she's a dog. All of the dog movements came courtesy of Dream Quest Images, including scratching for fleas, wagging the tail and bounding across a field to fetch. Tai fetches tree trunks, not sticks.

Tim Landry, supervisor for the images, said, ``The real challenge was to make the computer images and the real Tai look like the same creature. We studied the movement of both dogs and elephants and found we had to make the movement slower to fit an elephant. It didn't look natural if the elephant moved too fast.''

The movie includes zebras, giraffes, water buffalo, ostriches and camels as well as such exotic birds as the hornbill and the African vulture. Gero claims that all animals used were carefully treated and supervised to ensure their health and happiness.

Ape, the wise gorilla who is George's butler, is no beast at all. It took 25 weeks to build that gorilla suit, complete with radio machinery and 17 separate motors in the head alone. Inside is actor Nameer El-Kadi, who had a similar assignment in ``Quest for Fire'' and ``Congo.'' The suit was designed by Jim Henson's Creature Shop only after a cast was taken of the actor's body and head.

No one got near a jungle. The film was done, mostly, at the Disney studio, even though the cast included chimps, orangutans, a South American ground sloth and a gibbon.

The biggest goof-off, though, was Tookie-Tookie, the bird. Trainer Gero slyly admitted, ``Well, she was new.''

Fraser said that ``Tookie-Tookie never once landed at the right place. She often crashed, but she did it with class.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

WALT DISNEY PICTURES

In ``George of the Jungle,'' veteran actor Tai plays an

elephant...the human actors astride Tai are Brendan Fraser (as

George), and Leslie Mann (Ursula).

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