All in the family: ‘Meerkat’ is the best show on TV
By Ryan Robinson
Updated Feb 19, 2007 15:52
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then this column is for you: You’ve been missing the best show on television.
The above-mentioned characters are cute little meerkats on Animal Planet’s “Meerkat Manor.”
It’s not just another animal show, but a real-life action thriller/soap opera — minus the lipstick.
Animal Planet bills it as “All My Children meets Wild Kingdom” and its series premiere in June reportedly was the cable channel’s biggest-ever.
I tend to watch television only if someone is hitting a ball, shooting a ball or tackling someone carrying a ball.
Animal Planet sometimes baby-sits my kids while I make dinner and that’s how I got exposed to and addicted to Meerkat.
Every Friday at 8 p.m., I ask my 5-year-old son: “Guess what’s on TV?”
Wyatt rolls his eyes, acting like he’s not as hooked as I am.
“I know, ‘Meerkat.’”
The 13-part series is based on a 10-year Cambridge University study of a family, or “mob,” of 12-inch-tall meerkats, called the Whiskers.
Flower is the group’s ruthless matriarch. A radio collar around her neck helps researchers track the group of 40 or so meerkats as they forage around Africa’s Kalahari Desert.
Many tiny cameras take you inside their burrows.
The meerkats’ personalities and unpredictable struggles to survive never fail to intrigue.
My favorite insect-eating furball is the courageous Shakespeare. He survived two poisonous bites by a puff adder and single-handedly defended a litter of pups against one of the Whiskers’ enemy meerkat mobs, the Lazuli.
Thirty-one percent of nearly 84,000 online voters say Shakespeare’s sister, Tosca, is their favorite meerkat.
During most episodes, Tosca is all alone — perhaps the worst fate for social, family-oriented meerkats.
She became pregnant and had pups — a right meerkats only afford their dominant female. Instead of killing the rogue pups like she often does, Flower kept them for herself and kicked her daughter out of the family.
Mozart is the most caring of the meerkats. She gave up eating to stay by Shakespeare’s side when he was sick, and baby-sits and nurses Flower’s pups.
Uncle Youssarian has social and, I believe, mental problems, evidenced by his urges to endanger his own family.
In true “Hamlet” fashion, his brother Zaphod seized control of the Whiskers from Youssarian and took his mate, Flower, for his own.
The meerkats also have plenty of amusing faults.
Despite knowing it could lead to eviction from their family, the female meerkats can’t resist the advances of Carlos, a ladies man from the Lazuli.
Can you say Romeo and Juliet?
Some Meerkat episodes are more tragic than a Phillies game.
The Whiskers endure hunger, rival meerkat attacks and the constant threat of predators such as owls and hawks.
Like humans, they stress out and turn to each other for comfort.
The furry meerkats groom each other and sleep together for warmth.
They take turns digging out the burrow, baby-sitting pups and serving as sentries.
Whatever conflict arises, family members rally to face it together.
A lesson for all of us.
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The Voices column is written by a rotating team of New Era staffers. It appears Mondays.
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