Can’t we all just get along?
Yes — if humans are willing to learn from the supposedly lower forms of life as Nat Geo Wild’s “Unlikely Animal Friends” returns for its fourth season on Feb. 27.
Here’s a songbird perched on a gorilla’s finger. There’s a St. Bernard calmly curled up with a clowder of cats. And check out the black Lab riding an elephant into a river and using it as a diving board.
A single episode is heartwarming enough to melt all the snow in Boston. But taken together, “Unlikely Animal Friends” could show a way forward for those of us with dominion over the planet.
“We can really learn something from these animals,” says Nat Geo Wild executive vice president Geoff Daniels. “These videos should be shown in every school, corporate boardroom and government office in the world.”
Daniels good-naturedly admits he’s a bit of a dreamer. But he’s got a clear eye for pictures that are impossibly and irresistibly cute.
The whole idea seems obvious now, given that the top Super Bowl commercial of the last two years has involved a puppy nuzzling his best friend, a horse. And current Android commercials are built on similar images: a ferret and a big cat, an elephant and a sheep, a dog and a chimp, a cat opening a door so he and his dog pal can get in.
But when Nat Geo Wild started “Unlikely Animal Friends” more than four years ago, those spots were just a gleam in Madison Avenue’s eye. Daniels says the creation was almost accidental.
“We did it as sort of an in-house thing, an uplifting story that was going to be a one-off,” he says.
One of the first segments showed a Labrador retriever named Ben who swam alongside a dolphin named Duggie. When Ben finally exhausted himself, Duggie would push him to shore.
“When we put the show on the air, we couldn’t keep people away from it,” says Daniels. “We knew we had a franchise.”
The network says “Unlikely Animal Friends” is one of its most popular shows, which translates to roughly 1 to 2 million viewers per episode. The individual videos on YouTube and the Wild website get hundreds of thousands of hits.
Finding fresh material might seem challenging. It isn’t.
“Our production company looks for videos or newspaper stories, but a lot of people send it in,” says Daniels. “These days, everyone has a camera all the time. They see it, they shoot it.”
In fact, he admits, Wild gets enough submissions — in the hundreds — that not every one makes it.
“It’s tough to tell people that their dog and cat are cute, but not quite cute enough,” he says with a rueful laugh.
When a submitted video piques the producers’ curiosity, Wild sends a crew to flesh out the story. And naturally, the stars don’t always perform when the cameras start rolling. Wildlife rarely take direction well.
In that case, says Daniels, Wild “will just use the original footage that was sent to us.
“We don’t stage anything. We don’t set anything up,” he adds. “What you see is exactly how these animals behave. You can’t fake it. You wouldn’t want to. A two-legged Chihuahua is best friends with a silkie chicken. What else do you need?”
“Unlikely Animal Friends” returns Feb. 27 at 10 p.m. on Nat Geo Wild.
