UPS Shipped This Strange Thing To Hawaii To Film George Of The Jungle
When "George Of The Jungle" debuted in theaters in the summer of 1997, it was a minor success for Disney, grossing $174.4 million at the Worldwide box office off a $55 million budget (via Box Office Mojo). The film wasn't too big of a hit with the critics, earning itself a 56% rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but would go on to become a cult classic. The film starred the internet's boyfriend, actor Brendan Fraser, who at the time was on his way to becoming a big movie star with this being his first lead role in a blockbuster film, just two years before he would go on to star as Rick O'Connell in Stephen Sommers' action adventure, "The Mummy." "George of the Jungle" also starred Leslie Mann, Thomas Haden Church, John Cleese, Richard Roundtree, and Holland Taylor and was directed by Sam Weisman.
The film, which was based off the classic Saturday morning cartoon, followed George (Fraser), a dimwitted man who was raised in the jungle and is now a Tarzan-like figure. After falling in love with Ursula (Mann), a wealthy American heiress, he learns that his jungle home is being threatened by poachers, which causes him to become the hero he was always destined to be. Despite being set in the African jungles, "George Of The Jungle" was actually filmed in Hawaii. In order to use certain jungle-specific props, the production team had to use UPS to send some unusual things to set.
UPS shipped an elephant to the set of George of the Jungle
A jungle movie isn't complete without plenty of animals and "George Of The Jungle" is filled with them! A combination of real animal actors, CGI critters, and puppets were used in order to bring George's jungle friends to life, but since filming mainly took place in Hawaii, bringing in real animals was not the easiest task. While the gorillas in the film were played by human actors in suits, according to Humane Hollywood, many of the other scenes in the movie had real animals occasionally making an appearance on screen, including George's pet elephant Shep. How did he get to Hawaii? Via UPS, of course!
During the time of filming, UPS was becoming a popular way to send props to film sets, with other major Hollywood productions such as Roland Emmerich's "Godzilla" using the service as an efficient way to get the props that were needed, according to the Chicago Tribune. While UPS would not pay for product placement, it would trade services for its logos and iconic brown delivery trucks to appear in films. In order to get an elephant actor who could fill in the role of George's canine like pet elephant Shep, the production team had UPS ship an elephant to the island set of the Disney comedy. The enduring cult status of "George Of The Jungle" makes UPS' hefty task all the more worth it.