I remeber seeing this on HBO back in the 1980's. The movie itself was made in the 1970's, but it's a fun and educational movie with a great musical soundtrack. Like most animal movies, it documents the many different animals that live in the harshness heat of the deserts of the Savana in Africa. Apparently, within the death wasteland, there are animals that make living there. Snakes, birds, insects, and animals of all kinds. Each of them has a very tricky way to survive and hunt for food, as they often camouflage themselves in the sand and wait for their meal. A snake hides himself in the sand and waits for a Gecko lizard to come by, but they are fast runners and get away easily. So the snake uses it's tail to stick up in the sand to look like a blade of grass. An ant comes by to eat it, and the Gecko comes to get the ant, and the snake gobbles up the Gecko lizard quick as a wink.
I find that although it rains only every few years in the desert, the one day when it finally rains, the rivers flood from the mountains flooding the whole area. Animals must find ways to defend themselves from preditors, and there's a beetle that defends itself when threatened by squirting a stinging liquid from it's behind straight into their eyes, and that's what happened to a group of Meerkats that got curious of this beetle. Now here's a funny part, there's a little paradise area where few animals know about, and it has everything they can ever need, and no preditors are there to attack them. It's all paradise and easy living, but sometimes the animals get bored and lazy. However during the summer, the trees start to grow fruits. Now there is this one kind of fruit that's very sweet tasting to the animals,but it's very hard to get to. So the elephants shake the fruit from the trees, and the animals get it from the ground. However after the animals eat this fruit, sometimes it get potent in their bellies and kind of gives them a wobbly feeling and they start to act like they are drunk. Babboons start running and bumping into things, others begam to stumble or can't even walk straight. I remember laughing at that.
When animals build their homes in the desert, some like the warthog builds his home in the ground and with his newly mate, she makes changes to his home, making it difficult for him to adjust.
With all the birds that live there, there's giant nest that house hundreds of other birds, kind of like a huge apartment complex. They come in all different styles and shapes. Some of these huge homes have been there for 100 years, and sometimes a huge fire burns it to a crisp within seconds, as a result of the dry grass and hot weather. Although one weaver bird tries to impress his mate from a nest he built by tieing two branches together with straw and forms it into a cacoon like structure with a hole for getting in. Unfortunately, his mate didn't approve of it and she untied it. And he had to start all over again, which was very tricky for him.
Finding food was often difficult for a badger, as he was young. He will life rocks and check out every nook and cranny for just about anything he can eat. But he was having problems in finding something to eat. Luckily he had a fairy god mother in a form of a bird, that gets his attention to follow him to food. It was a bee's nest, where he can get sweet delicious honey. The bee stings didn't affect him, as his whole body was strong, however his only senitve spot was the tip of his nose. He finally manages to grab a chunk of honeycome and eats his share and leaves the rest for the bird.
It's cool to see how they managed to time the classical music to the animals dancing when they finally got rain and life was flourishng. Even the animals began mating once again.
Now besides animals, there are bushmen that live there, and although they live in families, they teach their kids all about the animals and life by using a language of sounds and sign language to describe the many animals they will encounter. Now there was a scene of a bushman with an arrow made of basic material from around him used to hunt for food. Now he saw a great target of zebras to hunt down for food, unfortunately his only problem is with a bird that warns the animals of the hunter by saying "Goaway" so they can run to safety. This is called the goaway bird. This goes on for a little while, untill the frustrated bushman decided to shoot the bird and cook him for his meal. Now since water is very scarse in the desert, the bushmen have ways to find water by digging up roots in the ground and shaving them down and squeezing the water from them. But a very ingenious and cruel way to find water goes as the following. Since the Baboons live there, they know of secret places to get their water supplies and they prefer to keep it a secret from other animals.
So the bushman brainwashes the baboon, buy setting a trap by placing seeds in a hole in a rock. Then the babbon gets his hand caught as his hand is full of seeds and he can't get it out. The bushman captures the baboon and ties him to a tree and gives him salt to eat. Baboons find salt a delecasy and very rare, and soon, he's going to be one thirsty baboon. To make matters worse, the bushman makes a fire to make things hotter for the monkey. All that's on the mind of the monkey is to go to his secret water hideout, but he's all tied up and dying of thirst. So this goes on till the next day, when the bushman releases the monkey, and he dashes to his water hideout and the bushman follows him. It's sneaky and cruel, bu with a hot and deatly climate like the desert, you need water and you gotta find it to live. The bushman had adapted to the harsh life of the desert and need to drink very little water. It's a great and entertaining movie and it's funny too.
