Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins is a 2008 television film created by Discovery Films and Oxford Scientific Films as a prequel to the Animal Planet series Meerkat Manor. A scripted documentary narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, the film details the life of a meerkat named Flower from birth to her becoming the leader of a meerkat group called the Whiskers. The film is based on the research notes of the Kalahari Meerkat Project and primarily uses wild meerkat "actors" to represent those in the story. Shot over two years at the Kuruman River Reserve in Northern Cape, South Africa, the film employed a much larger crew than the series. Some scenes were shot at a wildlife park in the United Kingdom, while others were created using camera tricks and trained film animals. The 75-minute film premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival before its television premiere on Animal Planet on May 25, 2008. While it was praised for its cinematography, for maintaining the depth of coverage of the television series, and for its accessibility to newcomers to the series, it was criticized for not offering anything new to fans. The Kalahari Meerkat Project noted that the film was not completely accurate but praised it overall, though one reviewer found the "fictionalization" regrettable. Several reviewers praised Goldberg's narration, but the script was cited as being too simplistic for adult viewers.

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1486:

Elizabeth of York married Henry VII of England, becoming Queen consort. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_of_York

1535:

Conquistador Francisco Pizarro founded Ciudad de los Reyes, present-day Lima, Peru, as the capital of the lands he conquered for the Spanish Crown. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lima

1871:

A number of independent German states unified into the German Empire, with Prussian King Wilhelm I being proclaimed as its first Emperor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_of_Germany

1915:

Japanese Prime Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu issued the Twenty-One Demands to the Republic of China in a bid to increase its power in East Asia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-One_Demands

2003:

Bushfires burning out of control began blazing through residential areas of Canberra, Australia, eventually killing four people, and damaging or destroying more than 500 homes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Canberra_bushfires

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

karst (n): (geology) A type of land formation, usually with many caves formed through the dissolving of limestone by underground drainage http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/karst

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Beyond a certain point, the whole universe becomes a continuous process of initiation. --Robert Anton Wilson http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson