Wild Kingdom

Wild Kingdom, also known as Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, is an American documentary television program that features wildlife and nature. It was originally produced from 1963 until 1988, and it was revived in 2002. The show's second incarnation aired until 2011 on Animal Planet in the United States. A third incarnation streamed webisodes on a dedicated YouTube channel from 2013 to 2018. A fourth incarnation, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom Protecting the Wild, hosted by Peter Gros & Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, premiered on NBC as part of the network's Saturday morning The More You Know educational and informational programming block in October 2023.

The original Wild Kingdom grew from discussions that started in 1962 between zoologist Marlin Perkins and V. J. Skutt, the chairman and CEO of insurance company Mutual of Omaha. The company had been the sponsor of an earlier animal-related show, Zoo Parade, that Perkins had hosted from 1952 until 1957. Also intimately involved with the creation of Wild Kingdom was Zoo Parade producer Don Meier, who was credited as the program's creator. Mutual of Omaha sponsored and lent its name to the new program.

Wild Kingdom won Emmy Awards for "outstanding program achievement" in 1966, 1967, 1968, and 1969.

Liz and Henk Maartens, from Irene, Pretoria, South Africa, won five Emmy Awards for the documentary program Wild Kingdom in 1970. One Emmy Award was for camerawork, while the other Emmy Awards were for aspects of production.

Wild Kingdom was first broadcast by NBC. The half-hour show aired on Sundays starting January 6, 1963, and continued until 1971, when the program entered first-run syndication. As a prime-time syndicated program, Wild Kingdom enjoyed great popularity. Although most of the programs aired after 1971 were repeats, new shows continued to be produced until 1987. After syndication in 1971, the show received 41 major achievements. Some awards include the four Emmys from the National Academy of Arts and Sciences and the First Annual Communications Award from the National Wildlife Association. Several episodes were filmed by cameraman Roy Pinney. Perkins was the host for most of the show's history until he was forced to retire in 1985 for health reasons, and Jim Fowler, Perkins' long-time assistant and sidekick, became the host.

The format of the show often featured Perkins narrating off-camera, describing Fowler's on-camera work with the wild animals. This was commonly parodied as Perkins saying "I'll wait here [someplace safe] while Jim does something or other with the dangerous animal." However, according to a 1997 interview with Fowler, Perkins never said any such thing: according to Fowler, "Johnny Carson started the jokes about me and Marlin in his monologues."^{[citation needed]}

Perkins often featured pet chimpanzees in the studio: one named "W. K." (Wild Kingdom); the other named "Mr. Moke", after the Mini Moke vehicle.

Wild Kingdom increased ecological and environmental awareness in the United States. Its exciting footage brought the wilds of Africa, the Amazon River, and other exotic locales into the living rooms of millions of Americans. It created an interest in commercial nature programming that led to several other wildlife documentary programs going on the air, including Animal World; Wild, Wild World of Animals; and Lorne Greene's New Wilderness, and in subsequent decades, to entire cable television networks devoted to these topics, such as the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet.