40 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM Only four years after launching, Marine World had already run into financial difficulties. It was sold to Ralph Helfer, owner of Africa USA, a ranch in Soledad Canyon that trained jungle animals, including the MGM lion, for Hollywood films. Helfer’s ranch had recently been devastated by flooding and mudslides and, seeing a solution in Marine World, he relocated his ark of animals to the park. In 1972, the newly renamed Marine World Africa USA welcomed a zoo of new residents. Now, kids could pet cheetahs, hold brilliant macaws and ride elephants. Explorers hopped aboard boats piloted by {punchline} PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF: SAN MATEO COUNTY HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION COLLECTION (1975.607) / ED BIERMAN pith-helmeted safari guides along shorelines with monkeys and giraffes. In an arena, lions and tigers leapt through hoops. Hollywood continued casting Helfer’s wild wards. Shauna, a bicycle-riding chimpanzee, cameoed in Swiss Family Robinson, while the park’s killer whales, Yaka and Nepo, starred in a survival thriller titled Orca, produced in the successful wake of Jaws. Mardji, a sweet-natured Asian elephant, was cast as a shaggy alien on a desert planet. That’s right, she was a bantha in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Unfortunately, as ticket sales waned, real estate prices soared. Succumbing to the inevitable, the beloved park sold its land to Campeau Corporation for a $300 million office complex and hotel. On September 29, 1985—only 17 years after its opening—the Peninsula’s premier amusement park closed its gates. On moving day, a caravan of trucks and one barge escorted more than 350 mammals and numerous fish to their new home in Vallejo, a place known today as Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. Back in Redwood Shores, the African-style huts, stadiums and
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