PART I: A chat with Neal James from ‘Call of the Wildman’

On Labor Day this year, audiences can enjoy a full-day marathon of Call of the Wildman, the successful Animal Planet series that follows the adventures of Ernie “Turtleman” Brown Jr. and his banjo-playing best friend Neal James. The marathon comes to a close with the two-part season finale of Call of the Wildman at 10 p.m.

Recently, Hollywood Soapbox talked with Neal James about his friendship with Turtleman and his newfound fame. Here’s Part I of that interview. Questions and answers have been slightly edited.

Watching this season on TV, does it still give you goosebumps that Turtleman and yourself are such big stars on Animal Planet?

Even more so. We love Animal Planet. The whole concept is just extraordinary.

How did you first meet Turtleman? Did you grow up with him?

No, I didn’t grow up with him. Turtleman and I met, he wanted a theme song for his entity. He’s been a folk hero around here for ages. And he wanted a theme song. So I did that on the banjo, and he came to hear it, and the next thing I know Anderson Cooper had picked up that video. It was almost viral within days. And Ernie asked me, he said, ‘Look I go around from place to place, catching turtles and animals. If you could play the banjo specifically when I catch turtles, that would be a great help to me. It would divert people’s attention when it takes me over an hour sometimes to find one. And if you could just kind of make them laugh and play banjo and sing with them and give me time to do what I do, I think it’d be a good thing.’ And buddy he was right, because people were thrilled … to experience that.

Would you go after some of these turtles and these critters?

Oh, no, no. And I don’t. I mean that’s real obvious in the show. I’m concerned about him. The things that he does continue to amaze me after this time. He just, I don’t know, he’s blessed. God is keeping him in a safe way.

Because of the success of the show, is it difficult to walk around without being noticed?

Oddly enough, yes, it’s difficult. It’s not unwanted, because we really love the fans. But to get from point A to point B is difficult sometimes, especially in airports, if you could imagine. The Turtleman and myself feel like we’re lost anyway in those terminals, and it’s so hard to get from point A to point B, and get on a plane. Because everybody loves us, and they all come up. They want to talk to us and shake our hands and to get an autograph or a picture. And it’s just odd that way. But, yes, bittersweet, I guess, because we love our fans.

The Turtle Team, when the cameras are turned off, are you all friends, going to each other’s houses? Is it a strong friendship?

Sure, sure. It wouldn’t be uncommon for me to be at Jake’s house and get some peppers out of the garden when he’s not even at home. Or Squirrel’s family, they’d be over to visit, or something like that, and Squirrel not be there. Or Squirrel would come over here, and his wife, and hang out with some of my friends. I mean it’s just a great big network of family.

Call of the Wildman portrays a good side to Kentucky. Do you find that Kentucky fans are really wild about the show?

They are, they are. They all look for things that they recognize on the show, and they’re just amazed to see things at a national and now international level, by the way. We’re in Australia and have been for a bit. … Kentuckians are different. We’re proud. And like a statement that I made last year was, it doesn’t matter what you have, or how much you have, it’s what you do with that. … And we take great pride in a simple life here, and that we don’t have to ask anybody for anything.

And we’re always at the ready to help a person in need, a friend or sometimes just to help people. A lot of people we’ve been helping of late, we don’t even know who they are, especially with this newfound fame. People that have cancer. People, they need a hand up. The tornadoes and the devastation from different things.  People being burned out. Little kids needing a machine for cystic fibrosis. We’re just all over the place and networking things in our social media, Facebook and Twitter, to make ourselves available to the public. It’s almost like we’re creating an entity that’s a big family on the outskirts of our natural blood family. We don’t meet strangers anymore.

Last evening I had supper with my wife, and four little kids from a table next to us came over and before they even wanted an autograph, they grabbed my legs and hugged me. They knew who I was. They just loved me to death. And Ernie gets the same thing. And we, in turn, love people back, too. That’s what’s the beauty of it.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Call of the Wildman’s season finale will air Monday, Sept. 3 at 10 p.m. To celebrate the season’s last episode, Animal Planet will run an all-day marathon on Labor Day.

• Click here for our interview with the Turtleman.