OCEAN CITY — John LaMedica likes animals — slimy, scaly, cold-blooded animals, some with forked tongues, that disdain petting.
Spectators, mostly young human animals — sweaty, sticky, warm-blooded animals — love LaMedica, better known as Jungle John, and his friends Wally Gator (a 5.5-foot-long American alligator), Larry Boa (a 10-foot-long boa constrictor) and a dozen other reptiles and amphibians.
Those facts were abundantly clear on New Year’s Eve as dozens of children brought their parents along to see his show at the Ocean City Tabernacle’s Kull Youth Center during the city’s First Night celebration.
LaMedica, a resident of Newark, Del., has been entertaining in the tristate area and around the country since 1988.
After receiving a degree in zoo keeping from Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Fla., he became supervisor at the Brandywine Zoo in Wilmington, Del. In addition to animal care and supervisory responsibilities, he performed animal shows for its traveling zoo program.
After more than six years, he left to start his own business, Jungle John Entertainment, through which he, dressed in a safari outfit and wearing a pith helmet, provides an entertaining and educational live reptile show.
LaMedica has performed at schools, corporate events, private parties, trade shows, the Grand Opera House, the Museum of Natural History in Delaware and Philadelphia, and hundreds of other venues.
LaMedica said he has been performing at Ocean City’s First Night for almost 20 years.
“I think they love me and I love coming here,” he said, noting he also appears at the island’s Comic Con in the spring and library in the summer.
He also has been a featured attraction at First Night events in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.
Here he stopped to chat with a group of young fans.
Resuming the interview, he said, “I love coming here, about 90 miles, an easy drive. Now we stay over so we don’t have to drive at night.”
LaMedica said he is in demand.
“They usually call me on Jan. 3 to book me. One year they forgot and waited until February and Virginia got me,” he said.
LaMedica said his training out of college in 1982 consisted of watching a 30-minute show, contrasting that with today when there are practice shows, practice audiences, bringing real actors in to teach breathing methods and timing.
“That was my training,” he said.
He said performing and acting runs in family. His son, Nick LaMedica, is in the “Lion King” in New York City.
“The joke is he got the full set of genes, he does Broadway tours, I got half, I do First Nights and birthday parties,” he said.
LaMedica said he gets to indulge his passion and make people happy, noting he is now doing second-generation birthday parties.
“The kids, when you pull up in the driveway, they come running out to the van to see you,” he said. “Where can you go and work like that? Nowhere.”
According to his website, Jungle John is also a two-time Guinness World Record holder and a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! record holder. He also appeared last summer on “America’s Got Talent.”
– STORY and PHOTOS by CRAIG D. SCHENCK/Sentinel staff