{"id":42330,"date":"2025-05-15T03:07:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T08:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=42330"},"modified":"2025-05-15T04:57:07","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T09:57:07","slug":"alligator-that-starred-in-happy-gilmore-dies-of-old-age-in-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=42330","title":{"rendered":"Alligator that starred in \u2018Happy Gilmore\u2019 dies of old age in Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">DENVER \u2014 An alligator that appeared in numerous TV shows and films over three decades, most notably the 1996 Adam Sandler comedy \u201cHappy Gilmore,\u201d has died at a gator farm in southern Colorado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Based on his growth rate and tooth loss, Morris the alligator was at least 80 years old when he died, the Colorado Gator Farm said in a Facebook post Sunday. He was nearly 11 feet (3.3 meters) long and weighed 640 pounds (290 kilograms).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cHe started acting strange about a week ago. He wasn\u2019t lunging at us and wasn\u2019t taking food,\u201d Jay Young, the farm\u2019s owner and operator, said in a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ColoradoGatorFarm\/videos\/1749053819026834\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">video<\/a>&nbsp;as he tearfully stroked Morris\u2019 head in an animal enclosure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI know it\u2019s strange to people that we get so attached to an alligator, to all of our animals. &#8230; He had a happy time here, and he died of old age,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Morris, who was found in the backyard of a Los Angeles home as an illegal pet, started his Hollywood career in 1975 and retired in 2006, when he was sent to the Colorado Gator Farm in the tiny town of Mosca. He appeared in several films, including \u201cInterview with the Vampire,\u201d \u201cDr. Dolittle 2\u201d and \u201cBlues Brothers 2000.\u201d He also appeared on \u201cCoach,\u201d \u201cNight Court\u201d and \u201cThe Tonight Show with Jay Leno\u201d featuring the late wildlife expert Steve Irwin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">But his most famous role was in \u201cHappy Gilmore,\u201d a film about a failed and ill-tempered hockey player who discovers a talent for golf. The title character played by Sandler confronts Morris after hitting a golf ball that ends up in the gator\u2019s mouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sandler posted a tribute to Morris on Instagram on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWe are all gonna miss you. You could be hard on directors, make-up artists, costumers \u2014 really anyone with arms or legs \u2014 but I know you did it for the ultimate good of the film,\u201d Sandler wrote. \u201cThe day you wouldn\u2019t come out of your trailer unless we sent in 40 heads of lettuce taught me a powerful lesson: never compromise your art.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The Colorado Gator Farm, which opened to the public in 1990, said it plans to preserve Morris\u2019 body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWe have decided to get Morris taxidermied so that he can continue to scare children for years to come. It\u2019s what he would have wanted,\u201d the farm posted on Facebook on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/alligator-starred-happy-gilmore-dies-old-age-colorado-rcna206951\">nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DENVER \u2014 An alligator that appeared in numerous TV shows and films over three decades, most notably the 1996 Adam Sandler comedy \u201cHappy Gilmore,\u201d has died at a gator farm in southern Colorado. Based on his growth rate and tooth loss, Morris the alligator was at least 80 years old when he died, the Colorado [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":42331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5782],"tags":[33298,1301,33299],"class_list":["post-42330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ep","tag-alligator","tag-colorado","tag-happy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42332,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42330\/revisions\/42332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}