About

History
The Jungle of Fame has its origins in 1996, when New Zealand’s first permanently
marked disc golf course was established in the Queenstown Gardens. Tiger Woods
was in his ascendancy and the creators of the course decided to adopt cool animal
nicknames like his i.e. James Jaguar Smithells, Andy Cougar Cooper, and Chris Dingo
Davies. Regular attendees at our popular Queenstown/Paradise tournaments took
on other canine or feline names. Many years went by and then in 2011 membership
was expanded to include any sort of animal; thus was the New Zealand Disc Golf
Jungle of Fame (Jungle of Fame for short) created. Essentially it was a whimsy, which
has continued to grow and gained a life of its own. Membership is attained by
attending the fireside ceremony at the annual Paradise tournament, details below.
In a key expansion of the idea, Hannah the Husky created excellent individual
artworks for each animal, and then made T-shirts or hoodies with one’s own animal
on the front, and a selection of other the animals on the back.
In 2015 the first full costume/fancy dress Jungle of Fame party took place,
celebrating the 20 th anniversary of the Queenstown Gardens course. Following this
exceptional evening, animal costumes have increasingly featured at the annual
ceremony.

For the 2017 New Zealand Disc Golf Nationals at Paradise, most of the marketing
material featured Jungle of Fame animals, each representing a real person. In a
further exciting development of this fun concept, Lisa Takahe Te Awhitu designed the
first Jungle of Fame (JoF) disc, which was in the players pack, and also created a JoF
poster. The social highlight of this hugely successful tournament, which attracted
world-class players from overseas, was another full costume Jungle of Fame party
with good music and lighting effects. Signature moves and/or sounds were added to
the ceremony.
For the 20th Paradise Plates in 2019, organised by James Jaguar Smithells and Martin
Meerkat Galley, a superb Jungle of Fame disc, complete with roaring fire, snow
capped mountains, and fire lit animals, was created by Hannah the Husky. Players
received this in their tournament packs, together with individualised minis featuring
their JoF names and artworks. With this being the Jaguar’s final tournament as TD in
the Wakatipu, the full costume party with music and lighting was a roaring success
and took the whimsical concept to a whole new level! In 2021, Martin the Meerkat took over sole management of the Paradise Plates,continuing the Jungle of Fame theme with the tournament disc, and with an extra Husky designed JOF disc and accompanying T-shirt. We now have over 140 Members and the Jungle of Fame

Joining the Jungle of Fame
Where and when? One can only join the Jungle of Fame by attending the JOF ceremony around the fire in the Garden of Eden, during the party evening of the annual Paradise Plates disc golf tournament. Paradise is past Glenorchy, at the head of Lake Wakatipu,
about an hour’s drive from Queenstown, New Zealand. Non-competitors can join. Typically Paradise tournaments are in March, with exact details to be found on https://www.newzealanddiscgolf.org.nz/events

What does the ceremony involve? The Jaguar (JOF Director) convenes the
ceremony, explains and facilitates the process. We progress anti clockwise
around the fire, with those who want to introduce themselves, stating their name
and Jungle name e.g. ‘I’m Des the Hummingbird’. We strongly encourage people to
either dress as their animal, or to at least wear something which connects with it e.g.
a mask, hat, fur, colours, face paint. We also encourage participants to create
signature moves and/or sounds to go with their animal, to enliven the ceremony. It’s
perfectly acceptable to pass, wear plain clothes, or simply state one’s name and
animal. The ceremony concludes once the circle is complete.

What animal can I be? Decide on what animal you would like to be, then check in
both the ‘Specific Animals and Rules’ section below, and the official Jungle of Fame
list of members in this website. Please note that we have now expanded the
definition of ‘animal’ to include all life forms e.g. we have a mushroom and an
amoeba!

Specific Animals and Rules. We aim to keep this all fun and the rules very simple.
Animals may be real, extinct, mythical, or fictional. Ideally one can find them via a
search engine i.e. they are not completely invented. Different language versions of
the same animal are fine e.g. we have a kingfisher and a kotare. We prefer people
not to add adjectives e.g. a crazy lazy cool cat. Obviously a brown bear or black bear
have adjectives built into their correct name. If you find that the animal name you would like to have has already been taken, you have a couple of options. You could check whether there are other species/subspecies of that animal e.g. there are between 30-60 kinds of rattlesnake. Or you could approach the person holding the name, and see whether they would be happy for you to have exactly the same name. Maybe you could form a tribe/clan/other collective noun? You have a right to ask, they have a right to accept or decline.