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Meerkat Manor is a British television programme produced by Oxford Scientific Films for Animal Planet International. Blending more traditional animal documentary style footage with dramatic narration, the series tells the story of the Whiskers, one of over a dozen families of meerkats in the Kalahari Desert being studied as part of the Kalahari Meerkat Project, a long-term field study into the ecological causes and evolutionary consequences of the cooperative nature of meerkats. The original programme is narrated by Bill Nighy, with the narration redubbed by Mike Goldman for the Australian airings and Sean Astin for the American broadcasts.

Meerkat Manor premiered in the United Kingdom on September 12, 2005, and the first 13-episode series concluded on October 24, 2005. With the success of the programme in the UK, Animal Planet started broadcasting it on its national channels in Australia, Canada, and the US. The series is now available in more than 160 other countries. Three series have aired in their entirety, and the fourth series is scheduled to premiere in the United States on June 6, 2008. The forth series, which will be subtitled The Next Generation will see Stockard Channing replacing Sean Astin as the narrator in the American dubbing. (Read more...)