World Safari Inspired by filmmaker
Malcolm Douglas and
The Leyland Brothers, Their journey took them across four continents, travelling through 56 countries over six years. The film was produced entirelly in South Australia. After arriving in
London, Mangels took the film to the
BBC, but they were not interested. Back in Australia, it was similarly rebuffed by the
Australian Film Commission and the
South Australian Film Corporation. He was going to start travelling again, but after one of his crew members was injured and needed treatment in
Melbourne, he started screening a roughly-edited copy around schools, titled
Happy Go Lucky Highway. Andrew Ward suggested that he recruit a model called Judy Green, whom he has spotted on TV on
Sale of the Century, for his next film, and they started filming
World Safari II on
Mer Island in the
Torres Strait. However, in April 1983 they were all injured when their
Jeep collided with a bus Green sustaining critical head injuries. After discharge from hospital, they flew back to Australia for treatment. Mangels took a year to recover, but Green did not rejoin him, as she had serious head injuries and needed to regain the ability to walk.
World Safari III Mangels sunk much of his newly-accumulated wealth into another sequel. The film also screened at a
Canberra cinema in January, but it flopped at the box office, and he lost everything, and could not even pay his staff.
Channel 9 serialised
World Safari 2 to coincide with the release. The network also ran a story on
60 Minutes featuring former employees complaining about their lack of payment, and another on
A Current Affair that revealed that some of his footage was faked (which he later called "a little bit of poetic licence"). Mangels was devastated at the animosity expressed by the media. which proved highly successful. In 1999 the Travel Channel commissioned a new series, which ran for three years and attracted many new American fans until 2002. In 2011 it was reported that he had made over 80 adventure documentaries, mainly for overseas cable networks. He regarded his later work for television as better than his earlier films.
2020s After living a quiet life for around 20 years, Mangels acquired a new manager, Roman Kondratiuk, and who has assisted in remastering 65 of his films for re-release. In February 2026, he featured on ABC Television's
Australian Story. ==Biographies==