Recorded live before the pandemic in January 2020 at the Castro Theatre for San Francisco Sketchfest, Josh and Chuck explore the 70s movement that attempted to teach apes human language and the Ape Language Wars that erupted from it.
AI Summary
# Stuff You Should Know: Coco the Talking Gorilla
Josh and Chuck take the audience on a fascinating journey through the life of Coco, a western lowland gorilla born at the San Francisco Zoo in 1971 who became world-famous for learning American Sign Language. From her early struggles with illness to her remarkable ability to communicate with humans, sign jokes, and even express emotions about loss, Coco challenged everything scientists thought they knew about gorilla intelligence. But as the episode progresses, the hosts dig into the "Ape Language Wars"—a heated scientific debate about whether Coco and similar experiments truly demonstrated language acquisition or were simply impressive examples of animal training, with some critics suggesting Dr. Penny Patterson may have been overly enthusiastic in her interpretations of what Coco was actually communicating.
Flashdance
1983
1h 35m
★ 6.5
"She couldn't explain why her monkey kept signing flash dance over and over. — Josh jokes about a researcher's ape repeatedly signing 'Flashdance' in an experiment."
— Josh
"kind of like jaws with sharks. Right. They two very huggable animals. Movies ruined it. — Chuck makes a comparison between how Jaws negatively portrayed sharks similarly to how King Kong portrayed gorillas."
— Chuck
King Kong
1933
1h 40m
★ 7.6
"They thought they were super scary because literally because of King Kong, the movies — Josh explains that gorillas were feared because of how King Kong movies portrayed them as scary creatures."
— Josh
Pay It Forward
2000
2h 2m
★ 7.4
"He knew how to use a Lexicon Board to say, come on, mom. Really? So Kanzi is actually widely regarded as one of the most intelligent apes in any of the ape language experiments. Which he demonstrated when he wrote, the movie, Pay It Forward. — Josh jokes that the bonobo Kanzi wrote the movie Pay It Forward as commentary on its quality."
— Josh
Project Nim
2011
PG-13
1h 33m
★ 6.9
"There's a very famous Project NIM. Do not watch that documentary. Josh tried to get me to, but he said it's a real bummer man. — Chuck mentions a documentary about Project NIM, a famous ape language research project, warning it's depressing."
— Chuck
The Golden Girls
1985
★ 7.6
"Coco was a fan of the Golden Girls. So they were fans of one another. — Josh mentions that Coco enjoyed watching The Golden Girls, which is why Betty White and Coco were mutual fans."
— Josh
"I can't get off track this early. We'll save the Simpsons for later. — Josh mentions he's saving a Simpsons reference for later in the conversation."
— Josh
The Wizard of Oz
1939
1h 42m
★ 7.6
"nursed by a dog for like four and a half weeks, not only just a dog, a caron terrier, which is the same breed as Toto from the Wizard of Oz. — Josh compares the breed of dog that nursed Coco's kitten to Toto from The Wizard of Oz."
— Josh
Three's Company
1977
★ 7.6
"It was at a time when Three's company was the number one show in America. — Josh references Three's Company as a popular show during the era of ape language research in the 1970s."
— Josh
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