1. A Talking Gorilla

Koko is learning signs at lightning speed, and Penny’s getting all kinds of attention for her work. But defining language isn’t exactly straightforward. And now, the San Francisco Zoo wants Koko back. 

A rival ape language experiment takes shape. Herbert Terrace, a psychology professor at Columbia University, moves a chimp into a brownstone, names him Nim Chimpsky, and hires an entire team to teach him sign language. Can a chimp create a sentence? 

Today we are sharing an episode from one of our newest series -- A Show About Animals. This season, we tell the strange and wonderful story of the wildly famous Koko the “talking” Gorilla. In the early 1970s, a grad student named Penny Patterson set out to investigate a big quest ...  Show more

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.

“It’s interesting that we became enthusiastic about ASL in the process of teaching it to a population that couldn’t benefit from it.”Mike tells Sarah about a very special ape and the very problematic humans around her. Digressions include video dating, "Biography" and the terribl ...  Show more

How is it that we can talk?  Why are we the only animal that can successfully produce audio podcasts that can be listened to and understood?  And who wants to get to know Washoe the chimpanzee?