Such as toilet paper shortages and food disinfection, the resounding success of Tiger King is one of those early pandemic phenomena that feels like it took place in a parallel universe whose portals are forever sealed. Eric Goode and Rebecca Chaiklin’s Netflix docuseries dove into our lives as those lives suddenly became smaller and more terrifying. It was the irresistibly lurid tale of a derailed character whose story was so compelling that going outside seemed undesirable and inadvisable. But while it spawned numerous spin-offs and imitations, none found a protagonist as wacky or a moment as fertile. Even the official sequel landed with a quiet bang.
Chimpanzee crazywhose first episode premieres this Sunday on HBO, is not exactly another attempt to Tiger King happen, but you’d probably guess he came from the same workshop even if all you remember from the predecessor is the name Joe Exotic. Tonia Haddix, an exotic animal broker with a particular fondness for chimpanzees, draws curiosity as powerfully as the Tiger King himself, a bottomless well of narcissism, self-mythologization, and outright delusions who often refers to chimpanzees as her “children.” (She also has human children, whom she freely admits she loves less.) Like Joe, she’s embroiled in a protracted dispute with animal rights activists over her lack of training and her makeshift living environment, which poses a danger to her animals and the people around them. And she’s so desperate to get her side of the story across that she’s put her trust in filmmakers who don’t have her best interests at heart.
Tonia’s story, however, is sadder and less sensational than Joe’s. Although the size of her Missouri McMansion suggests that Haddix made a considerable profit selling exotic species, that doesn’t seem to be the only, or even the main, reason for her affection. Like the other women who appear over the course of the series’ four episodes, she is deeply attached to the chimpanzees she cares for, and so intent on maintaining and deepening that bond that she brushes aside any suggestion that she might be harmful or dangerous. She insists that Tonka, the chimpanzee she is closest to, is a “humanzee,” half human, half chimp, “because we put the human side in him.” That “human side” also allowed Tonka to star in Hollywood films, including opposite Alan Cumming in 1997’s The Last Man. BuddyCumming appears surprisingly often in Chimpanzee crazypartly to lend the series some star power and partly to testify to the deep bond he developed with his simian co-star, a connection he still feels decades later.
Haddix is not alone in believing that chimps and humans can have an equal relationship—or at least a desire to believe so. Sandra and Jerome Herold of Stamford, Connecticut, raised a chimpanzee named Travis as if he were their own child, teaching him how to use a microwave and drive a car. “Travis was like anyone else in our family,” recalls Jerome’s daughter Kerry DeBlasi. “He was just the one who couldn’t talk.” In Pendleton, Oregon, Tamara Brogoitti lived side by side with a chimpanzee named Buck for 17 years. The husband of Pam Rosaire, who has been training chimpanzees for decades, remembers coming home to find her nursing their infant daughter on one side and a baby chimp on the other. “They are my children,” she explains, “and they will always be my children,” but also stresses that no matter how well trained they are, they should never be kept as pets.
Although Chimpanzee crazy does not elaborate, and sometimes does not even tell us, that some of these women suffered terrible personal losses before taking in chimpanzees; Herold, for example, lost her only daughter in a car accident shortly before she had Travis. In Haddix’s case, the need comes in waves, although its source is not so clear. In a scenario reminiscent of Errol Morris’ Gates of Heaven (albeit without being worthy of such an interview) she is interviewed in an all-pink bedroom flanked by bunk beds empty except for two oversized teddy bears – pushing to the brink of the grotesque a person we would already consider a caricature, with her thick makeup and puffy lips.
Goode, a self-proclaimed environmentalist, became famous enough through Tiger King The Chimpanzee crazy hired a “stand-in director” to film with Haddix so her suspicions wouldn’t be aroused. But this ongoing deception puts the series in a tricky spot: It inspires enough empathy to make it worth following at length, but not enough to make us think twice about the ruse. Essentially, we’re part of an extended undercover operation, waiting for Haddix to do something unethical or illegal enough to feel justified in hindsight. While we wait, Goode shows what’s at stake by delving into the stories of Travis and Buck. In both cases, their owners ignored the signs that their sweet baby chimps had grown into tremendously strong adults, with infamous and tragic consequences.
The striking thing about both incidents, which Chimpanzee crazyThe middle episodes show how quickly Sandra Herold and Tamara Brogoitti’s connections to Travis and Buck seem to evaporate as their lives and those of others hang in the balance. (Brogoitti coolly advised police arriving after Buck attacked her daughter to “take a shot in the head.”) Tonia Haddix’s kill switch is nowhere to be seen, but you know it’s there, waiting to be pulled, and the consequences could be devastating.
Chimpanzee crazy lacks the snack chip urgency of Tiger Kingbut that’s intentional. Haddix is a tricky and complicated character, though you often have to poke around the edges of the episodes to find complexities they just want to leave behind. This is a show that isn’t meant to be wolfed down in one sitting and regretted the next morning. It’s made to be chewed over and lingered on, even if it leaves a bad aftertaste. Mouth.
