Chimp Crazy

[DanaK]

Quote

The HBO Original four-part documentary series CHIMP CRAZY, produced and directed by filmmaker Eric Goode ("Tiger King"), debuts SUNDAY, AUGUST 18 (10:00 p.m-11:00 p.m. ET/PT) on HBO and will be available to stream on Max. New episodes will debut subsequent Sundays at the same time.

Synopsis: Former nurse-turned-exotic animal broker Tonia Haddix, who refers to herself as the "Dolly Parton of chimps," spends her days caring for animals in captivity. However, her limitless love for one chimpanzee in particular spins into a wild cat-and-mouse game with authorities and an animal rights group. Through Tonia's and other "chimp mom" experiences, CHIMP CRAZY reveals the singular bonds that form between owners and their highly intelligent great ape pets. The series exposes the risks humans take when they try to raise these animals as members of their family, as well as the risks to the welfare of the animals themselves.

Full press release http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news/2024/07/16/hbo-original-four-part-documentary-series-chimp-crazy-debuts-august-18-37215/20240716hbo01/

Trailer

 

[DanaK]

Interesting review of the series

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/chimp-crazy-review-hbo-1235975333/

[DanaK]

Episode 1 showed some pretty wacked people keeping chimps. Some clearly love chimps more than their own kids (and one or two even said it outright). I’m glad PETA got a lot of the places making animals perform shut down and they worked to improve living conditions. It’s especially disturbing to see adult chimps living so close to humans given their strength; I remember some of those stories where they attacked people and disfigured several

It was also a bit weird for the real director to use a pretend director to get close to some of these people

[heatherchandler]

The woman feeding sugary crap to the poor chimp, literally sticking the can in its mouth while she talks about how peta doesn’t care about the “people” they are hurting.  I’m sickened.

Thank god peta stepped in, hopefully the chimps are in a place where they are happy, in a proper chimp environment.

 

Edited August 20 by heatherchandler

[DanaK]

15 hours ago, heatherchandler said:

The woman feeding sugary crap to the poor chimp, literally sticking the can in its mouth while she talks about how peta doesn’t care about the “people” they are hurting.  I’m sickened.

Thank god peta stepped in, hopefully the chimps are in a place where they are happily in a proper chimp environment.

 

I remember when PETA and others got Barnum and Baily Circus to end its animal acts and how happy I was about that because that didn't like a good and safe environment for animals to perform like that, especially the elephants. Renting the chimps out to perform at birthday parties and the like seems like a similar thing that can't be good for chimps. If these obsessive chimp owners can't see what's best for the animals, especially since chimps are very intelligent, then the animals need to be taken away to be put in a better environment. I do hope the filmmaker shows us the place the chimps were sent to to let us know the environment is better

The human breastfeeding of the sick baby chimp was odd, but I don't necessarily want to say it was wrong given the baby chimp needed help that formula wasn't giving it and it depends on if there were better options available

 

[I Want My MBTV]

I only made it about 15 minutes in if that.  Seeing those large animals in those small cages that weren't even outside and seeing them going nuts from confinement and no species interaction I just couldn't take it.  It made me way too upset.  Also, that some states don't have any restrictions around exotic pets and they way they're sold and bred and who knows what.  The whole thing was just too much for me.  I'm glad PETA stepped in but my heart still breaks for those animals.

 

As an aside when I was about 6 years old a neighbor down the street had a pet monkey (not sure what type it was - I was 6 after all :-)) it was the size of a smallish chimp I'd say and they kept it in a cage in their living room.  One day I was over and the cat was walking near the cage and I went to pet the cat and the chimp reached out and grabbed my hair and yanked me back.  If he wasn't in the cage who knows what would have happened. They are smart and strong and should not be dressed like little dolls.  It's not cute it's not funny it's torture.

One day they're going to take over the earth and they'll remember :-)

[Shrek]

I saw a trailer for it at the beginning of something else I was watching on Max & thought it might be interesting but I won't be watching it after reading here. I'm not interesting in seeing these very intelligent animals caged & dressed up, have these people never seen Planet of the Apes?

Edited August 21 by Shrek

[MagicEyes]

I don't know if more info is going to come out later, but there's something we're not being told about the relationship between Tonia Haddix and Connie Casey. Tonia is volunteering to take care of these chimps, and it looks like nobody else is doing that work or had been doing it before she started volunteering. She's never done work that paid really well or been married to anyone who apparently has any money, so how can she spend all her time volunteering? Did Connie start paying her at some point? And why did Connie give her the chimps? Tonia says she loves these chimps, but she feeds them a lot of junk food (Happy Meals and Gatorade galore!). 

[heatherchandler]

1 hour ago, MagicEyes said:

Tonia says she loves these chimps, but she feeds them a lot of junk food (Happy Meals and Gatorade galore!). 

And Reese’s peanut butter spray 🤢

[DanaK]

So the ending of the second episode is saying Tonka is alive and Tonia has him (and has been lying about it)?

13 hours ago, MagicEyes said:

She's never done work that paid really well or been married to anyone who apparently has any money, so how can she spend all her time volunteering?

She revealed in the second episode she brokers exotic animals

[DanaK]

I wondered during the second episode if all the cosmetic stuff Tonia does to her face is so she can look more like a chimp

[meep.meep]

If it's not deliberate, it's certainly achieving the same result.

I did not need to see her getting the fillers in her lips and frying her skin out in the tanning booth.

 

[heatherchandler]

13 hours ago, DanaK said:

So the ending of the second episode is saying Tonka is alive and Tonia has him (and has been lying about it)?

She revealed in the second episode she brokers exotic animals

Sickening, just nauseating.

[DanaK]

On 8/26/2024 at 6:51 PM, meep.meep said:

If it's not deliberate, it's certainly achieving the same result.

I also get the impression she would prefer only to live among chimps if she could and leave the human world behind. At least until the chimps beat her to death or worse

Edited August 27 by DanaK

[DanaK]

The ratings are the best for an HBO documentary series in several years

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/chimp-crazy-ratings-hbo-doc-series-1235985324/

[sundaytunes]

tonia seems a bit unhinged tbh. feeding chimps happy meals and gatorade? that can't be good for them. i get she loves them but it doesn't seem like she knows what's best for their health.

[rina9294]

I think she doesn't care. She sees them as her 'kids' and treats them the same. The DH and I were giving each other WTF looks when she showed the supposed bag of Tonka's cremains especially after burning him in a burn pit??? 

 

 

[DanaK]

Interview with the director/filmmaker about what led him to making the series and some things about the episodes. Don't read if you haven’t seen the latest (Episode 3) episode

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/chimp-crazy-episode-3-tonia-tonka-betrayal-1235984854/

[DanaK]

Ep 3: 
That Buck story. So sad

Tonia’s hair and face were a mess

[DanaK]

So did Tonia tell the fake director the truth that Tonia Tonka had heart failure and needed to be put down or was she lying to him and was preparing to put the chimp down to cover her tracks?

I’m glad the filmmaker finally went to Peta to reveal Tonia had Tonka and was planning to kill him

Edited September 4 by DanaK

[For Cereals]

6 hours ago, DanaK said:

So did Tonia tell the fake director the truth that Tonia had heart failure and needed to be put down or was she lying to him and was preparing to put the chimp down to cover her tracks?

I’m glad the filmmaker finally went to Peta to reveal Tonia had Tonka and was planning to kill him

I don’t trust anything that comes out of her mouth because she’s a lying liar who lies so easily.  I’m sure there are shady vets out there who would “verify” her claims but she knows she’s caught.

I really hope this prompts more states to change their laws and all these people buying these animals are investigated, especially Cy.  

[EastCoast4Life]

First of all, the Travis, Tonka, and Bucky stories are all very sad. The fact that are smaller monkeys, apparently kangaroos in diapers etc. are just roaming around is actually frightening. These people are addicted to owning primates, with very little thought to the quality of life of the primates. Why must they eat McDonalds?

I want to see what is under Tonia's wig... excuse me, multiple bad wigs. 

[DanaK]

So Tonia lied about Tonka having heart failure and he was fairly healthy. I figured she was probably lying in order to get rid of him to get herself out of trouble. What a despicable woman and clearly troubled

[IntrovertRed]

I figured she was lying. She said in the first episode that Tonka had heart issues and couldn't exercise or something like that and wasn't active. All the while he was jumping up and down going crazy in his cage seemingly heathly physically at least. She said, oh he's never that active usually. And then she was running back and forth while he was in his basement cage. She would have done anything for Tonka. The fact she said that he was more important to her than her kids and husband are indicative of that. 

That said, I did feel sorry for her, maybe I'm just getting soft in my old age.

Also, I hope Tonka is doing okay in the sanctuary. He seemed to be alone, though I was wondering why he came out to look at th video camera and then right back inside the enclosure. Was it a "fuck you"?  Or was he seeing if someone he liked was also with the film crew?  I'll need to go online as I'm sure he's doing fine, he just needed [hopefully] an adjustment period. And it only underscores the reasons that owning a chimp should not be allowed, it's not natural and chimps shouldn't be allowed to become a 'human-panzee'.

Is it wrong that I'm bummed the series is over? It was a train wreck that I didn't want to end. 

Edited September 9 by IntrovertRed

[lasu]

4 hours ago, IntrovertRed said:

I'll need to go online as I'm sure he's doing fine, he just needed [hopefully] an adjustment period.

This sounds like I'm making things up, but apparently Tonka is on an island with a family group that includes his own biological son, had a vasectomy and is banging lots of chimp-chicks, and slimmed down after going on a vegan diet with meals prepared by Jimmy Buffet's former chef.

I truly felt for Tonia in respect for her feelings about Tonka, and while I absolutely agree Tonka is better off without question, I understand her heartbreak.  THAT SAID, I 100% assumed she was lying at first about being attacked.  She's very, very lucky and shows how insane she is to compare it to what happened to the woman in CT.

[DanaK]

Watching the second half of the last episode, Tonia finally admits she wants to buy an island and just live with chimps, which is what I suspected earlier. And she says this after an adult chimp owned by a friend attacked her and seriously injured her. The woman is obsessed with primates and seemed to consider Tonka her child, like some other people profiled in the series. Just nuts, a very sad individual. What’s really sad is as the ending card indicated, there are still no federal laws banning chimp ownership in the US. Primate ownership should be regulated given they are a higher order mammal than most other animals and very intelligent and wild chimps are going extinct

What a wild series but an enlightening one

[angelamh66]

I was concerned that Tonka did look sad at the sanctuary. But then I read this and now I feel very hopeful for him. He really does seem like a lovely creature. 

 

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2024-09-08/tonka-chimp-crazy

[ellekaelin]

I just always think of people like Charla Nash when I think of people like Tonia. That wasn't her chimp and because people like Tonia and Sandra this woman will never see again. She will never be the person she once was because people like Tonia truly think that chimps are like children. I truly hoped that it was going to say that she got some type of jail sentence and not walking free so maybe she would have felt that what she did got her in trouble. It's apparently super easy to just get another chimp. 

[MCMLXXVII]

I hated Tonia and the rest of the chimp  owners, they’re like modern day slave traders/ slave owners locking our closest animal cousins in cages. 

[merylinkid]

Lord, these people live in an alternate reality.   Oh they're my children.   While the real children are standing right there going "uh hey, mom remember me?"   Then they feed them junk food.   Like do they think chimps natural diet is reese's whip?   Chimps are also social animals, yet they keep them locked up in cages with limited interactions with other chimps.   Their main stimulus is playing with their owners.   

Not a big fan of PETA, but damn you know a situation is bad when I think they are the good guys in the situation.   

Did not know Alan Cummings was caught up in the Tonka situation.   Then Tonia "oh like he cares, he never called, he never wrote."   Like why would he write or call a chimp?   Normal people don't do that kind of thing for animals.  Love them yes, properly  care for them yes.   Become pen pals with animal that cannot write, no.   

I was cheering the judge when the judge flat out said "I think Ms. Haddix is just making stuff up."   But yes, the burden was on PETA to prove Tonka was actually alive.   

ETA:   We need a nationwide ban on ownership of exotic animals except for accredited zoos and sanctuaries.   Which would also put Carole Baskin out of business I believe.

Edited September 28 by merylinkid

[xls]

6 hours ago, merylinkid said:

 We need a nationwide ban on ownership of exotic animals except for accredited zoos and sanctuaries.   Which would also put Carole Baskin out of business I believe.

ITA!!!!!!!