Original subtitles

- [Meteorologist] As well, this is gonna continue

to just follow the flow of the South-Southeast

to the North-Northwest.

We could have another busy day today, high temp of 85.

Even though temperatures might look a little cooler,

in some spots the humidity, that's due to the cloud...

- It's a beautiful, sunny day here in California.

We're on the road from LA to San Francisco.

We're driving on the wrong side of the road,

which is very challenging 'cause in Australia

we drive on the other side of the road.

So every bend is a challenge,

especially when we pass people.

And we're off to see Cobby,

and we're really, really excited.

- [Meteorologist] Thunderstorms in a couple of days.

Break Friday and Saturday...

- I can't believe we're going to see him.

[laughing]

After all this time.

[soft instrumental music]

[nostalgic piano music]

- [Announcer] The all-seeing eye

of the motion picture camera

can document history,

explore and reflect our culture and our times,

record, create, or synthesize art and life itself.

[projector clicking]

- [Narrator] Memories are strange things.

They come from nowhere to push you back in time.

Sometimes things stay with you.

This haunting continues until you need

to remember it clearly and follow where it leads.

This is the 1960s in Adelaide, South Australia.

I was an only child and each day I would rush home

from school to watch a comedy show called Cobby's Hobbies.

♪ Cobby is funny and lots of fun ♪

♪ Always finding something new to be done ♪

- [Narrator] I loved Cobby

and I was sure that Cobby was a huge international star,

after all, he sounded American.

♪ Cobby what's your hobby

♪ Show us your new hobby

♪ Cobby, what's your hobby today ♪

- [Announcer] The magic of the cinema lens

gives to us a limitless power

to teach, inform, activate, demonstrate, inspire.

But with this power,

we must also assume a heavy responsibility.

We must be forever conscious of our obligation

to check the focus and exposure,

because if we don't the pictures will turn out

all fuzzy and too dark or too light,

and the colours will be just lousy.

- [Narrator] So, it would've been about four o'clock

in the afternoon,

and as I had not brothers or sisters to play with,

I used to come inside and watch telly, and there he was.

The program was called Cobby's Hobbies.

♪ Cobby is funny and lots of fun ♪

♪ Always finding something new to be done. ♪

- [Narrator] The theme song haunted me.

It haunted me for so many years,

even after I couldn't remember the Cobby's Hobbies Show.

♪ Cobby, what's your hobby today ♪

- [Narrator] Cobby's Hobbies was only shown

in Adelaide for a year, so no one ever knew it.

[typewriter clicking]

For years I searched for him.

The Internet made no mention of Cobby.

He was destined to be an outsider

in the big, global picture.

He was part of my life connected with my childhood,

a footnote in my mind.

It was only later that I found more Adelaide kids

that shared similar memories.

[nostalgic piano music]

- It think it was about the time

that my parents decided to move us all into the city

of Adelaide into a big, old pub that they ran.

It was a very exciting time for me,

but I didn't have many friends,

so my main friend was television,

and I just used to sit

in front of the TV and watch everything.

And I really loved it actually,

but I do remember Cobby's Hobbies being on.

[slow instrumental music]

- I used to sit a long time watching TV anyway,

so I can't exactly remember when it was on.

I would go to school, and you'd talk about it the next day,

and we used to do impersonations of Cobby

and things like that.

We'd just talk about it the next day.

I used to be a very lonely child

just sitting there watching TV.

It was my only friend, it think, for quite a few years.

- My sister was much younger than myself.

I would've watched it by myself,

would've been the only person home.

Someone at school got the idea of calling me Cobby.

Presumably, there were enough other children in the class

who had seen the show for that to make sense.

And that sort of took off from there.

That was my nickname.

Most people who knew me pretty well

would've called me Cobby.

♪ Cobby is funny and lots of fun ♪

♪ Always finding something new to be done ♪

- Cobby likes hobbies.

♪ Da, da, da, da

♪ Always something new to be done ♪

♪ Cobby likes hobbies ♪

♪ And lots of fun

♪ Always looking for something new to be done ♪

♪ Always finding something new to be done ♪

- I remember at the end it was

Cobby where's hobby.

♪ Cobby what's your hobby ♪

- Show us your new hobby.

- Cobby, what's your hobby today?

♪ Cobby, what's your hobby today ♪

[lighthearted flute music]

- [Narrator] Now, I can't get the song out of my head.

When I started the search for Cobby,

it was all about chasing a childhood memory.

There was no dark side to this story yet.

♪ Cobby, what's your hobby today ♪

- [Narrator] All I wanted to do

was revisit the excitement of watching the show on TV.

♪ Cobby, what's your hobby today ♪

- Hello there, I suppose you're wondering

why I'm standing here drying dishes

when I should be doing something constructive and exciting,

like watching television or like that.

- I remember that it was black and white

it must have been black and white TV anyway.

And it was sort of superimposed human voice,

and it was Cobby and Kobeena, his girlfriend,

and they'll do a hobby each time.

- Well, time to take my daily exercise.

I guess I'll go out for a stroll.

It's raining outside.

This crazy bummer won't shoot.

Guess I'll have to pry it open here.

You know what they say,

it's unlucky to open an umbrella in the house.

- [Narrator] Cobby would have a different hobby every day.

And he would spend the four minutes of the episode

trying to master these hobbies, but he never would.

[whimsical clarinet music]

He would always get them wrong,

and his girlfriend Kobeena, or his conscience,

would come back in and try and put everything

back together again and tell him off.

- And gets hurt, boy, a step ladder

took one too many steps.

I guess it's all right...

- Probably Kobeena was actually Cobby dressed up as well.

But I recall all sorts of scenarios

where Cobby would have an opportunity

through props and bit of background music

and the clothes that he wore and so on

to conjure up different realms of endeavor,

different realms of interest that would allow

the show to sort of unfold in sort of a comic, tragic way.

- I know this will change my luck right here.

[groaning in pain]

- I sort of thought it was cute to dress the little chimp up

in those gorgeous costumes.

However, I did think it was a little bit strange

when they tried to make Cobby speak,

'cause it looked to be odd.

It didn't really look like somebody talking.

It sort of looked more like

he had something stuck in his mouth.

- And I thought I was a quack.

Try with a book balanced on your head.

With your head you could balance the world.

Now, that's it, easy does it.

Oh why couldn't you have a square head?

- [Narrator] Shared memories, bringing us together,

meeting those lonely Adelaide kids

found magic in that show,

I knew I had to keep going.

[slow electric guitar music]

Finally, a breakthrough.

In an archaic internet forum, two

entries made a difference.

A voice reaching out from 50 years ago.

I'm in Kansas, I worked on the show.

He was the editor,

a guy named Wendel Craighead.

The other entry made a big difference,

from Tony who worked in the San Francisco Zoo, who wrote,

we have a chimpanzee named Cobby.

My search narrowed to the San Francisco Zoo.

YouTube gave me the opportunity

for the first time to see images of Cobby now.

He is alive and well, and seems to be happy.

[bouncy cello music]

[chimpanzee gibbering]

- [Meteorologist] Still tracking rain,

be careful out there, sight of lightening comes.

But look at Saturday, by the shore, the sea breeze,

back to normal, boy, the beaches will be the spot to be.

Unbelievable, up into the mountains, thunderstorms,

they could come... - I'm not sure.

I'm not sure what I'll do when we get there.

Hopefully, he won't turn his back on us.

[chuckling]

So, at the end of this road is Cobby.

- [Announcer] We must be forever conscious of our obligation

to check the focus and exposure,

because if we don't, the pictures will turn out

all fuzzy and too dark or too light,

and the colours will be just lousy.

[cheerful big band music]

[people chattering in the distance]

[birds twittering]

♪ Cobby likes hobbies, lots of fun ♪

♪ Always finding something new to be done ♪

♪ Cobby likes hobbies, each and every one ♪

[bright xylophone music]

- [Narrator] Out of focus, wrong color and exposure

couldn't take away the excitement of seeing Cobby

for the first time.

Hello Cobby.

Although he's turned his back on me,

Cobby is real and he's here.

- [Cameraman] Just keep do it over and over,

'cause I'm gonna play with the focus.

- Okay.

[slow piano music]

- [Narrator] I soon learned that Cobby

has been here since 1968.

For many years, he was the only male amongst three females.

In 2003, the matriarch of the group, Tallulah, passed away.

She was, according to rumors,

the inspiration for the look of Yoda, from Star Wars.

Since her death, Cobby now shares his accommodation

with two remaining females, Maggie and Minnie.

This is Maggie.

Minnie, on the left, is more camera shy.

- All of the chimps that we have here

were previously pets or in the entertainment industry.

Cobby is the most dominant of our group.

As the male, he gets the most favourite items,

so if we put five things out, he gets two or three of them,

and the other guys get what's left.

And he's sort of the one that will lead the troop out,

lead the troop in.

If one is kind of taking a long time to come in,

he'll go out and round them up,

and say, come on, it's time to come in.

Because they've been together for such a long time,

this troop is very settled,

so he really doesn't have to prove himself very much.

So, he's definitely the leader of the group.

- I think I like babysitting.

It's such an easy way to make money,

or at least it would be if this kid didn't eat so much.

She's already had three bottles of milk.

She must have a whole lake.

She wants more.

- Well, he is very interested in people.

And he's formed very close bonds

with particular keepers as well.

And he's interested in grooming the keepers.

So, I think that might be part of growing up

in the entertainment industry.

And he does also sometimes favour things

that maybe he has seen in the entertainment days.

We gave him a little dust broom.

He was very interested in using that

and trying to clean things up.

[laughing]

[whimsical flute music]

♪ Cobby, what's your hobby

♪ Show us your new hobby

- We love cuteness, don't we?

We're just drawn to cuteness.

When something that might be really cute

when it's little, everything's cute when it's little.

We love that the cute and the funny

and the silly is just like us,

and even visitors to zoos.

It's great to actually watch their reactions

to the chimps, because

people love to know that they are like us.

[chimpanzees hooting]

[bright xylophone music]

- [Narrator] The excitement of finally meeting

my childhood hero suddenly turned

into some kind of anti-climax feeling.

I was amazed to see how big Cobby was.

He was so different from the cute image

I had of him in that television show.

At that moment at the zoo,

with an invisible fence between us,

there was a sense of something

that was not quite right here.

[unsettling string music]

I knew that in the past, animals like Cobby

lost their freedom and found themselves confined

in a tiny cage for the duration of their lives.

The focus, then, was to find entertainment

and education for the crowd on the other side of the fence.

Not much fun for the animals inside those cages.

Although Cobby lives now in this beautiful environment,

there was something sad about seeing him on display.

He looked so human.

I went back to my childhood memories,

and I could feel Cobby's deep, brown eyes following me.

- [Cassandra] I think if you ever get the chance

to look at him in the eye,

it's a bit cliché, but you're really

just not the same ever again.

It really can get into your soul.

- [Narrator] Cassandra Rowe was worked with great apes

for 14 years, and it was from her

that I've learned that you won't find adult chimpanzees

in the entertainment industry.

And it's not just because they have lost their cuteness.

- They're very smart.

They're very intelligent.

They have the ability to plan.

They are very strong,

they say that ten times as strong as a man,

so they're very, very strong.

I mean, I've seen them bend iron bars

like it didn't matter.

They are very quick.

They can bite.

They have this great ability to display

and throw things around, break branches,

and crush your head with their hands.

They're so strong.

I wouldn't like to be in a situation where

I've been grabbed by a chimp,

or they can harpoon.

They can actually use weapons against you.

They're not all horrible, but they certainly will

do you a lot of damage. They will kill you, absolutely.

♪ Cobby is funny and lots of fun ♪

♪ Always finding something new to be done ♪

[lighthearted instrumental music]

- Chimps in entertainment,

they might be bred in captivity and used

for that purpose, I'm not too sure about that.

But the chimps that I've worked with

seem like they haven't come from that luxury.

So, they've been born in the wild.

[tense instrumental music]

[gunshot banging]

They generally will kill the entire troop because,

I mean, imagine trying go in and take a baby from a chimp.

It's not really gonna work out very well for you.

So, they will sell the adults for meat,

and the babies are not very meaty

so they probably get more money

if they're selling them as a pet.

They might be sold as photographers' props,

or for the entertainment industry.

[chimpanzee screeching]

[chimpanzee screeching]

Once they are in that sort of environment

is where a lot of neglect and abuse can occur.

They will remove their teeth a lot of the times,

so they don't bite tourists,

especially if they are photographers' props.

Those chimps become big fairly quickly, even as babies.

I've helped hand-raise a few and they're heavy.

They're quite muscly

and they're not like infant humans at all.

They're very strong, built to do things.

To sedate them, so they might give them alcohol,

I guess is a cheap option.

They'll often do things like burn cigarettes into them

to try and control them as a means of discipline.

Once they get too big,

if you've got this uncontrollable animal,

that even if it's sedated, it's dangerous,

they will often take them out onto a boat,

and just tip them overboard,

because chimps don't have a natural ability to swim

because of the density of their bodies.

And they can just go and buy another one,

because they're readily available.

[suspenseful bass guitar music]

- [Narrator] These disturbing facts were new to me.

I couldn't help thinking whether Cobby

was going through a similar journey.

It was hard to believe.

In his television show, he always looked so happy.

- If you ask somebody that's watching a chimp on television,

perhaps, and you don't know that,

it's really misleading.

Often, when they're showing their teeth,

it's a fear thing, or an anxiety.

So, it's not a smile, and a lot of people will think

that the chimp is showing its teeth,

and especially if it's wearing roller skates

or wearing a suit, it's smiling

and, generally, it's not the case.

Much like us, they feel happy, sad, scared.

They can, maybe, get depression like we can.

[slow piano music]

- [Narrator] As my nostalgic trip

started exploding all around me,

I've tried to imagine what Cobby felt

when he first arrived here nearly 50 years ago.

There is no record in the San Francisco Zoo

about his place of birth.

I can only guess that he was taken away

from this mother in the wild.

[camera clicking]

One who can shed some light on Cobby's early days

in the zoo is Tony Bila.

He was one of the few that responded

when I started the search for Cobby.

- When you take an animal like that

and raise it in an environment completely foreign to

and then you take it and throw,

put it in the best zoo in the world,

it's still like taking

all of the sudden what are you doing,

you're leaving me with a bunch of apes.

So, I think there's always a little trauma involved.

- [Narrator] Although Tony was the wolf keeper in the zoo,

Cobby was a big part of his life.

His late life, Lisa, was Cobby's keeper for over 10 years.

- Lisa really loved chimpanzees.

I think she really thought they were a better example

of human than we are.

And so, like it or not,

I was fed a steady diet of wonderful

Cobby, handsome Cobby.

You know, da, da, da.

And I

I loved that.

I mean, I always made as though it was really a burden

but I loved it, because I had

my own madness around wolves, for instance.

When she started taking me in there,

she would give me these instructions,

like get low, get high, don't look, don't look, what is it.

And

almost every time I went in there,

Cobby would go bananas.

He'd beat a tattoo on that expanded metal

caging that they had in there with this, I mean,

and he'd kind of go ape.

But if I went in there without Lisa, I could work it out.

So, there was a dynamic going on

which we won't say anything more about.

[nostalgic piano music]

A zoo is a prison wherein

all the inmates are known to be innocent.

And so how do I justify working there?

I feel I bring special skills and a special love.

To be a keeper of something is to

hold it precious and safe.

It's not just a prison.

A child who sees a giraffe or a chimpanzee,

or a lion, will have a different experience

and devotion to that world that they represent

than one who sees it.

It's very beautiful to see the nature documentaries

and all this and that, and they're ravishing.

But the fight is to save that,

and there's a lot less to save every day.

[chimpanzees hooting]

We have to remember that most animals in zoos

are not sitting there comparing it,

oh I wish I was back on the old Savanna.

Oh geez, I sure miss that tree.

That's not their comparison.

They've never known that.

They grew up where they grew up.

I'd like to see chimps survive.

And I'd like that survival to include

as much of the richness and complexity of their life

as it can, which is pretty

it's a lot.

I'd like to see some among us in some form or another.

I mean, it would be lovely to say

I'd like to see the last chimp turned out to

but the truth is is if you let the last chimp

back out into the forest, he's gonna go,

what are you, nuts?

I'd like some part of the ability of this earth

to sustain this complexity to survive.

[slow instrumental music]

♪ Cobby is funny and lots of fun ♪

♪ Always finding something new to be done ♪

- [Narrator] At the end of each Cobby's Hobbies Episode,

there was a big credit to the creator of the show,

Murray Hill Enterprises.

The word enterprises sounded huge to me,

and it gave me the impression

of a big studio beyond the show.

I've managed to locate Murray Hill's two daughters,

Robin, who lives in New Jersey,

and her younger sister, Nada, who lives in Pennsylvania.

From them, I've learned that Murray hill,

who's real name is Arlan Seidon, died in 2013.

I soon found out that the big studio

was actually a small family business,

with its roots in Brooklyn, New York.

Murray and his wife, Denise,

were the driving force of my childhood favourite show.

- When my parents got together,

my mother was a nightclub dancer,

and my dad, I guess,

was a really bad comic and accordion player.

And in those days one could make a living

by driving around, going from nightclub to nightclub

and doing your act.

- My dad was a really unusual person.

He was raised in a very traditional Jewish home,

and he was never traditionally Jewish.

He didn't do anything traditional.

He was the black sheep of the family.

He knew early on that he wasn't going

to be the average Joe out there.

He always needed to be in charge.

My mum was a dancer at the time

and they got together and they got married,

and my dad bought his first chimp which was Chatter,

and put Chatter into his act,

and became somewhat of a success

because he had a chimp in the act.

And he found that he got along with the chimp

far better than he did most people,

so they had a good rapport going,

and they did really well.

At a certain point, they moved to Downers Grove, Illinois,

decided to have children, establish a home,

and my father made the Chatter's World.

[whimsical instrumental music]

♪ Chatter's got the whole place in a mess ♪

♪ Chatter doesn't know that he's the best ♪

- They worked with Chatter and they did the nightclub scene.

I was born, and I guess we all traveled around together.

I guess they had me in a bassinet

in the back of the car with the chimp.

And that chimp really loved me,

according to my folks.

It did not like to hear me cry.

My mother would have to beat him to the bassinet,

so she wouldn't find him picking me up.

I mean, I guess he really was quite fond of me.

♪ Chatter, what's the matter with you ♪

- Well, some fellas use a cane.

Some fellas use a rifle.

I use a boomerang.

That's right, now, watch this.

I just wind up there, I throw it out.

This comes, whoops.

They don't make boomerangs like they used to.

♪ Chatter's got some trouble on his brain ♪

- [Narrator] The picture is starting to emerge

about the chronology of this story.

Chatter, with the help of Murray, of course,

was the one who paved the way for Cobby's road

to international stardom.

- All right, okay.

Come on out, bad bard, I've got you covered.

- [Narrator] Watching the few episodes of Chatter's World

I could find on the web,

I could not help noticing how similar they are

to Cobby's Hobbies,

even the catchy theme songs

of the two Murray Hill Productions

sound nearly the same.

♪ Cobby, what's your hobby today ♪

[nostalgic electric guitar music]

- We had a lot of baby chimps,

and I remember Chatter and Cobby both being bigger,

so they were more like hairy brothers.

They had meals with us and

I felt like they got away with murder.

I felt like we had to behave better than they did.

I didn't have a great relationship with Cobby.

He didn't like me very much.

Mum told me that he bit me.

- I was four, Robin was six.

Cobby was sitting in between.

Robin was on one side, I was on the other,

and I have no idea.

He picked up her hand, put it in his mouth and bit her.

Well, obviously, she was pretty upset,

but she was also mad 'cause she couldn't understand

why Cobby didn't bite me, too.

Dad had stories of how they would steal our food,

and how they would stand up and look out the window,

so that my sister and I would stand up

and look out the window,

and then they would grab our food off of our plate.

[nostalgic guitar music]

- They were chimps, they would run around the house,

and they would rough house with each other.

My dad would rough house with them,

and they would play, and they had a lot of fun.

I didn't necessarily have a lot of fun with them.

I pretty much kept my distance,

I think, from both Chatter and Cobby when they got bigger,

because when they get bigger

they get really tough to get around.

That's why people shouldn't have them as pets,

because they don't stay cute for very long.

They had to know that baby chimps

were taken away from their mothers,

so I don't know why they thought it was okay to do it,

and I never asked them,

but for some reason at that time

in our history, it was okay.

It wasn't frowned on, and nobody thought it was a bad thing,

and so maybe they didn't think it was a bad thing either.

And I think they weren't conscious enough

to think about it in this form.

- My dad was the first person

to import baby elephants and keep them alive.

People were importing baby elephants

and they weren't staying alive,

and my father found a way to do just that.

He also had the youngest elephant act on the road.

I don't believe there was ever an elephant act

with three young elephants that went on the road.

I think he was the first to integrate a chimp

into an elephant act.

So, he did a lot of things that were firsts.

[slow guitar music]

- [Narrator] For Murray and Denise, it was a way of life

they chose in order to take care of their family.

By now, they had two more mouths to feed,

those of twins Alan and Adam.

After shooting 150 episodes of Chatter's World in 1960,

and 156 episodes of Cobby's Hobbies in 1964,

the curtain closed on the television

chapter of the family.

As for his ex-TV star chimpanzees,

Murray introduced them to a new career,

promoting various businesses.

[vigorous brass music]

- Businesses would call and say,

we want to run a promotion,

wanna draw people into the store.

So, they would call my dad and he'd bring in

one of the chimps and Cobby being one of them,

and he taught them how to walk the wire,

meet and greets, and he would sign autographs,

and just kind of do personal things.

[vigorous brass music]

[unsettling instrumental music]

- I think he was finding that chimps were a lot of work,

and maybe there was a lot of competition with chimps,

and elephants were a lot of work,

but you could command more.

- [Narrator] Gary Ross knew Murray very well.

He wrote a book about him.

I'll tell you about it a bit later.

- If you had a trained elephant,

and could have them walk down Broadway

in an American Express commercial,

they would pay you 10 times the money they'd pay you

just to have a chimp that could do something on camera.

I think the economic pull was

toward the elephants as moneymakers.

When the Mighty Mites started,

they were, I believe, the youngest performing elephants

in circus history.

And if you could've frozen them in time,

maybe that would've been the ideal scenario,

when they'd all fit in the back of a pickup truck,

or something or a cube van, instead of an 18 wheeler.

And when they didn't eat hundreds

and hundreds of pounds

of hay and grain every day.

[whimsical cello music]

People who can baby anything,

sometimes fail to take into account what happens

when the animal grows up.

A baby chimp is incredibly cute,

except the chimp gets bigger and bigger,

and stronger and stronger.

The chimp can basically tear your

face off as has happened.

That notion of bringing a chimp into your family,

treating it as a family member,

expecting your kids to treat it as a sibling,

which I think Murray and Denise basically did,

it's outlandish in this day and age.

And it was simply ill-advised back then.

But I don't think he saw it as that.

He saw the chimp as a meal ticket.

People would pay money to see the chimp,

and see the chimp do tricks and all of that,

and Murray had a family to feed.

- [Narrator] Murray knew all along

that the time would come to say goodbye

to his two ex-TV stars.

[unsettling instrumental music]

It became clear that the safety of his children

was not something to play with.

The cute baby chimpanzees were growing up,

and it was time to let go.

- My dad donated Cobby in 1968 to the San Francisco Zoo,

and he donated Chatter as well to a zoo in Florida.

I remember my dad being sad

that day, excuse me.

Don't film that.

My dad was kind of sad that day,

and this was a chimp that he loved.

And it was hard enough when he had to donate Chatter,

and this a second chimp that he had loved

and raised from baby and worked with every day.

But he also knew it was a good thing to do for Cobby.

[slow instrumental music]

We left him at the zoo in San Francisco.

I was nine years old, and that was the last

that I knew about Cobby.

I just went on with my little life and grew up

and did my thing,

and really never thought again about it.

So, it was very heartening to hear

that Cobby was still alive.

[tranquil piano music]

- [Narrator] For Robin, it's the first time she has seen

her childhood nemesis since her father donated Cobby

to the San Francisco Zoo.

- I have to say that it was a

very interesting way to grow up.

I can't ever say I was bored as a kid.

I have a lot of useless knowledge about animals now

[laughing]

that have nothing to do with my life.

But I'm sure growing up with those animals

have made me a lot of who I am today,

empathetic and sympathetic.

[vigorous brass music]

- [Narrator] The Hill Family continued to make a living

as an act for hire in various circuses.

Murray developed his elephant gig

with Beanie the chimpanzee.

As time passed, Robin and Nada moved into the ring

with the trapeze act.

They were always expected to take part

in the constant struggle to make a living.

- You had to practice all the time,

and the animals had to be taken care of.

There were a lot of times that we

had hired help doing that.

And there were a lot of times that we didn't.

And when we didn't have help

my sister and I had to do the work,

which we resented, quite frankly.

And I swore that once I got old enough to have a choice,

I wouldn't have animals anymore,

because they are 24/7 responsibility.

I mean, we spent hours and hours and hours

when we were on the road sitting with the elephants

to make sure that they wouldn't get hurt by the public

and the public wouldn't get hurt by them.

You could never ever leave them alone

when they were outside the truck.

[spectators chattering]

My dad would disappear for hours on end,

and my sister and I would be left there,

sitting there taking care of them.

For those who didn't know him,

he was fun and funny and charismatic

and interesting and smart,

but he was tough to be around.

And we ended up having, I think, a pretty tough childhood.

[steady percussive music]

- As a father, Murray explained to me

that he really learned how to raise other beings

by raising exotic animals.

So, he raised his children as if he were training animals.

The best way to train an animal

is to reward its behaviour occasionally

on such a schedule that it knows

that a reward is coming, but it never knows quite when.

Because of the strength of chimps

and elephants and so on,

animal trainers tend to impose their will on the animal

as a way of showing the animal I can hurt you.

You have to keep it somewhat in fear of you.

And I would say, as a parent,

Murray tended toward that way of raising his kids.

The discipline was the way

to show them who was in charge and what he wanted,

and here's the behaviour that's not allowed.

[elephant trumpeting]

[announcer chattering quietly]

- [Narrator] Elephants are starting

to take over this story.

[camera clicking]

Gary Ross, a Canadian journalist,

editor, and writer

wrote a book entitled "At Large: The Fugitive Odyssey"

"of Murray Hill and His Elephants."

It's a complicated story with lots of new names,

so bear with me.

In 1984, Murray sold the last two of his elephants,

Tory and Duchess, to the Drakes,

father and son animal trainers.

He could no longer care for them

after the third elephant, a bull named Onyx,

seriously injured him.

When he heard that the Drakes

were mistreating the elephants,

Murray stole the trailer with Tory and Duchess,

and for five years was on the run all over the USA,

hiding the huge elephants at different friends' properties.

Gary Ross, who read the news about the case,

saw the potential for a book.

With Robin's help, Gary managed to track down Murray.

- He was in hiding at that time.

I have no idea where he was.

And we began having chats on the phone.

He would call me every once and a while, collect,

from wherever he was, and I was eventually able

to say to him, look, we need to meet face to face.

So, I know you don't really trust me yet.

I may be the police.

I may be working for the Drakes.

You don't know who I am.

And he said, "I'll think about it."

So, one Thursday, I believe it was,

he phoned me and he said,

"Be at Shreveport, Louisiana, on Saturday."

"Stay at the Richmond Suites."

[laughing]

So, I flew down to Shreveport, Louisiana,

checked into the Richmond Suites,

waited for a few hours in my room,

and before long there was a knock on the door.

Not before long, after a few hours.

I open the door, and this little guy is standing there,

and he says, I'm Murray Hill.

That's how I met Murray.

[slow instrumental music]

- [Narrator] The first encounter between Murray and Gary

led to further meetings all over the country

that led to the publication of the book.

The book focuses on the time after Cobby,

the elephant years.

Besides describing five years

of hiding two giant elephants on the road,

it's a unique insight to Murray

and his family's way of life.

That whole animal world of circuses and carnivals,

where you're kind of set up and get the money

or get ripped off for the money, and tear down,

and drive through the night to the next location,

and sleep on bales of hay,

and never take off your clothes.

It was an eye-opener to me

to enter into that world, somewhat.

And into that mix you throw Murray.

Here you have a diminutive, little guy

with three massive animals that he is in control of,

and beating up when he has to beat them up,

showing who's boss, this little guy.

And that was very much his attitude to the world.

Nobody's gonna screw with me, I'm Murray Hill,

and I may be little but I'm tough kind of thing.

[spectators applauding]

- [Announcer] Now, look at this.

These elephants are playing London Bridge.

It's a tight squeeze, but she can make it.

[spectators applauding]

- In a circus, for half an hour, it's glamorous.

For a while, the spotlight is shining

and sequins are glittering,

and fans are clapping,

but for the other 23 hours a day,

it's brutally hard work.

The elephants are eating a hundred pounds of hay

and a pail of grain every day, each,

so the animals are costing a fortune

as he goes about his business.

I'm sure he was relieved

to get out of the elephant business

when he sold the girls originally.

And when he took them back he was in dire straights,

basically for five years,

and like Blanche Dubois,

he relied on the kindness of strangers.

[energetic instrumental music]

- [Announcer] Now, our big show is over.

And late tonight we will load up, hurry away,

keep a date in another town tomorrow morning.

- [Narrator] Murray, who was 60 years old at the time,

was determined to get his girls to safety.

That's how he used to call his elephants.

But the five-year run finally came to an end.

[police siren blaring]

- [Newscaster] A posse of FBI agents has rounded up

two adult Asian elephants, allegedly stolen in New Jersey

more than five years ago by a man

who insisted he repossess the animals

for non-payment and animal abuse.

When caught, he said that he hadn't seen his four children

or met his grandson since he took off with the elephants.

- I'm very conflicted in my personal feelings about him.

In a way, I admire him greatly.

I couldn't have done what he did.

And in another way, I think he was kind of idiotic

and self-absorbed and irrational in his decision-making

to his own detriment.

There's something Homeric about his odyssey

of going on the road with two elephants,

and the guy making his way home.

It's like "Cold Mountain," the novel, or something.

Inman is like, no matter what he's gonna make his way home.

Murray was kind of making his way to Mexico, he thought.

What was gonna happen in Mexico, though.

So, Mexico was this dream where

if he could cross the border with the girls,

they'd leave him alone.

What's he gonna do in Mexico with two fucking elephants.

[laughing]

Teach them Spanish?

[sonorous trumpet music]

- [Narrator] Gary, whose book focused on the elephant years,

didn't delve into Murray's chimpanzee era.

And so it was that Cobby, my childhood hero,

was hardly mentioned in the book.

- I never saw an episode of Cobby's Hobbies,

but Murray made it sound like it was

as popular as the Ed Sullivan Show

on Sunday nights or something.

And it was his doing and his creation,

and he made Cobby and he produced the show.

And, again, one always has a different assessment

of one's own contributions and place,

and all of that, than perhaps other people do.

But I wouldn't have guessed that Cobby would outlive Murray,

but there you go.

[bouncy cello music]

- [Narrator] After his arrest, Murray had to face the court.

The newspapers of the time telling us,

the state dropped its case against Seidon last month

in exchange for a promise not to steal anymore elephants.

Murray had to move on.

At this stage, divorced from his wife Denise,

he tried his luck selling insurance.

It seems a very sedate chapter after the elephant story.

So, it was time to get back to Cobby's Hobbies

and where it all began.

[contemplative instrumental music]

I've managed to meet with Wendel Craighead,

who was one of the editors of the show.

He was the one who wrote to me ages ago

when I started this journey.

- I was very surprised 50 years or so,

maybe more than 50 years,

after Cobby's Hobbies was produced,

that there's still people that remember the series,

and even people that remember the theme music.

[sprightly instrumental music]

- [Announcer] What, in addition to the right equipment,

does it take for the job of film editing.

♪ Cobby, what's your hobby

- [Announcer] It takes an individual

with these qualities:

manual dexterity,

dramatic judgment,

storytelling sense,

a feel for pacing and tempo,

endless patience, and most of all,

an ability to take genuine pleasure

in ruthlessly discarding

most of what so many have worked so long

and so hard to produce.

But that's editing,

the elimination of all but the essential.

[whimsical xylophone music]

- I started out as an editor trainee.

And it was during that period of time

that Cobby came to live at Calvin

and we began the Cobby's Hobby series.

So, I was involved in the beginning of that series.

I, later on, did some re-editing on some of the episodes.

After that, I became a producer

and then directed film crews on five continents.

And I got to do some things

that I would've probably paid money to,

but Cobby's Hobbies was

a little different than anything else.

I always remembered Cobby.

I will never, never forget that.

- Speed.

- [Narrator] Before producing Cobby's Hobbies,

the Calvin Company was the leading production house

making industrial, educational, and advertising films.

- Workshop film, scene one.

Take one.

- [Narrator] In order to train the vast amount

of emerging producers using 16 mil film in the country,

Calvin developed an annual workshop,

where they used films to sell this idea.

- [Announcer] The film you are about to see

represents a significant breakthrough

in the advancing science of the motion picture.

When viewing this film, please keep your company name

and your product in mind.

You are about to witness history in the making.

- John, what's happening to us?

- I think we both know Mary.

- It's just that we seem to be drifting apart.

- I'm sorry, Mary, I've tried.

- Well, I don't blame you, John.

It's just that...

- It's not your fault either, of course.

It's just that... - God, it's ironic.

With all our technology and industrial know-how,

we still don't have the one thing

that could give us a better way of life.

They say it can't be done,

that it's just an impossible dream.

- [Announcer] But in the laboratories of your name here,

there is a modest sign.

[upbeat brass music]

- [Mary] John, you mean...

- That's right, Mary, I got the promotion.

Starting tomorrow, I'm no longer just a shipping clerk.

I'm chairman of the board.

- And it's all because of...

- [Announcer] Your product here.

[steady brass music]

- [Narrator] At the height of its success,

Calvin employed over 300 staff in this seven-story building

in down town Kansas City.

[projector clicking]

- I gotta get blood.

- Sad case, huh?

Maybe, you might know him.

Fella named Jones, he's in the movie business.

Makes industrial films, advertising

films, all like that.

[smooth jazz music]

- [Narrator] In 1964, the same year this film was made

the Calvin Company were looking for new ways to expand

into the ever-demanding field of television,

entered multi-skilled Larry Kauffman.

- I was first hired there a public relations person.

And out of desperation,

they finally let me direct some film,

and of course, the films I directed had to be edited,

and since I was the only one

that apparently knew how to do

what I was doing, I edited them.

So, I wrote, directed, and edited

over the course of the years,

probably made as many enemies as friends,

but they finally let me work with a chimp.

[chimpanzee hooting]

- All right, come on, Frank, action.

- In voice recording,

the essential quality we must strive for is

[gibbering]

ability.

- Cut, that was good.

Good, very good.

- We didn't actually use a script.

We knew we had to get this shot or that shot,

or have Cobby do this or that.

And it would depend a lot on voice

commands, or movements,

or pantomime by Murray

to get Cobby to not act but react.

At times, I wish we'd have a separate camera on Murray,

because he was funnier than Cobby.

[whimsical instrumental music]

Cobby and Murray were inseparable companions.

They had a trailer, that was, as I recall,

it was stationed in between the two sound stages.

And they kept pretty much to themselves,

except when they were no longer in the building.

[laughing]

- I'm sure employees did.

I'm sure I did, I probably said, good morning Cobby,

or hi Cobby, or something like that.

And

we probably didn't expect any response in return.

- I was thinking I'd become Ms. America, Cobby, darling.

- At the rate you're going, Kobeena,

I don't think you'll ever make it.

Now, let me see how you walk.

One step at a time.

- How is this, Cobby?

Do I look like a swan in a pond?

- Oh, I can't look.

Kobeena, you look more like a duck in the muck.

Now, try it again.

- [Narrator] As well as the theme song of the show,

it was the voice of Cobby

that I couldn't get out of my head.

Meeting Larry and Wendel solved one more mystery for me.

Finally, there was a face

to this voice from my past.

- Oh boy,

woof, he says.

[upbeat brass music]

- Harvey Levine was the voice of Cobby,

and we had been using Harvey in some other areas.

He was primarily a comedian,

and as such, he had a variety of different voices.

And, apparently, we heard some of his voices

at one time or another, and said,

"Hey, that's a voice for Cobby."

- Hey, hey!

Hey, hey, hey, you guys, come here.

I got a problem, I need your help.

Come on, come now.

Come on now, this is an emergency.

The client is mad.

Come on, come on, I'm gonna tell you.

Come on, I'm going to tell you.

- He would be in the sound booth

with the work print being projected.

A lot of ad-libbing involved,

but Harvey was familiar with the story-line

and what we needed to accomplish,

and would mouth Cobby as he went through his motions.

- You really are an expert.

Here, Cobby, darling.

I think you should be Ms. America.

- I wish to thank my friends,

and all those who voted for me,

even if I did deserve it.

Oh, ho!

- It's nice to see something on the screen

and know that I had something to do with that,

maybe just a little bit to do with that.

But to me, more important than that,

it was the people at Calvin, the employees,

really nice people.

And I stayed there until Calvin closed in September of '82.

- Why did they close?

They failed, I think, to recognise tape

as replacing film eventually.

And when tape first got started,

quality was not too great,

but Calvin didn't make the transition,

and as a result of that, eventually

they had to close down.

- [Interviewer] What did you think about finding out

all these years later that Cobby's Hobbies

was really appreciated in Adelaide, South Australia?

[Larry laughing]

- Well, it was really gratifying, really.

There were quite a lot of people involved

in the production of Cobby

over a long period of time.

But that was a long, long time ago.

And to know realise that perhaps in Australia

and maybe other parts of the world

that people still appreciate

Cobby and his hobbies is very gratifying.

- [Interviewer] Had you heard of Adelaide, South Australia?

Honestly.

- No.

[laughing]

[whimsical instrumental music]

[nostalgic instrumental music]

- [Narrator] Spending the day here

took me back to the warm and fuzzy feeling

that I had when I started this journey.

But I knew that I had to ask one more question.

- [Interviewer] How do you feel about animals

in entertainment, chimps in entertainment?

Have you got an opinion about that?

- I think there's a lot of commentary anymore about

animal abuse in various uses

other than their natural habitat.

I think it depends very much on the circumstances.

With Cobby, as far as I could tell,

Murray had a very good relationship with him,

and I know took very good care of him,

was very conscientious about

his health and his care.

After all, he was Murray's money at that particular time,

so it would behoove him to take good care of him.

But I think Murray had more

than a commercial interest in Cobby.

I think they were good buddies.

[slow instrumental music]

- This silly thing still doesn't work.

When it comes to lights, folks,

I'm completely in the dark.

Oh well, I'll give it one more go around.

- Really, though, what have you been doing?

You haven't been fooling around with electricity, have you?

- Not me, Kobeena,

I know better than to fool around with that stuff.

That could be dangerous.

- Even as soon as just several decades ago,

there was over 50 chimpanzees

that were specifically used in the entertainment business,

for movies and advertisements.

Today, that number is much more reduced.

Many of these chimpanzees have been moved

to sanctuaries and accredited zoos,

as that business dwindles as a result of pressure

from scientist and advocates, who have pointed out

the real welfare and perception issues that are surrounding

the use of chimpanzees in entertainment.

We know that chimpanzees used in entertainment

often don't have particularly good lives.

To start with, they're taken away

from their mother early in life,

and as a result suffer long-term consequences.

But also the use of chimpanzees

in entertainment is important,

because it creates false perceptions

among the public that are viewing these chimpanzees.

When people see chimpanzees in movies,

they tend not to think that they're in endangered,

or that they might make a good pet.

And so, as a result, there's been a lot of advocacy work

disputing the use of chimpanzees in entertainment,

and that number has dwindled down

to just about 15 chimpanzees.

- Now, just flip this disc onto the turntable,

and see what's in the groove.

I must have tired electricity.

[tranquil piano music]

- [Man] Hello, fellow Doc Conner, this is your...

- Anthropomorphism is an important concept

when talking about chimpanzees.

This is the imbuing of emotions

and characteristics of humans unto non-humans.

And in fact, Jane Goodall, when she studied chimpanzees

in the wild in the 1960s, was criticized actually

for naming the chimpanzees she studied.

So, this was a very critical aspect of what she was doing.

But I think it's very easy to anthropomorphize,

when you're talking about chimpanzees,

who are so genetically and biologically similar to humans.

In fact, we know through studies that they do express

and feel a lot of the same emotions

and cognitive processes that we do as humans.

So, it's actually not a problem at all.

But it does become a problem, I think,

in terms of how we display them and portray them

in, for instance, entertainment.

People, I think, have a natural tendency

to want to make them look like little humans,

and that might come in the form of things

like dressing them up.

But, of course, they're not humans at all.

And in fact, this divide between what they are

and what humans are is particularly important,

if we want to respect them as a species,

and as a result protect wild populations

of chimpanzees in Africa.

[chimpanzees hooting]

- [Narrator] Doctor Stephen Ross

knows a bit about chimpanzees.

He is the director of the Lester E. Fisher Center

for the Study and Conservation of

Apes at Lincoln Park Zoo,

and heads Project ChimpCARE.

And he's the chair of SSP, Species Survival Plan.

In fact, he knows each one

of the 1850 chimpanzees living in the USA.

In his office, you can find a mugshot of each one of them,

including one of my favourite chimp, Cobby.

- Cobby is the oldest male chimpanzee

living in an accredited zoo.

He's over 55 years old now

although we don't know his exact age,

because he is wild-born.

We don't know how long Cobby will live,

but we're already sort of planning

both with San Francisco Zoo and the Species Survival Plan

to understand how we want to ensure

that the remainder of his life is comfortable and dynamic.

Obviously, Cobby's social group is shrinking.

He lives with old individuals,

so we have to find situations where he has

at least some social opportunities

to be with other individuals.

So, there might come a time

where the best thing for Cobby is to move to another zoo,

where he can have other individuals to be around

and still maintain that social aspect of his character.

This is a difficult decision for a zoo

that only has a few chimpanzees,

but at some point it might become necessary

for Cobby and for other older individuals like him.

[urgent brass music]

- [Newscaster] Something is happening

in the San Francisco Zoo.

A tough decision has to be made.

- [Reporter] Upgrade the aging exhibit to house

more chimpanzees in order to create a bigger social group,

or send the three senior chimps away to another zoo.

The second option seems to trigger a public outcry.

- [Blogger] Help save the San Francisco Zoo chimps.

Welcome to this blog dedicated to the attempt

to stop a move by the San Francisco Zoo

to boot the family group of three senior chimpanzees

from the only home they have ever known.

Please subscribe to this blog.

Follow me on Twitter.

Share any and all information

to help get the message out.

These senior chimps deserve to be a priority for once,

be given the new home they were promised,

and most important, to live out their lives

in the place they have called home for over 45 years.

Please help in any way you can.

[dissonant string music]

- [Narrator] It was heart warming to find out

that Cobby gets this kind of support

even when he is old and gray.

I wasn't sure about what was the best thing for Cobby.

But for one San Francisco Zoo member

and animal advocacy blogger, Kim Forwood,

there is no doubt that it was wrong

to move chimps to another zoo.

Kim was the one that uploaded the

video of Cobby to YouTube,

where I first saw him alive.

♪ Happy birthday to you

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy birthday

♪ Cobby, Maggie, and Minnie

♪ Happy birthday to you

- [Narrator] She kept uploading videos from the zoo,

celebrating important milestones.

For her, the fight to keep Cobby,

Minnie, and Maggie here

is very personal.

- It would just be heartbreaking to me,

because I don't know what would happen to them.

I don't know what kind of situation

they would be going into.

Like I said, I don't think it's a safe situation for them.

I mean, obviously, people will tell you

that they can be adopted and this, that, the other, but

why should they?

This is their home.

It's like sending your grandparent away.

It's just not right.

It would just mean everything,

'cause it's what they deserve.

[slow electric guitar music]

Cobby is grooming one of the girls.

I think that they lead a very simple life.

There's not a lot for them to do.

Well, the dynamics changed a little bit

when Tallulah passed away.

She was pretty much the matriarch,

so she was in charge.

She was even above Cobby, from what I understand.

And now I don't really know what the hierarchy is,

if there is one, or what.

Some people have told me that the girls

tend to boss him around a lot.

But I have noticed different pairing ups,

like him and Minnie used to be a couple.

They had four babies together.

But I've seen him lately hanging out with Maggie a lot.

They've been together for 40 years,

so I'm sure that partners change.

[laughing]

A couple weeks ago, he was

really being kissy-faced with Maggie,

and then Minnie came over,

and she started kind of hooting a little,

like, hey, what's going on here?

I don't know, he's been

the only boy among three girls for 40 years.

I'm sure there's a lot of different dynamics going on.

Oh Maggie, you're giving Cobby kisses.

Oh my God, so sweet.

Aw, you guys are precious together.

Look how sweet you are.

- [Narrator] After an instant social media campaign,

and enlisting the support of mainstream media,

a meeting was called at the San Francisco Zoo.

A friend took a camera and managed

to get a few shots for me,

not a Calvin Film Production,

but you can still get a glimpse of Kim

here in the white hat.

She is listening to the zoo director Tanya Peterson,

informing the audience of the news they were waiting for.

- This is where, in my dreamworld,

if you could see in the middle here

to the right, that's the gorilla exhibit.

Thank you, Schrust.

So, you could have gorillas on the right side

and chimps on the left.

- We had so many signatures that within 48 hours,

the next zoo meeting was,

and Tanya had made a complete turnaround

and decided to keep the chimps,

and announced that they would always have a home here.

And that they were gonna

sorry, I'm getting emotional.

They would always have a home here,

and that they were gonna

build this new chimp forest for them,

and that they were gonna launch this biggest campaign

to raise money that they've ever launched before.

It all seemed that it was gonna be fantastic for them.

[soft piano music]

I want Cobby to be respected in his home.

Yes, I do, I think that I want him to have a happy life.

I want him and the girls to be happy there.

I mean, they're older, they deserve to be happy

every moment that they're there.

[bright xylophone music]

- [Narrator] While the future of Cobby's living arrangements

look secure, at least for now,

I wanted to find out what happened to other chimpanzees

after they finished servicing some kind of human purpose.

In the Los Angeles National Forest,

I'm visiting the Wildlife Way-station, which since 1976

has helped 76000 abused,

abandoned, orphaned, and injured animals.

Now, there are 43 chimpanzees that call this place a home.

I met the founder Martine Colette.

In the 1960s, she left her Hollywood

Costume Design Business

and began caring for exotic animals.

- This sanctuary was created

to help people address a problem of their own making.

Exotic animals were frequently purchased as pets,

and when people got tired of the animals,

or the animal was not what they expected,

they created damage and havoc in their home life,

they had no place for these animals to go.

The Wildlife Way-station was created

to accept those animals.

Chimps are probably one of the

most dangerous animals you can have

in a captive environment.

And as intelligent as they are,

first and foremost, they're a chimp.

And as such, they behave like a chimp.

Boys.

Good boys.

Chimps normally scare the bejesus out of most people,

and especially when big males hare up and they display

and become who they really are scares people to death.

[chimpanzee hooting]

Most of these chimps came from biomedical research.

Some of them came because they were people's pets,

and others came from entertainment industry.

Hi baby boy,

Chuckles.

- [Narrator] Among the residents here is another chimpanzee,

TV star Charlie Chuckles.

Most people know him as Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp.

He was a huge success in the 1970s,

even in Australia the show was broadcast nationally.

But here, he's just known as Charlie.

- Charlie Chuckles is a wonderful chimpanzee.

We've had him here for many, many years.

And he's quite an old boy now.

Gosh, he's pushing 50, if not over 50.

We never really had the accurate age on Charlie Chuckles.

His trainer died and when the owner trainer died

we took the chimps.

They need to live in a society where they can be chimps,

where their power and strength and their

ability to display as to who they are

is not going to be viewed in a negative manner.

When any animal first comes here,

they all need to go through some

a little bit of rehabilitation.

A lot of our biomedical chimpanzees that came here,

they've never sat outside and watched birds fly

over their heads, and tree leaves

fall down into their pens, and things like that.

[somber piano music]

- [Narrator] The story of the

biomedical research chimpanzees is a very sad one.

I know that it's hard to measure pain,

but compared to what laboratory chimps had to go through,

Cobby's journey was not as bad.

I wanted to find out more.

- [Theodora] Doctor Capaldo.

- [Donna] Hi, it's Donna and Michael again, we've got you.

- [Theodora] Perfect.

- [Narrator] Dr. Theodora Capaldo

is the president of NEAVS,

the anti-vivisection body in the USA.

Vivisection is a practice of animal experimentation.

This can include administering drugs,

infecting with diseases,

poisoning for toxicity testing,

drain damaging, maiming, blinding,

and other painful and invasive procedures.

Our shrinking film budget forced us

to conduct a phone interview with her

instead of traveling to Boston where she lives.

Dr. Theodora Capaldo started

by giving us a brief history lesson.

- [Theodora] We've been trying to use chimpanzees

in biomedical research since the early 1930s or '40s,

because we assumed that because they're

so genetically similar to us,

they'd make a good model for the study of human diseases,

the prevention's, vaccines, cures, et etcetera.

So, what happened at a certain point in the history

of biomedical research was

we were up against this worldwide epidemic.

It was called HIV and AIDS,

and researchers were looking for a "animal model."

And they discovered that chimpanzees

could be infected with HIV.

So, they started a very aggressive

breeding program.

And it's probably at the time in history

when the most chimpanzees from entertainment

ended up in biomedical research,

because labs were very hungry for chimpanzees.

The reward they got for trying to bring entertainment

to their human world

was often to be unceremoniously dumped

at a biomedical research facility,

where they, then, endured decades

of egregious research.

What happened, though, is that

what we came too late to learn

is that HIV in a chimpanzee

is a whole different viral infection.

They thought that the chimps were

gonna be a magic bullet.

And they were an absolute failure,

and they paid the price for that.

[somber instrumental music]

- [Narrator] As well as chimpanzees,

several species of monkeys

were used for space exploration research.

Scientists used them to investigate

the biological effects of space travel.

The first ever primate astronaut was Albert.

In 1949, he died of suffocation during a rocket-test flight.

In the name of progress, many more ended their lives there.

As for the chimpanzees used in the unsuccessful attempts

to cure the AIDS epidemic,

what happened to them the day after?

- [Theodora] Private laboratories now

which have housed chimpanzees for decades,

and literally brought in revenue in the millions,

are now starting to dump their chimpanzees.

Some of those chimpanzees have had the good fortune

to finally make it out of biomedical research

and into sanctuary.

And the rest, there's still about, six, 700

that are still in laboratories,

and we're waiting to get them out.

They need to be cared for

by sanctuary caregivers who have only one agenda,

the well-being of their residents.

Not zoos, not laboratories, but sanctuary.

[slow instrumental music]

- [Narrator] Dr. Capaldo recommends a visit

to one of those sanctuaries.

When I started the search for my childhood hero Cobby,

I did not see myself traveling to Canada,

but in many ways the Fauna Foundation in Montreal, Quebec,

is connected to his story.

Cobby could easily be one of those chimpanzees

that were dropped from the spotlight

of the entertainment world into tiny laboratory cages.

Some of them were lucky to find a new home here.

- Some caught in Africa, brought to America,

put in biomedical cages after they spent years

in entertainment, perhaps, or

in a circus or something like, like our Sue Ellen.

Sue Ellen was most likely caught in Africa,

brought over, put into the entertainment world.

She worked at roadside fairs, dressed in clothes.

She was 15 years old

when she was sent into biomedical industry.

She spent 15 years in biomedical cage,

a five by five by seven foot cage,

and she was infected with the HIV virus.

Brutal studies, we have her reports from the lab.

It was relentless all things they did to her,

and what she was subjected to in those 15 years.

It's remarkable today to see

that she actually can even tolerate a human around her.

She's not the easiest character, that's for sure.

She's not very trusting.

And you can't blame her for that.

But when she loves you, she loves

you with all her heart.

She's been through all of it.

And it's an honor to serve her now.

Sorry.

It matters to rescue one.

It matters to rescue two.

It's really not freedom.

It never will be, but for these individuals this will be it.

For me, the journey is not over for them.

We brought them here, we need to care for them,

and now I feel it's just as important

for us to take them to the next,

to the end of their lives,

'cause it's as important to me as the life their living.

It's to help them exit the world

with those who love them and care for them, around them,

with dignity and respect as much as possible,

something they didn't experience

in the laboratory environment.

[chimpanzees hooting]

- What would be a happy ending for chimpanzees,

we can care for them with compassion.

We can build wonderful places for them to

we can't take chimps from North America

and put them back into the wild.

It doesn't work.

And so

they will, for the rest of their lives, be prisoners.

And when someone is your friend,

it's a very difficult situation

to see them in that situation.

And they're only out as the day they die.

I've spent 30 years working with captive chimps, and

I look forward to the day,

it won't happen in my lifetime,

the day when there are no chimps in captivity.

[chimpanzees screeching and hooting]

[slow instrumental music]

- [Narrator] I find myself standing

on a rooftop in Montreal.

Soon, I'll be traveling back to home.

It's a good place, as any, to reflect on this journey

that started long ago in Adelaide, South Australia.

It began with a few lonely children

that were glued to a television screen,

hoping to be transformed to another world,

definitely not the world that I discovered

while making this film.

When I saw Cobby in the San Francisco Zoo,

I realised that the television clown

that I thought I knew was a construct.

The Cobby that I was searching for doesn't exist.

The real Cobby is a beautiful animal

who has his own identity, his own personality,

his own good and bad habits, just like you or me.

At the end of the phone interviews

with Dr. Theodora Capaldo

there was something that she said

that feels like the right ending to this story.

This one is for you, Cobby.

- [Theodora] What I would like to see for chimps

is something I would like to see

for the development of human consciousness,

which is that human beings who interface

with all animals, and in particular with animals

who you look at and you can so identify with.

You can understand how they think, what they need.

Their senses of humor, their family commitment.

I would like to see the chimps, a major shift,

in how human beings interface with other animals,

and that we finally get

that it's not a subject-object relationship.

It is a subject-subject relationship,

and that means that we have a high, ethical duty

to now provide for them

in a way that we have compelled ourselves

to provide for other oppressed groups

that at one time we considered lesser beings than us.

And it's time for us to get that relationship,

because it's not just for the chimpanzees

that we need to get there, but for the development

of human consciousness and compassion.

And sometimes it's so interesting focusing

on one chimp's story,

and your relationship to that story

has such a profound effect.

It's kind of like when you watch six million bodies

being buried, you just kind of numb out.

And when you hear a one-person story,

boy, doesn't it make you pay attention?

Thank you for giving him his time.

[Donna laughing]

- [Donna] Well, it's the least I can do for him,

seeing that he entertained me for so many, many years.

You know?

- [Theodora] Yeah, yeah.

When you were innocent

and you didn't understand the cost he was paying.

[slow guitar music]

[birds twittering]

[unsettling instrumental music]