Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - The Official Chimp Crazy Podcast: Episode Two

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

This week Wes, Jeff and Mike discuss the unbelievable events of the second episode. Then Wes speaks with filmmakers Eric Goode and Jeremy McBride about the dangers of keeping chimpanzees in captivity. Then they are joined by writer Dan P. Lee whose 2011 New York Magazine story, Travis the Menace, paints a nuanced view of events that led up to the infamous attack.  Watch Episode Two of the HBO Documentary Series Chimp Crazy on Max.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If the world were like a sleep number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort. Because as your life changes and your body changes, sleep number mattresses adapt and shift to give you personalized comfort night after night. And now everything's on sale during our Memorial Day event. Save up to $1,200 on mattresses for a limited time. To experience a whole new world of comfort, visit a sleep number store or go to sleepnumber.com. Sleep number to a good life sleep. I'm Wes Larson, one of the hosts of Tooth and Claw, and this is the official Chimp Crazy podcast produced in partnership with HBO. This week, we're talking about the second installment of the HBO documentary series, Chimp Crazy, which you can now stream on Max.

We'll recap the episode, have a conversation with the filmmakers, Eric Good and Jeremy McBride, and finally an interview with writer Dan P. Lee, who wrote Travis the Menace for New York Magazine in 2011. I'm here with my other two co-hosts. You guys want to introduce yourselves? Hey, yeah, I'm Jeff. I was Wesis Field Tech on a Black Bear project. And, yeah, just good vibes. Good vibes. Yeah, perfect intro.

Mike? I'm Mike. I'm the producer of Tooth and Claw. Also, a quick spoiler warning. Today we're going to be talking about episode two of Chimp Crazy. So there'll be spoilers for episode one and two. If you haven't heard those, you should go. Or if you haven't watched those, you should go watch them.

And then come back and listen to this podcast. So quickly, we're going to do our episode. Episode 2 recap, and this will be quick, and later I'm going to dive into more of this with the filmmakers. We're going to talk about some of the themes, but this is a quick recap of what happened in episode 2. We learn pretty quickly that Tanya is suspect number one when it comes to Tanka's disappearance. Pita is chasing down Tanya asking her to explain, and she tells them that Tanka actually

had an oversized heart and that he died of congestive heart failure right before they moved the chimps, and she even gives them vet records to prove this. So then we jump forward two months, and Dwayne, who's our undercover proxy director, is visiting Tanya at her home in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri. And we learned that she's made a lot of money by brokering exotic animals. On her best year, she made $350,000 doing this. Kind of like the transporter, but in like a backwoodsy Missouri kind of transporter way. She's got some big plans for a unicorn, too. She does.

We got to talk about that. We got to talk about that drawing. The drawing looks like what I would have drawn. It was beautiful. Tanya is accused of faking Tonka's death, but she said there's no way she would do that, and it serves no purpose for her. And then we get into the story of Travis, who's a chimpanzee that perpetrated, as Jared Goodman, the lawyer from PETA said,

possibly the most well-known animal attack of all time. And a good chunk of the Travis story is actually told by Travis's owner's stepdaughter Carrie de Blassie. So Pida asked Tanya for proof of Tanka's death And she tells them that she and her husband had cremated Tanka in a burn pit in their backyard And Pita immediately calls bullshit Yeah, we'll get into that more Peter then kind of throws everything at the wall to try and find Tanka And they managed to dig up a text between Tanya and her psychic

Where Tanya told her psychic she was out buying groceries for Tanka And it was enough to get Tanya back into court Then when they grill her in court she says that she was talking about a new capuchin monkey named Tonka, and then she starts some really kind of hysterical fake crying. The judge knows that Tanya's lying, but she doesn't think Pita has enough evidence to prove that Tanka is alive, so she actually rules in favor of Tanya.

And then we get an absolutely jaw-dropping reveal when the camera crew follows Tanya downstairs through multiple doorways and into a room where there's a large cage, and in that cage is a large major. male chimpanzee. Yeah. I was, like, shocked. I wasn't shocked that she had Tonka, but I was shocked that she would show people that

right after being in court for, like, having Tonka. Yeah, it made me wonder if she, like, thought it was some kind of, like, double jeopardy thing or something where, like, as soon as the court had rolled in her favor, like, she could just show anyone that Tonka was there. We won, guys. We fucking won. Yeah, but we gotta just keep them hidden. It was crazy.

It's crazy that she put it on camera. Oh, it's wild. The judge made it as clear as she could that this case is done for now, but it could very easily be opened again in the future, should there be any evidence, such as a documentary film crew following you down and documenting a chimp in your basement. It's insanity.

There's a part two where she says, like, we won, we won, We just have to keep him hidden. Her husband right there, too. The camera was on her husband. And he's just like, oh, no. Like, he saw the riding on the wall right there. It made me think of that documentary, The Jinks. It's another HBO documentary, but it's essentially like,

and here's a huge spoiler warning for the Jinks, but they catch a murder admitting on camera that he did it. Oh, geez. And it's crazy. He had like a hot mic when he, like, left this. intonation room. Well, the part that reminded me of the jinx was during the court

where she still had a hot mic and she's like, that fucking dick about the PETA guy after like her fake cry. Just immediately shuts off the cry. Tanya, just so you know your mic is still on. Anyway, I do think that has to be the wildest moment in this documentary so far.

It's a huge twist. It's one we'll probably talk about a little bit more at the end of the episode and one I'll definitely bring up with the filmmakers. But I did want to do a quick segment called We Need to Talk About Travis because I do think we do need to talk about Travis. Yeah. So let's get into it. And we're an Animal Attack podcast. So this is right up our alley. They really set up the Travis story in a really effective way. And I do want to just note that after this whole thing is over on Tooth and Claw, we are going to do a couple full-length episodes on Travis. But today we're going to talk about what happened. What were you going to

guys's general takeaways from the Travis portion in this episode. It's a big chimpanzee. 200 pounds is huge. You know, I'm glad it didn't happen to me. It's a good takeaway. Yeah. I've been thinking a lot about Jeff's ongoing conversation about how, whether he could or could not beat a chimpanzee in a fight.

And I think at least for me, a good starting spot of like things I think I could take in a fight stops at least at something that is able to rip the door off of a police cruiser, I can definitely not beat something, that's something in a fight. So Mike, I'm actually really glad you brought that up because, Jeff, I may kind of owe you an apology. Oh. Jeff, I still don't think you could beat a chimpanzee, but I did dig into this a bit when I started learning about it.

I just think I have a tiny, tiny chance. Once I started learning about Travis and what Travis was capable of, like, ripping the door off the police cruiser and whatnot, I dug into this little. And there was actually these old experiments that happened. where this guy did these polling experiments with like varsity athletes and then a chimpanzee. And this happened like in the early 1900s and he pretty much showed that a chimpanzee was five times stronger than a human. And now up to today people are saying that.

That's like something that's often quoted. But there's been much more modern experiments done. There was some flawed methodology in these early ones. And what we now know is that they're probably about 1.3 times stronger. than a human being. So the strongest human, or like the most, you know, kind of impressive human would maybe be able to beat a chimpanzee in a fight. The difference.

Like your best UFC fighter has a chance. Yeah. Something that we should bring up, though, is that the way that their muscles work is very different from ours. Like we have, for the most part, we have more kind of long twitch muscle or slow twitch muscle, I guess, is what it should be called. And that's skeletal musculature. And so what that makes us really good at is endurance.

That's why human beings are able to run marathons, to walk long distances. It's a big part of the reason that we've been able to spread all over the world. Chimpanzees, on the other hand, have fast twitch muscles. So they can't do these kind of long endurance sort of things that we can do, but they're really good at quick explosive power. And that's what lets them be able to rip a door off a police cruiser or, you know, smash a human being's head. or something like that because they're extremely powerful in these kind of quick explosive movements.

Maybe police cruiser doors are just really easy to rip off. You think of that? That might be the case. I got to go try that. I don't think you should. And like in a fight, I mean, if you're that powerful, you really don't generally need 12 rounds to win the fight, you know? Right.

If they can just like rip my arms off, I'm not going to have a lot to do in round 12. Yeah, but you can endure a little better than the chimp. The other big difference here, too, that we didn't even bring up is their weapons are much better than ours. They have much sharper, bigger canines. They have, you know, they have really extremely powerful arms and legs. They have better weapons than we have. Natural weapons. We got like nukes and stuff.

We have intelligence. That's true. Well, and Travis specifically, yeah, the nuke would win. Travis specifically is like 200 pounds. That's a huge chimp. He's a big boy. Like when we were talking about it, originally, you were saying chimps are like on average 130 pounds.

So it's kind of like, oh, an extra 70 pounds. I could maybe do something like one out of ten times, you know? Yeah, yeah, right. You'll just lay on it. I've heard you say that a couple of times. You'll just lay on the chip. Just put on a bunch of weight. I think that's your key, key to victory.

Anyway, after diving into all this, I did feel like I had to bring that up with you, Jeff, because I still hold up my statement that I don't think any of us could beat a chimpanzee in a fight, but I do think it's possible a human being could beat a chimpanzee in a fight. Well, what came to my mind too, so that she, her friend, Charla, brought the Elmo doll for Travis. I immediately thought of that meme of Elmo just, like, surrounded by fire with his arms up in the air. Like Elmo saw some crazy shit. Yeah. You know?

Well, it's a thing that really hit me when we were talking about it was great approximation, Jeff. Yeah, perfect. I think that really hit me is, I think when you watch this broken down into like a 15-minute segment on a documentary, it's really easy to see how this thing escalated and how, you know, like Travis was great. And then suddenly he's running a muck downtown and like slapping people's butts. Spanking.

And then he's like grabbing people aggressively and bruising them. And then he goes into like this dark hole of depression, which leads to a horrific violent attack where a woman gets her face ripped off and her brains pulled out and all these terrible things. It's really easy to digest that in this little clip. But you do think about it. They had this chimpanzee for, you know, a decade or however long it was. It wasn't quite that long, I don't think, but it was a long time. And this was probably a real frog in the pot kind of thing. And I think, Mike, you flagged a quote from Carrie de Blassie, who was Sandy, Travis's owner's stepdaughter.

And she talked about how, like, Sandy was just in way over her head. Travis was a ticking time bomb. She overlooked that because she was thinking about herself. So that's really what stuck with me is just how sometimes people get an animal like this as a cute little baby. And it's playful and fun and cute and feels like part of the family. and then things that you can't control, like the death of a family member or a law that gets put into place where Travis is no longer able to go outside will completely change that animal's behavior and makes them, they're still a baby. Like, Travis still has the intelligence of a toddler, but he's depressed and enraged and aggressive. And it's really, really fucking dangerous.

It's crazy how dangerous it is. Well, we will get more into Travis. I do just think it's such a fascinating story. It's one that a lot of people have heard of. And I think when a lot of people watch this, they're going to get flashbacks to when that was all going back on or when it was going on. I think we should get back to Tanya. Because really, I do think even though the Travis set part is so important to this whole storyline,

there's just so much good Tanya stuff in this episode that we still need to talk about. One thing I think this episode does really well is it shows her relationship with Pita, or that she calls Pita, kind of like the guy. from 100 games. Yeah. Pita. Was you ever asked by Pita to ever explore that site? Especially Jared Goodman, one of their lead councils.

And it shows how much she scrambled and fumbled as she's trying to cover up her tracks. Natanka kidnapping. Everything from saying that they burned him in a fire of like 200 degrees to producing all these fake records and fake crying and everything. Do you think the, like I haven't seen a lot of cremated. ashes. Do you think those are like actual ashes? What was that? It looked like cocoa powder. Yeah. They kind of show us it looked more white, right? That's what I always pictured. Even as someone who knows literally nothing about the process, I raised an eyebrow at like the little baggy of brown powder sugar or whatever that stuff was. It felt like she was looking at it

for the first time too when she pulls it out. Maybe she made them a little browner because like she's like chimpanzees, they won't think they're bright white ash. I still think they're a little She cut it with something. That brings us to like one of my favorite parts of this episode is when they introduce Dr. Frederick Snow, who's a forensic anthropologist. And my favorite thing is when he shows up on the computer. And Tony says, That guy looks like a real dork. Yeah, it's so funny.

No, it's fine. And then I also love in his portion, he's going through kind of how like crematoriums work and how like what the ashes look like. and there's a part where they're waiting for a sample to be done, and the film crew is like, How long do we have to wait? What? You're asking me? For what?

It's just so funny and bizarre. The Zoom court was so weird. Can you imagine you're this very educated person, and you're about to speak in an official court, and you just hear someone saying, this guy looks like a real dork, like under their breath. on the hot mic it's so fun that whole segment is so good they made a genius idea of recording that

well i think we should wrap up but just really quickly a couple last things i want to ask you guys why do you think tanya would let this film crew in to see that she has tonka like what are your theories here why would she ever do this to me it just makes it so obvious she wants attention And like she's kind of, I think also she's kind of proud of herself for getting away with it. For sure. I think you're right. That's what I thought it was. Yeah.

It was more of just like she had gotten out of it. The judge had even ruled in her favor. And she needed to celebrate. Kind of like a murder returning to the scene of the crime or something. But I honestly believe somewhere in her brain, she has gaslit herself into, at least in part, believing some of the lies. she keeps telling everybody and to herself. Like, it's obvious to me that she disregards any other rules but her own as being just like unimportant.

Like at the very beginning of episode two, she's in the chair getting the lip filler done. And she takes a drink of water with all the stuff on her lips. And she's like, I know better. I can do it. I've been doing this forever. I can get away with whatever I want to get away with just because that's how life works.

And at that moment, it was like her ultimate victory. So she probably bought in. wholesale to all of the lies that she's been just perpetrating this whole time. Like she knows the chimp is there, but she keeps talking to people. Like, why would I keep him? I don't have him. Why would I do that? And then she's so willing to show it on camera at the end of the episode.

It's really, really bizarre. Do you guys think she's a good liar? I don't. I was bouncing back and forth on this a bit. There's parts where she's so convincing where she's like so flipping about. her lies, but I think when she's trying to lie, like when she does the fake hysterical crying and stuff, it's so obvious to everyone that she's lying. Your mic is hot and then she fake cries a little more.

Or when she says she has a capuchin. When she's stumbling through an excuse about the capuchin, yeah, it's like, okay, this woman is. And the judge is even like, you have been making stuff up this whole time, but we just don't have the evidence to nail you with anything. But she like, she doesn't care. To me, the stupidest lie was when she was like, what purpose would I have to take Tonka? Like, why would I ever want to do that?

And it's like, you obviously love chimpanzees. Yeah. This one you've already said is your favorite chimpanzee. Right. There's a lot of motive. What are you talking about? In her next breath, she's like, I love him more than my kids. But why would I ever take him?

All right. Well, I don't know if I've ever been more hyped for an episode three of, a series. I can't wait to figure out what happens now that the filmmakers know about Tonka. Now that we know that Tonka's still alive, I'm so... Is Tonka seem happy? Right. Like, where does it go from here? What else can we possibly cram into these next two episodes that's going to out crazy this? But I'm excited to find out because I... Dude, this thing just gets better and better. I want to see how Alan coming reacts to like...

Knowing that his buddy's alive. He's not sure. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, the movie was actually called Buddy, huh? That wasn't on purpose. His buddy. Tonka being in confinement like this scares me because this is what led Travis to do what he did. And I'm also kind of worried for the Pita guy. This whole, like there was that little montage of Tanya insulting him and threatening him. Oh, it's so good.

I would say he's a devil's spawn, but I know he has a mother. He's a bastard. He's a dick. I always watch his Facebook page to see if his wife dumps him. Oh, my God, it's Pee We Herman. Pee We Herman. I have voodoo dolls of peewee Harmon. She's crazy enough.

I don't want to say she's crazy enough. I wouldn't put anything past Tanya at this point. She's going to go a little too far. She already has. I'm really curious with Dwayne because I just don't think he signed up for like this. You know? Yeah. He's just like in deep now.

All right. Well, I guess we're going to find out next week and we'll be right back here to talk about it. So thanks, guys. And now we're going to jump into an interview with the filmmakers. We're going to talk more about Tanya. Tonka, Travis, and other things that start with tea, I guess. So we'll roll into that right now. You're great at protecting your data, but lots of places could still expose you to identity theft.

I thought it was safe. If that happens, LifeLock gives you a U.S.-based restoration agent who will stick by your side from start to finish. Phone calls, filing documentation, preparing insurance claims, your agent handles it all. In fact, we're so confident restoration is guaranteed. Pour your money back. Isn't it nice to have someone like that on your side? Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash Spotify. Terms apply.

Okay, and we are back once again with the filmmakers. I'm joined today by director Eric Good. Hi, Wes. An executive producer, Jeremy McBride. Hi, Wes. How you guys doing? We're good today. Great.

Great. So obviously we have a really big moment to talk about. It happens at the end of the episode, but I kind of want just to talk about it. at first because I think it's such a jaw-dropping moment and that is where we see Tanya fresh off of hearing that the judge isn't gonna chase her down more on this Tonka evidence she leads the film crew downstairs through this labyrinth of doors and we see a large chimpanzee in an enclosure in her basement so I just wanted

to ask for you to how big of a shock was that for you did you have any inkling up until that point that Tonka might have been in her house I mean it was just a shock to us as it was to the audience. Tanka's disappearance was kind of reported as a death. You know, as we learned, he had this kind of heart condition. He died. So there was a lot of information that Tanya was sharing to us about about Tanka being deceased. We didn't really buy it. We kind of thought that he was alive as we kind of learned throughout the episode. So it was kind of the world's worst kept secret, but no one could really figure out where he was. No, I think we were completely shocked. I mean, that Zoom call, we were a fly on the wall, you know, filming that and then just

discover all along she's got this chimpanzee in the basement was my boggling. Yeah, I think, you know what you were saying, Jeremy, earlier too, about how you knew something was up, but you weren't totally sure what it was. I think you do a really good job in the documentary of showing that that Tanya is obviously lying about something. And she's not a great liar. She does the classic thing where she's just giving way too much information and details that are obviously made up. I think it's really well done how we get the sense of like something is going on. These probably aren't his ashes. There's all these things happening. But I was floored by the fact that Tonka was actually in her basement. That was such an incredible reveal.

Directly below where we're shooting the Zoom hearing. It was remarkable to us to have captured that image of Tonka. There was a lot of hearsay at the beginning. We didn't have the evidence at first. And it took a while to really understand the circumstances around what really happened with Tonka and following each step of the way to later discover this really incredible moment in time, which was real. Like we cannot make this stuff up. It was just as real as it was for us as it was in that moment in time for our crew on the ground. Yeah, I would think that after Tiger King, imagine that people might think, you know, how is it possible that the same team makes chimp crazy and has, you know, a storyline like this? How could this possibly be real life?

It reminds me of when I learned when I was filming Tiger King that Joe Exotic had hired a hitman to kill Carol Baskin. I was completely shocked. And then to be making another documentary and find out that Tanya Haddix had this chimpanzee, there was a manned hunt effectively for this chimpanzee, there was a reward out for this chimpanzee, and to find out that she had this chimpanzee in the basement blew our minds. And I would think there would be skeptics out there that'll think this isn't possible.

How is it possible that you can make another documentary that has something equally almost as crazy as Tiger King? I'm expecting the critics to come out and say, this has to be fake. Yeah, you would have to imagine those critics have never tried to move a male chimpanzee around just to get shots for a documentary. I don't think, I personally just understanding this animal a little bit, there's no way that this could be staged.

You know, this is like that enclosure to build and to have them in there and everything. It's so crazy that you guys managed to capture. I am still reeling from it personally. So it's an amazing moment. Yeah, yeah, my mind-boggling. You'll have to tune in to the next episode to figure out how she did it. You know, I think I will. I think I'll be there.

You know, going off of that, I have another question for you. Why the hell would she ever let a film crew in to see this fugitive chimpanzee? Because it seems to me like she knows that that's going to come out at some point. It's a testament to our undercover clown, Dwayne Cunningham, and the relationship they built and the trust between the two of them, I think she just got so comfortable with Dwayne that she didn't really think about it. Well, the question is about, is Tanka alive or not? And we sort of knew that he was alive.

We just couldn't really prove where he was. So that understanding, I think a little bit with Tanya and Dwayne, having some knowledge of that, provide a little bit of trust. And obviously, a lot of time went by, right, about five months or so. So I think she was probably that in combined with this incredible high of winning led to, you know, okay, now you can see him. And that's all we can kind of imagine. I think a lot of it came down to that.

But it was a remarkable experience to learn that he was directly below where we were filming for seven hours that day, you know. Yeah. She doesn't seem like much of a rule follower either. So it seems to me like that high of knowing that she had him down in the basement and knowing that she had a film crew there that she could show that off to, must have been just the most tantalizing prospect for her. But yeah, I guess, rewinding now a little bit to some of the other stuff in the episode.

I'm really curious about Tanya's background, and she talks a lot about how she's made some of her money in this episode, and that's through transporting primates, essentially acting as like a middleman or a broker or a transporter in these deals. And that's a really fascinating subculture to me. And I'm curious, I know you guys have learned a lot about this market through your research. Is it really that big of a market? I mean, how much of this is happening as we speak?

Well, she sources these primates from people that bring them across the border from Central and South America and primarily Mexico across the border. other animals are sourced through roadside zoos in the private sector where she'll, you know, buy babies and sell them. And so, yeah, she told us that on a good year, if she was selling a lot of monkeys, she could make six figures plus. So, yeah, a follow-up question to that. In the documentary, she mentioned zoos specifically, and she says, you know, I get them from zoos and maybe people don't understand. And so just to clarify, are we talking roadside zoos here or is there actually a market for this in accredited like AZA zoos? I think mostly roadside zoos, but also accredited AZA zoos, mostly roadside zoos, and like I said, and people that are bringing them across the border from Mexico.

You know, it's a little bit of a, we say middleman, but more of a courier, you know, honestly. I mean, she's doing pickups and drop-offs. And she also has to. care for some of them. This is a person who has been a foster parent, who has been a person that's given herself to service as a nurse practitioner. She cares for things and people. Falling into that category, as she kind of states, you know, she moved to Festus to live with Connie for five years, and she needed to find a new way to make money. And this became a very natural job for her to fall into at that time, not really understanding perhaps the consequences of what she's doing in that moment as it relates to the animal welfare. There's a segment in this episode where we learn

about the history of the Endangered Species Act and how that applies to chimpanzees. And I think for most people, when they hear Endangered Species Act, they think of something that's just black and white, but how does it apply in this specific circumstance to chimpanzees? Why is the Endangered Species Act important in... include in this conversation? So, you know, the Endangered Species Act came into effect during the Nixon administration in the early 1970s. And it was designed to protect, obviously, endangered species, both animals and plants. And chimpanzees were on the Endangered Species Act. But there was an exception with chimpanzees where there was a carve-out, which is something that didn't happen

with very many animals. There was a carve-out for some circus animals. There was a carve-out for chimpanzees that animals that were bred in the United States, chimpanzees, did not fall under the Endangered Species Act because they were used for both medical research, for space exploration, and for entertainment purposes. And it wasn't until 2015 that that sort of loophole was changed. And so as of 2015, all chimps fell under the Endangered Species Act, including those bred in captivity for what I just mentioned. When that went into effect and why that's important in our story is that Connie Casey's business and others that bred chimpanzees for resell could no longer sell their chimpanzees to other states after 2015 legally. And so that's when,

Connie Casey, you know, the Missouri Primate Foundation could no longer make money breeding chimpanzees. And so that's when things started to go downhill for the Missouri Primate Foundation. And she couldn't sort of redesign another way to make this work for her. So she ran out of money and that's when she couldn't live up to the standards that she needed to abide by for USDA. and that's when PETA filed the lawsuit, and she basically gave up because she no longer could sell chimpanzees for $60,000, $80,000, whatever the price tag had become. You know, I just, if I can to just add a couple things.

This is something we were really proud about to contextualize for people to understand. Our curiosity was rooted in the same question. I think you would probably have Wes, which is like, how did captive chimpanzees come to be in America now. You know, you look at the effectiveness of something like the Endangered Species Act in the 70s, and then you look behind it and you think about how did some of these things we interpreted as good protecting something like 1,400 species at the time on the verge of extinction, lead to something that kind of countered that, which is obviously this unintended consequence of cutting off the international supply of animals, but at the same time perpetuating a domestic

issue to allow it to still happen for commercial interest. So it's one of these things that to objectively look at and say, we're kind of in on it too. You know, we can't just say we're going to do something good and protect extinction and wildlife across the world and block this, but at the same time appease commercial interests for zoos, for circus, for private use, for entertainment, Hollywood, and it perpetuated. So that unintended consequence leads to Connie having this kind of cornering the market situation where she's one of several places that one can go to get a captive red chimp. And that captive bread chimp leads into birthing Travis. Right. So if you think about this kind of butterfly effective issues, that's what was very interesting to us. It's the only really

section in our show we really explain something that's really hard to explain. And I think we do a pretty good job of I'm really proud of that piece. Yeah. And I'm glad you brought up kind of one of the most famous unintended consequences, which is Travis. And a nice good chunk of this episode is devoted toward that story. And it's a really cautionary tale of just how bad chimpanzee ownership can go. You know, we host a podcast about animal attacks. This is something I learn about every week. And I can say the Travis story for me is one of the most visceral, heartbreaking, terrible stories that's out there. I think, you know, listen, there's, as you know, obviously, West, you cover animal attacks, you know so much about them. And we have animal attacks, you know,

all the time, you know, whether it's an elephant killing someone, a trainer, or, you know, a tiger attack. There's been obviously many big cat deaths. And what's kind of incredible is that apparently there's been no actual death from a chimpanzee in the U.S. I know there has been internationally. But this particular attack, I think it's maybe one of the more memorable animal attacks in the last 50 years in the United States because it was so unusual. Just the fact that it was a pet chimpanzee in a state like Connecticut that you don't usually associate exotic animals being in. And the way that the chimp, just even the backstory of this chimpanzee, the fact that the chimp drank wine from a stemmed glass and ate dinner with its owners and seemed so habituated to being in a family

setting. And for it to do what it did to a person that was so closely connected to the chimpanzee, Charleine Ash, was so shocking. And the way the chimp attacked Charleineash and literally began to eat her face, not just attack her face, but eat her face. And how Charla, you know, obviously how she survived this and the lasting disfigurement of Charlotte Nash was so horrific that I think all of that combined, all of those things made for such a salacious story that, you know, it was an international story. It wasn't just a local story. And it was an indelible story. And it was probably maybe one of the most horrific in the details. You know, when you hear of a tiger attack or an elephant attack, you don't hear about the eating off of the nose.

And so this attack, I think, is the most indelible and most memorable and maybe one of the most horrific when you look at all the details of any domestic or wild animal attack in the U.S. That could be in your backyard in a place like Stanford, Connecticut, of all places. You know, I think people's association of these things might be in locations that might be kind of more liberal around animal laws and ownership, but to be in a suburb of New York City, I think that's what also kind of captured our attention. I'd just say this too. For our story, we were always, Eric and I would just talk about the idea of Travis somehow living in our show from the very onset. And we were always deeply interested in incorporating it somehow. We just didn't figure out really where.

And so while we're kind of telling the story of episode two, what really kind of comes to audience at that point is why do people care so much to find Tonka? And part of the reason, obviously, is because he's a public threat. You know, him being mature, he's 32 years old, you know, out of an enclosure presents a really big public risk. So what to us is the biggest and highest example of that? It's obviously the Travis story. So I'm just really proud of the Travis thing because we got the full story. You know, obviously we could have gone longer, but we got the real story of both sides at a time in media that really didn't give it the attention it deserved. They looked at Travis as a monster. He was a victim of circumstance, honestly. Yeah, I think that's really great. And I'm

personally really happy that you included it in the front half of this series because I do think it reframes the way that the viewer looks at these chimpanzees. You know, you realize, okay, this is an animal that can really harm us. And I think that's also what. And I think that's also what the Travis story did to the general public, if I can add a little to that is that I think up until that point we saw them as like bubbles and as our little buddy that we just kind of can carry around and they'll do little tricks and things. But we didn't see these chimpanzees that have aged and that are sitting in cages and that have been desocialized and depressed and all these things that happened to them that turn them into, you know, a very different animal. And I should also say that there's

something we learned along the way filming chimpanzees is we began to learn about their body language. And chimpanzees, when they're depressed and sitting in a cage, rock just endlessly, which is a sign of depression. And you'll notice when you watch the series that oftentimes you'll see the chimps rocking. Different animals that are in cages that are depressed have different ticks. And chimps do this. And chimps, when they're happening, they don't smile like we do. When they smile, it means they're angry. When they show their teeth, it's aggression. So all of these, the body language of a chimpanzee is not the same as a human being. And so we just began to learn more, more Jeremy and I about, you know, how to see when a chimp is

not happy, which was the case in most of these chips. They would be rocking endlessly. I noticed that in a lot of the footage, these kind of stereotypies that they're doing. Yeah, it is amazing that you were able to learn so much about the animal as you did this. Shifting gears just a little bit, because I know we're going to talk with Dan more about Travis. But I think another big moment in this episode that we should talk about briefly is kind of this look into PETA and the lengths that they're going to to try and prove that Tonka is still alive. and something that I thought about as I was watching that segment, I was really curious, is this a typical thing that they do? Because for me, it seems like they're spending a lot of resources, a lot of money to chase down one chimpanzee. And I was curious if that's standard practice for them or if they were going really hard on this for any specific reason. Well, I think what makes PETA such a successful organization, frankly, is there, once they set their eyes on something, they are relentless.

And so I feel for people that have an animal and PETA's got them in their sights because they're relentless and they will go and do, you know, as you probably know, they'll take extreme measures to get what they want, including infiltrating, you know, zoos with undercover people that get hired and will be filming under, you know, undercover and documenting what they see. So, you know, they almost act as a government agency. They're almost doing the job of the USDA. And that makes one maybe scratch their head. Is it overreach that PETA can do what they do?

And is that entirely even ethical or legal? You know, is a question, I guess one might ask. I think it's also personal. A lot of these employees of PETA, particularly Jared Goodman, he spent five years of his life fighting for Tonka, fighting for these Missouri Primate Foundation chimps, he's going to see it through. To be aligned with the certain values of PETA, there's a certain level of personal commitment that one could see as extreme, but someone could also see it as passionate about the cause. So I think part of it is also,

they keep a pretty low overhead. They don't pay lawyers very well. And a lot of it is individuals who have a deep connection and passion in extreme sometimes view, taking it to the finish line. I'd also say to Eric's point, just to kind of crystallize this, what is a big problem for us, objectively, is how a private organization can impose decisions on individual rights. And we do have empathy to a lot of these private owners as it relates to that. It should be done fairly. We should use the government resources that are available to us to hold people accountable for laws and rules and regs.

But at the same time, they're going to do what they're going to do. Yep. And that's what we want to, you know, what we obviously want to show the tension between both of those ideas and that conflict. Well, you show it very well. So I just really quickly wanted to bring up a few moments from this episode that I thought were really great, that were funny and interesting, that I thought brought a lot of life to our characters.

First of all, the introduction of Frederick Snow brought on two of my favorite moments from this episode. We get Tanya saying, look at this dork. This guy looks like a real dork. And the second that he shows up on the, on the Zon, Zoom, which I just love that she can't help herself. Like, she has to say that, even though she knows she's on camera and everything. And then we also get this great interview with him where he talks about cremation and the

process. And it's really interesting to me personally, just seeing how that all happens. But he's quite the character himself. My other favorite moment, I think, is when you're waiting to see how long it takes to cremate those bones. And someone from the film crew asks him, like, hey, how long is this going to take? and he immediately is like, are you talking to me? Are you asking me? And it's just a really funny moment in the middle of all this that I thought brought a lot of a really good character.

Yeah, it's funny. You say that because oftentimes some of the best moments are when people don't think they're being filmed, you know, when it's just completely natural and you catch something or you catch audio when someone doesn't think they're being recorded. Those moments can be gold. I was going to say, you know, for us, and I appreciate recognizing that sensibility and choice because it's obviously Eric and for sure Eric's taste. And also just it's fun for us to kind of take moments that are kind of not obvious and really go to this like extreme level of detail to explain them. We also just know we needed a break that Zoom hearing in reality was like six or seven hours. So yeah, we just kind of went for it. And then we kind of like, we're just completely fascinated by the process of what it really, you know, what if we just took it further and just explained to everyone what the cremation process actually looks like. And we had these great, you know, supporters that the pet cremation company that was their patriot, they were really good sports about it. And obviously, Frederick Snow, who, I mean, I could, I remember,

I remember hunting him down. He was like so down to do it. And it was, again, Eric said, like, sometimes the moments you least expect become the best if you apply that same level of curiosity, intensity to making it. So that's one of our favorites as well. Yeah, I love that whole that whole segment was amazing. Another thing that I wanted to bring up, I'm just curious about how intentional it was and kind of the thought behind it. But we get these really humanizing views of Tanya often while she's doing some aspect of her beauty routine. And we get these long, of her, you know, with the lip fillers. And I do feel like it's in those moments that we kind of get a little bit below this, the shell that she has of, like, being the Dolly Parton of Chimps,

and we kind of see, like, you know, this human side of her. And I'm curious if that was intentional or if you guys were just kind of filming these wacky procedures or what the thought was there. Well, I mean, we really just would show up at our place in the Ozarks in Missouri. And she would say that I have a lip filler appointment at 3 o'clock, or I have a, you know, eyelash appointment. And we really just followed her routine as much as we could. You know, and having said that, we knew that this chimpanzee story could go very dark, very quickly. And it was those moments of levity that we knew we needed to balance out the darkness of chimps in cages.

and what could have been turned into a much different kind of story. But we also had a subject with Tanya, which was incredible. Not very many people will let you film them doing such intimate things, you know, such personal things. And she was incredibly open. And there was really no discussion about it. It wasn't like, hey, can we fill in a tanning booth? It was the other way around.

It was like, hey, I'm going to go tan. And we would say, well, can we follow you? she was like, of course. Yeah. What I love about her too, Eric, is that she is who she is. She's very, very open to share that, really open to share her ideas. And that resonates with people. You can't take that away from her despite choices that she's made.

So I think we treat that with, we do treat that with care. But it also allows us to have to kind of explore this emotional terrain that we get into in her own story. Yeah, I really like it. And for me, as we've gone through this story, I feel my feelings around Tanya are constantly changing. And I think when you see her talking, baby talk to her kangaroo in the kitchen or, you know, whispering to her baby capuchins or whatever, you do realize this is a person who's very passionate about these animals, who cares about them deeply. And I do think as we go through this, it's important to remember that, that this isn't necessarily someone who's just taking advantage of these animals. that she actually has a lot wrapped up into this.

So I think it's some really good moments there. All right. Well, I think we are going to move into our conversation with Dan P. Lee, who is an author that you guys consulted quite a bit for your work on the Travis story. So we'll go ahead and move on to that portion of the interview. All right. So now I'm really excited. We're going to be joined by Dan P. Lee.

Dan is the writer who wrote Travis the Menace, a really amazing article. that talks about the Travis Chimpanzee story. It was written for New York Magazine, and Dan, we're really excited to have you here. Thanks a lot. I'm excited to be here. So, Dan, my first question for you, I know you've written on a really wide variety of topics

and stories throughout your career. How does the Travis story stand out for you? Huh, that's a good question. It certainly seems to have had a longevity I didn't totally expect at the time, but I'm not completely surprised by. Yeah, I just think it's, you know, I mean, when I wrote the piece, I almost adopted this kind of like gothic fairy tale tone to it. And I think it sort of fit that naturally.

It's just sort of this evergreen story that that's about a lot more than it seems to be. So yeah. Yeah, we actually just talked about that a little bit how it is a gothic story. There is all these different emotions and tragedies and everything that play into this ultimate. culmination of the attack. And I think it's told in a really effective way in your article. And I'm curious, how are you able to get such great access to this story as you were putting it together? Well, I guess I'll give you a long-winded answer and you can decide what you like. But yeah. Yeah. So the origin of this story is kind of strange because this was the first national magazine

story I had ever written. And it was pretty much written on spec as almost like a tryout. But I was actually taking care of my grandmother who was ill at the time and kind of her daily ritual involved soap operas and Oprah Winfrey. And I wasn't really paying attention and the Oprah show came on and Charla Nash came on and I just, it was really one of the most extraordinary things I'd ever seen on TV. And so that was sort of the origin point for it. Originally, the idea was to write about Charla because she was really the only one left. But that proved problematic immediately because she had already had an exclusivity deal with NBC that was pretty ironclad. And that really kind of presented problems for me because, as you know, everybody else in the story is dead. So access really was kind of scary.

And because the story had been so heavily covered, you know, my initial concern was that it was kind of going to be a scorched earth thing and that there really wouldn't be much left. So I went up to Connecticut, you know, without the highest of expectations. But as you often learn with these stories that are picked over, there's actually a lot more meat on the bone. So really, it sort of boiled down not to get into, you know, inside baseball too much, but really boiled down into late or early 2010's kind of chat rooms and the places you could find people back then. And I ended up finding these sources that proved to be, you know, really the gatekeepers. to the story. Yeah. I've gone over this a number of times. I know Eric and Jeremy have looked at all the different factors and things about this story. But I'm curious for someone who is so close to the story and knows so much about it, what do you see as the main factors that

led Travis to attack Charla Nash that day? Well, I mean, with all due respect, I think that, I mean, it's a obvious and important question, but it's also like reductive because there is one thing that ever, you know, compels any one or thing to do anything. But right, I think that this story, this story, and I think even the show, to me, one of the main thematic points of it is about capturing and harboring and, you know, we do that with all kinds of animals. But there's a continuum. And I think that it was pretty literal. He wanted out, you know, and I think that in some ways Charla unfortunately was collateral damage. This was an inevitable thing. And everyone knew that. You know, not to pre-jump another of your questions, but the dominant narrative that's been

out there that this was this, you know, fluke and this thing that happened out of thin air and completely, you know, not in keeping with Travis's character and is total fiction. By the time that this happened, the drumbeat was blaring. And so, yeah, I just think that the way that it happened and the victim were almost incidental. Yeah, I agree with that. It seems like for Charla, it was just wrong person, wrong time. It wasn't that there was any kind of animosity there or anything. It just he had gotten to a point where that aggression was going to be displayed.

And it happened to be her that was called to help. Yeah, and it's interesting because I think this is just, you know, why we tell stories, it's kind of the most common thing. you want to, you want to ascribe meaning to something, you know, sometimes the more brutal and senseless, the more, you know, the more that need comes into play. But I think that, you know, whether it was Xanax, hair color, you know, whether there were, you know, all kinds of almost silly theories around, you know, she had obviously taken care of him at different times, whether she didn't, you know, play with him enough or do this or do that. If it hadn't happened then and there,

it would have happened the next day, you know. You know, it's funny, Dan, that was obviously a big entry point for our interest, you know, kind of debunking the theories. What really happened? You know, we obviously contain this as much as we can, but part of what we tell an episode too is obviously this wonderful world of Travis growing up as part being a member of the family. He's everywhere.

He's the town's celebrity. And then he gets too big and he gets confined to the home. So it's about this idea of trying to understand the reaction to that confinement. And one of the thing, if I could just add too, just because Jeremy brings it up, that is just so obvious. And you probably already talked about this. But there's something so disturbing and poetic and almost sad about how big Travis's life was. You know, this was, he wasn't. I mean, I don't know particulars of how other, you know, primates are held captive.

But he was out. He was, you know, running around town. He was everywhere. And, you know, obviously after that 2003 incident, things really started to change. But it's almost like he knew better, you know, and to have his world so narrowed. And Sandys as well, frankly, they were both living as prisoners in that house to some extent. It was just there's an irony there. Yeah, I think what you said about why Travis did what he did is exactly right.

And you said it beautifully. And it reminds me of when Siegfried and Roy had the... attack when Roy Horn was attacked on stage and everyone said, you know, by the tiger, everyone said, oh, it was a woman's beehive in the audience. It was some perfume. It was this. It was that. But the truth is it was a tiger. And a tiger at that age is what a tiger does. And this was a chimp. Travis was a large 200 plus pound, you know, adult chimpanzee at this point. and that's what chimpanzees do. Yeah, and I know our perspectives of chimpanzees have changed a lot throughout history.

We've learned more about them. We have learned that violence plays a role in their society, and it's something that they use even as communication. And I'm glad you brought up the 2003 incident, Dan, because I think I was really glad that was included in your article and in the film, because I think that is a really pivotal moment where you learn, these people can't control their chimpanzee. If it wants to get out and run amok for a few hours,

there's no easy way to get it to stop until he finally decides he wants to stop until the ice cream or whatever is worth stopping. And it does, I think, really clearly illustrate that this isn't a dog that you can pull on its collar and get it back in the car. It's a big, powerful animal and one that's very emotional. What we couldn't fit in there, Wes, also just to think about like, what provoked that?

A little boy throws a can of Coke in the car and hits Travis. Yeah. And that's what kind of leads to this series of this kind of chain of events to follow. Yeah. He shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place. And also like, you know, we kind of, we as humans provoked it. That was another place where there was a convenient narrative that was peddled by the heralds and sort of, you know, successfully.

co-opted by the media to paint that incident as this kind of, you know, benign, fun sort of revelry, you know, Travis Alp. And that was something that even the authorities endorsed and peddled because it was a way of skirting responsibility and sort of, you know, avoiding dealing with Travis. That incident was, from what I can gather, that incident was not as fun and cheerful. It was scary. It was dangerous. And also, Wes, like, it's not as if this was, the response, as Dan kind of illustrated, which is right, the response was, oh, this is not a big deal, but just four years before that you have Mo going loose on St. James Davis, which I know you covered

in one of your stories as an episode on the podcast, that birthday party. So it's not a new idea. That's what kind of was so interesting about the suppression of this information. It's like, why? You know, you obviously can see what happens when humans interact with chimpanzees in an open setting. Yeah. And for context, what Jeremy just referenced, four years before the Charlene Nash attack in 2005, a couple was visiting their captive chimpanzee in a sanctuary, and two other male chimpanzees escaped and mauled them horrifically. And the man especially was mauled, you know, really terribly by those chimpanzees.

But I don't think that story got quite the coverage. Well, it definitely didn't get the coverage that the Travis story did. So I do think up until this point, a lot of people, and we talked about this a little already in the episode, had this kind of playful image of chimpanzees because they'd mostly seen babies. They're mostly in TV and movies. And Dan, I'm really curious for you throughout this research process and writing this article and learning so much about Travis, how did your perception of chimpanzees and exotic animal ownership change? I mean, again, I take this to a philosophical end that's probably, you know, overwrought. But I just think that, you know, I remember one saying to Jeremy as a joke like, you know, it's like when a dog goes missing, people put up signs, you know, saying returning the dog and the assumptions that the dog didn't want to get away. You know, I just think that there's always this question around, you know, having pets. And so to me, I've always thought, thought the idea of having an exotic animal, so-called. I mean, again, there's a continuum, like, what qualifies as exotic, you know?

But I just think that I've always kind of thought it was the strangest thing. I mean, I know even when I visit my parents, sometimes I just look down at their dog, and I'm like, this is so strange that there's this animal living there with them, you know, and everyone's in on it, you know? So I just, I don't know. I think the idea that you take a step further and want a chimpanzee or a tiger. And I also think the other thing about it that's so strange to me is that, you know, the extraordinary concessions that people make in order to have these animals, you know, the quality of life that it brings the responsibility, even if they're not particularly dutiful parents, quote unquote, are owners to the animal. It's just it's it's so much more severe than having a child. A little lighter fun fact for you, Wes, that I think maybe your audience might like, there might be a question as to why.

why are the cages pink? And that's a choice. There's this kind of very specific color, this Baker-Miller pink. It's this kind of tone that has been observed to kind of reduce this violent aggressive behavior. So you see that a lot. You might, you know, obviously Tanya loves the color pink. And that's kind of throughout our film. But the choice of the cages being that color is also a choice that you see a lot used in European prisons. And it's just a really, you know, really kind of interesting idea. So those choices and ideas are also in there. That is interesting. Yeah, that's fascinating. Well, Dan, I just wanted to give you a time to say anything else that you have, any other thoughts about Travis, about the story, how it applies to this story of Tanya Haddix.

Is there anything you want to leave us with before we wrap up? I mean, you know, obviously it was interesting process working you know this story as I said it's been a decade later and it's still alive and kicking and there's still so much more to it and I just think that it's interesting to think about why you know again we were talking about some of these concepts around harboring animals but there's you know something this tells about people at least as much as it tells about animals yeah great well Dan is as someone that researches this kind of stuff full time I just wanted to thank you too for writing an article that really gets the whole picture and nails the fact that these things are so nuanced, that there's never just an easy explanation for why

they happen. And thanks again for joining us. It was really great talking to you. Yeah, thanks. Really appreciate it. That's it for this episode. A big thank you to our guests, Eric Good, Jeremy McBride, and Dan P. Lee. The second episode of the HBO documentary Chimp Crazy is available to stream now on Max. Tooth and Claw is hosted by Jeff. Jeff Larson, Mike Smith, and myself, Wes Larson. It's produced by Mike Smith with additional production services provided by Pod People. Special thanks to Tina Wynn, Michael Gluckstatt, and Aaron Kelly at HBO.