Koko RIP

Poor Koko.  The Talking Gorilla has died at age 46.

I saw Barbet Schroeder's documentary, Koko: A Talking Gorilla (1978). The gorilla's owner, Penny Patterson, does all the talking in her horrible, high-pitched voice. Patterson got use of Koko to see if she could teach her sign language, then claimed that their bond was so close that it would be cruel to send her back to the zoo. So the poor ape spent the rest of her life in a cage in a lab being screeched at to "Sign! Sign!"

They got a board. There were buttons for different words. Koko could push one and an electronic voice would say the word. She pushed "celery" and Patterson went to get her celery, then Koko pushed banana, and she rushed to get a banana. Then celery again so she hurried over to get celery again. Then Koko pushed "milk". Patterson rushed over to get her milk. Then Koko pushed "like". Patterson said, "That's right! You LIKE to drink MILK!"

I rented the movie because my mother wanted to see it. She had read an uncritical account of the whole thing, so I went and rented the movie. She went into it completely convinced. She was still convinced when it was over, but she now had doubts and then lost interest in it completely.