News

Do you remember, in Chimp Crazy, how the real director Eric Goode wasn’t trusted by his subjects because he made Tiger King, so they had to have Dwayne Cunningham step in as a proxy director to get the film made? Well, there is a similar yet extremely different situation...

[This story contains spoilers from the third episode of Chimp Crazy, “Head Shot.”]

Tiger King documentarian Eric Goode’s intense, sordid follow-up Chimp Crazy has been unfolding on HBO over the past couple of weeks. It centers on the fraught dynamic between exotic animal broker Tonia Haddix, the retired Hollywood chimp Tonka she claims to love more than her own children, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), the activist group that has pursued a lengthy legal effort to have the primate sent to an approved sanctuary.

In the penultimate episode, which aired Sept. 1, viewers learned that Haddix, who’d previously claimed Tonka had died (she’d provided evidence that he’d been cremated), was keeping her “humanzee” hidden in her Missouri basement. “Do we turn her in?” Goode wonders, on camera, “Or do we continue following the story?”

Haddix appears increasingly anxious as the chimp-hunt heats up. Actor Alan Cumming, an animal rights activist who starred...

During the early days of lockdown, as the world adjusted to a new normal, millions became enthralled by “Tiger King”, Netflix’s stranger-than-fiction docuseries about big cat loving oddballs and the surreal dramas they found themselves embroiled in. It was the first mega-hit of Covid-era entertainment, and almost immediately inspired legions of discourse pertaining to its questionable ethics and leering gaze towards its eccentric ensemble. The questions the series raised about journalistic responsibility have clearly weighed on the mind of “Tiger King” director Eric Goode, and with his latest dive into the world of humans who own rare animals, HBO’s “Chimp Crazy”, he seems keen to learn from the mistakes of the past.

It’s not hard to see what drew Goode to this story. From the moment we’re introduced to Tonia Haddix, the woman at the center of the narrative, it’s clear that she had the...

For his follow-up to “Tiger King,” documentary filmmaker Eric Goode is returning to the wild world of exotic animal trading and the strange human characters who populate it.

“Chimp Crazy” is a four-part docuseries that will premiere Aug. 18 on HBO and Max. HBO released a trailer on Tuesday. It tells the story of Tonia Haddix, a nurse-turned-exotic animal broker from Missouri, and Tonka, a 32-year-old retired Hollywood chimpanzee who comes under her care. Haddix, an eccentric woman who refers to herself as “the Dolly Parton of chimps,” loves Tonka more than her children, and will do anything to protect him and her other chimps from people who want to take them away from her. When Tonka goes missing, things get really crazy. PETA gets involved, and so does Alan Cumming, who starred with Tonka in the 1997 film “Buddy.” As the truth about Tonka comes to light, so does a whole...

The HBO Original four-part documentary series Chimp Crazy, produced and directed by filmmaker Eric Goode (Tiger King), will debut on Sunday, August 18 (10:00 p.m.-11:00 p.m. Et/Pt) on HBO and will be available to stream on Max. New episodes will debut on subsequent Sundays at the same time.

Former nurse-turned-exotic animal broker Tonia Haddix, who refers to herself as the “Dolly Parton of chimps,” spends her days caring for animals in captivity. However, her limitless love for one chimpanzee in particular spins into a wild cat-and-mouse game with authorities and an animal rights group.

Tonka and Tonia Haddix

Through Tonia’s and other “chimp mom” experiences, Chimp Crazy reveals the singular bonds that form between owners and their highly intelligent great ape pets. The series exposes the risks humans take when they try to raise these animals as members of their family and the risks to...