Cobby: The Other Side of Cute

An Australian documentary exploring Cobby’s Hobbies, a 1960’s children’s TV program made in Kansas City, featuring chimpanzee Cobby, who became the catalyst for the film.

Interviewed in the film are the people that made the show, zoo friends, zoo keepers and animal rights activists that piece together a story of an animal that was stolen from his natural habitat to work on TV before being retired into the San Francisco zoo at age 7.

Cobby had it lucky - most chimps in entertainment suffered horrifically, becoming research animals or caged in roadside zoos. The film examines the truths behind the world of animals trained to work in showbiz, and the changing attitudes to the treatment of animals in entertainment over the last fifty years.