A pet pig turned into a pet cause for New York City politicians when Wilbur, a potbelly pig living in a home on Staten Island, was ratted out and had to leave his family. But so-called exotic animals weren’t always illegal in the city and, on Saturday, Animal Planet will tell the story of one chimpanzee that was “Raised Human” in the Big Apple.
“Raised Human” is a new show on Animal Planet that debuts Saturday at 9 p.m. ET with two back-to-back episodes. In the first, the show takes us back to the 1960s when a New York family saw a baby chimpanzee in a Manhattan pet shop. As animal protection laws weren’t as stringent then, the family that fell in love with the primate legally purchased him and named him Boris.
As Boris grew bigger, smarter and more mischievous, raising him in an Upper West Side apartment proved to be too difficult a task. Animals Planet invites us to watch as, for the first time in 10 years, the cheeky chimp and his (human) family are reunited when they travel to Chester, England, where Boris lives.
We watched the first episode and beautiful Boris stole our hearts. (We might have even let a few tears slide down our cheeks, but if anyone asks, we had something in our eye.)
Watch this exclusive clip.
During the season, viewers will also meet Zamba, a lion that became a household name in Hollywood, and JoJo, a bottlenose dolphin who was befriended by a swim instructor from California in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Blink Films produced the show for Animal Planet, which is owned by Discovery Communications. For Blink Films, Dan Chambers is the executive producer, and Elliot McCaffrey is the series producer. Lisa Lucas is the executive producer for Animal Planet with supervising producer Patrick Keegan.
Lisa Lucas was one of the executive producers for “The Zoo”, Animal Planet’s show about the special bond between zookeepers and the animals they care for in the “Boogie Down” Bronx. “The Zoo” premiered in February and became Animal Planet’s most-watched freshman series since July 2015.
