Zoos are places where animals are carefully contained, but sometimes, a star breaks all the rules. In the 1980s, the San Diego Zoo was home to an orangutan like no other. His name was Ken Allen, and he wasn’t just any orangutan—he was an escape artist, a folk hero, and a lovable mischief-maker. Through his antics, Ken Allen captured hearts … Read More
Ken Allen’s Incredible Escapes from the San Diego Zoo | Ep 257
Episode Transcription
00:00 there's an reggae tan in the San Diego Zoo, who for years tortured the zoo keepers by being unmanageable would not a cage got out ran around the zoo high five and kids kiss and mom stay in the cage. His name proper name, Ken Allen, can if 00:21 can is Alan. Ken Allen was an orangutan in the San Diego Zoo and this week we're talking about all the efforts the zoo had to do to try to keep this very smart primate in close yeah. He was actually a human a cost the whole time from birth. 00:42 all right. This is a site. It's a comedy podcast where we learn something new every single week and this week is no different. Thanks for checking out the show. We'll see at the end of it. 00:56 Hey man, what's up? Have you ever heard of Ken Allen, Ken Allen, Ken Allen? No take a guess. I'll tell you he was born in nineteen seventy one. See if that helps you at all. Ken Allen yeah, you have a brother. I maybe I don't know if we know about him. I mean he could okay, so he's not maybe a Malin's brother. No definitely not definitely not. I mean 01:22 honestly looking at him like I could see him being like a long lost brother. Okay, I didn't think about that until you said it, but now that I'm looking at us so can Alan yeah. Okay, you want to see a picture of him. I don't think it'll help, but sure yeah. Let me know if you can tell who this guy is 01:47 it's an orangutan. Is this orangutans name yeah? This a reggae tank is named Ken Allen what okay, so I love this. I'm so excited for this story. Okay, so so Ken Allen, 02:13 is an reggaetang. He was yeah. He lives in the San Diego Zoo currently well, no, not currently. He's born in nineteen seventy one. He was born February thirteen nine to seventy one. A reggaetang live in the San Diego Zoo. I don't know what's an orangutan life span or rang tang lifespan. So it's just you know when I say the word a reggaetang, I like I like say the first half pretty confident and that I is letting 02:40 drift off at the end, because I don't know if it's ringing a tongue ring a thing. Yeah, you know, honestly, this is the first time I have studied for this episode and when I searched for ring and tain lifespan, I realized there's no G at the end. I've always say he's a ring a thing because of the Tang commercials. Yeah, interesting, yeah, interesting how that just kind of breaks your brain a little bit doesn't. It's kind of like how I feel completely like I knew that I saw someone recently talking about the santa claus movie. Yeah, how does that mean? Yeah, it's a pun. 03:09 Yeah, but like they always, but after that movie, the line, we all spell Santa Claus has an E at the end yeah yeah and auto correct doesn't out correct you because claus is a wuss is a word yeah that's tricky. Meringue tains live on average thirty five to forty years in the wild, but in captivity they can live up to fifty years wow or or sixty or more is what it says. It says, but they can in captivity live up to fifty years. 03:34 or live up to sixty years or more. Why do you say that just say can live over sixty years? Why do you say? Why did they say that because there's currently one orangutan that is like sixty two yeah? It actually does say the next sentence. It says the record for longest lived orangutan. Now I'm like so self conscious about my pronunciation of that, which is weird, because I'm never self conscious about pronouncing stuff wrong in captivity is held by an orangutan named gypsy. 04:04 who died at the age of sixty two in Tokyo called it yeah, so you were dead on anyways. Ken, he was born in the San Diego Zoo in February, thirteen, nineteen seventy one. He was named for the two zookeepers, Ken and Al and they were like what if we gave him after us, which is kind of adorable. Like that's those are some good work friends yeah, but let's be fair. There's not a lot of jobs where you get to name an like 04:32 like if you're a software developer and you're like, let's name this new software, Ken Allen, which is, I mean, I guess it's a cool Ken Allen does kind of flow anyways. It was yeah, it would be like Alan Kim. Yeah, yeah, so Ken was born and pretty quickly they realized that Ken's mother in the zoo was not fit to be a mother. She wasn't a very good mother because she was also smoking 05:00 she was she was getting tattoos instead of paying rent to the zoo yeah yeah and she always bought these weird boyfriends home yeah really bad men. She's bringing boyfriends from the gorilla pit home yeah yeah you can't have gorillas or orangutans that's what I'm saying yeah they always pronounce a ring a tan with a G yeah. What are you a rang a tang a reggae bag a rang a tang and you're like what so so they realized because can so ken's mother 05:30 she had a problem where I don't know one really knows why, but she had a problem where she just kept sitting on ken when he was an infant, and they're like do you not see your child and she's like I've been hanging out with it. Well, that was her chicken boyfriend, a chicken boyfriend like you're supposed to she's certain geese and stuff and they were like sit on him right dump and I'm doing something 05:58 and excuse me, I'm a podcasting that was the whole bit. You can keep okay got it and so I just like I'm podcast normally. Normally what they would do is a new orangutan is born. They take that a ring and they say you live with your mom for a little bit and then we're going to figure out what pen we put you in as you mature. Yeah with 06:26 Ken, they said we got to separate you. She's going to kill you. She keeps sitting on top of you. She's going to crush you, so they take him to an indoor enclosure. That's like a private enclosure, okay, and they raise him. Ken and Alan raise him on their own sure, and here's the thing about this enclosure. They put in a bunch of toys. They put a bunch of ropes and stuff he can swing on, but because this he's in there by himself overnight, they're like we can't leave him in there overnight alone, and so what they would did is they 06:56 they had a cage like a picture like a kennel that they would take him in at night. They'd walk him into the cage at night, walk him in there, leave and then in the morning they get there and let him back out so that way he couldn't hurt himself overnight and so he's got a post more fun. Yeah, so yeah, so Ken learned gets out of the cage can learn. He can unscrew the bolts on the cage and so he started taking apart his cage and going out and playing on night. So the 07:23 workers, the zookeepers going out, hanging out with the chicks like it's an indoor enclosure can't get out, but he's still jumping around and playing all night playing with his toys swinging from from the ropes that they hung from and they get there in the morning and there's the disassembled cage and then him just out in the open and they would then put the cage back together and take him back to the cage and so he this happened a couple of times. 07:51 that he realized he had to put it back together and can realized. Oh, these zookeepers, they don't want me out of this cage. They want me to be in this cage when they get back. So they the zookeepers realized one morning they show up and this cage is the cake or they show up. He's in the cage, but all the toys are not where they left them. They usually clean up, put them in the bins, but they're all out in the open. They're like, how is this happening? And so they stay back 08:21 one night and they wait. So they leave, they make him think that he's gone and they catch him. What he did is he took the screws out, disassembled the whole thing and then he would go play for a while. And when the sun started to come up, he went back and he reassembled the cage with him inside it. And so that way they would find him back in the cage. And they were like, we think he's been doing this for weeks, reassembling the cage when the sun came up and then waiting in there for us to show up. So that way. 08:47 he want to get in trouble. I don't know what they did. What he showed up? Well, they would taste me. He's like I quit getting taste guys like it's like I don't want to be tased. Yeah, yeah, so they effective. So they rebuilt the cage. They built a cage that couldn't be disassembled. I don't know how they did it. They well did it yeah, something like that. I don't know what they did, but once they did that, he stopped escaping in the middle of the night and that's the end of the story. Just kidding and so 09:16 he also he grew violent, so vengeful, so he grows up. He started writing letters to the family members, not to can and out to get it out to their for to kin's wife Marie. Yeah, he was sitting right in that postcard postcards and he would write dear Marie. When I leave my cage at night, I watch you said 09:45 Well, this looks like it was written by an orangutan, so I that narrows it down. I'm pretty sure it's the right. Did your hand writing looks like an orangutan wrote that so they're very they're huge by the way. If you are big, they're not small, they're not small, they're massive, they're way bigger than you think. They're like gorillas yeah, but I think they're bigger than gorillas. Are they? I don't know. They're pretty big are a ring times bigger 10:14 than gorillas. No, oh they're not bigger than the gorillas. Gorilla is typically weighs between three hundred and five hundred pounds male adult male gorillas while adult orangutans typically weigh between a hundred and two hundred stand up to four and a half feet tall. We do a side by side image. Is there a side by side? Let's see if I can find it orangutan versus gorilla. Don't look that up. There might be some weird YouTube channel 10:42 actually this is perfect. This is a perfect comparison. That means it's going to be stupid. What are you talking about? This is a perfect. This is this is exactly what you're looking for. Well, I mean this is AI, but it's probably pretty close to what they look like. Maybe their heads are way yeah. They got these they got big heads. I mean well, here's one. I don't know if that measurement is right. 11:10 okay, because hold on here. I'm going to show you some unless in less. The grill over here looks like King Kong. That doesn't look like real. That's why I picked that one. Unless this woman is a very small person, then Arangans are bigger than that than what I just said. That's what I was that's pretty big. That's what I was saying. Look how huge that thing is and you know that's I mean that's came from the Bible. 11:37 guys with a mormon's. I mean here's the thing though. Here's a thing I guess for the sake of argument, it's hair is long and flowy, so maybe that's right. What all you that I'm thinking is yeah for sure that's crazy though. Also, why is she that close to it? I think they found it in the wild in the public and it's just a she look out. It's chilling yeah. Look out the 11:59 this. I mean, a reggaetans are pretty peaceful creatures. This a reggaetan is about to ask you if you watch the finale of the good place. It's gonna be like. Did you see that you see that? Did you think is you happy to see that I started off super strong? I thought it was. I thought it was pretty good. Yeah, here's here's one. I can see where they're. This one looks like it got a recent cut. I think this is a female because it's headed as it 12:28 its head is a different shape. Okay, so I think this might be a female, so maybe that's why it's size looks so different, but without all that flowy hair, it doesn't look as big. Yeah, yeah, okay. 12:46 If you've been watching for a minute and you like this show, Our patrons get a ton of perks for their support. 12:58 We do monthly hangouts. We do. There's a way to get birthday messages on your birthday. There's a lot of great perks, but more than anything, you just help make sure that this show continues to happen forever. We never want to stop. We're going to keep doing this forever. If we have enough patron supporters, we can put our brains in those little vats and like have AI pretend it's us. And so like we can keep doing it long after we die, but that only happens if you support us on patreon. So we appreciate your support. Thanks for your help. If you don't want to support, that's totally fine. Thanks for being here. We really appreciate you watching the show. 13:30 Back to Ken. Ken is, Ken lives the rest of his childhood in this cage that he can't escape. Well, I mean, he lives the evenings in the cage and wakes up in the morning and then they let him out, he plays and then they put him back, right? Well, grows up to the age where it's like, okay, now it's time to assimilate him back into our culture in the zoo. And so they take him to an orangutan enclosure and they put him in an enclosure with, where he could have a community. And so, because they were a little worried. 14:00 They're like he's pretty smart. He's smarter than other orangutans to be able to both unscrew that but then also put it back together. That's a pretty intelligent primate and so he says so they so they say okay we got to put him put him somewhere where we think he might be safer. So they put him in one where he can have a community. They said okay I think if he's got community 14:18 then maybe he will be less. So you join a small group and so every week they show up and they sit down or they just ask like normal small group questions. You know like what's your browser history? That's a good starting good for someone you've never met before they go comfortable starter. What do you been searching? You're like looking up like hey, why don't you start with what's my wife's name? 14:42 Huh? Where we start with how we start with like where I got a high school. What do you do? What do you what do I do for the? Why are you jumping straight to this weird this crazy question? Yeah, I don't know what's your brown. What do you think my Rob Bell? What do you think? I mean it depends what you think. I mean yeah, depending on your answer to this Mark Drisco. Freaking so 15:08 he got involved, started volunteering. You know they had him there every weekend for church for kids church. They put him in an enclosure that would have for church. I mean I don't know if you've been to church lately, but the first time guests get freaking TVs. Do they get coffee mugs, TVs, they get a 15:29 a bundle of cash, just a bag of cash, you know, and then you do a volunteer night. Each volunteer gets a ten percent off coupon to the coffee shop in the church. Yeah, yeah pretty wild stuff. So he they put him just waits for me to get done with my bits and then he's like yeah. Okay, now I can teach you again, so the regattent. There's the thing I'm doing a thing 15:57 Here's the thing. Here's the thing. I'll listen to this back later. I'll be driving and you'll go that's so funny. You I'll take you so oh my gosh, like wait. I didn't remember you doing that bit yeah yeah yeah. It's okay. If I was listening, I want to start most broad day sister speaking of speaking of can't remember. Did you see that there is a lab that is run? I think it's forty three successful tests. 16:26 curing Alzheimer's. Did you see this what so they've done? I just don't like how you pivoted to that to be honest speaking of can't remember that was so what here's a re successful. This is my biggest fear. I think yeah curing it curing it yes, yes, like reversing yes, yes, so what they've what the test is is long story short and I'm going off memory here, so we'll see if I get this right. 16:56 But long story short, what, And they said that the reason why you have that deficiency gets blocked up. and then you can still remember. and they said within two weeks, or they said, 17:24 I think it was within a few hours their memories started to return and within two weeks their disposition returned to what their disposition was like before their the diagnosis and it's still very early. It's still only like 40 tests. So it's not enough to like be conclusive yet, right? But so far, like very early stage, like really, really positive signs that they can reverse Alzheimer's, which is bonkers. And honestly, 17:51 that's been my biggest fear my whole life. I feel like I'm been early onset Alzheimer's since I'm like eleven really and so I'm glad they're figuring that out because I'm tear. That's your biggest fear you've never told my biggest fear is going to prison for something I didn't commit. That's right. My second biggest fear never told me your ars before yeah I'm I'm to ever said that I'm pretty confident. I'm I'm pretty confident. I'm already on the road to it really you think so that is the first I don't know if dementia and also you've never told me this pretty sure they are, but why do you think that because I can't remember anything 18:20 Yeah, because like I was your wife will be like you don't ever say this yeah that's what happens that happens to you and our podcast yeah constantly you'll bring up bits and call backs and I'll be like I can't remember that yeah and and I do you're gas lighting me it would be something you would do, but it's not even it's not just this it's 18:41 I was such a just throw it out there. I mean we gaslight each other for fun. We don't gaslight each other. 18:51 master manipulators cannot be manipulated. What did I gas like you for yesterday? I guess that you for something or what I that was this morning right yeah about being cold in here. Yeah, you tried anyway. Yeah, you got really bad. I got to you. I got you yeah. I just never you've never brought up. Oh, I'm scared of it so I'm very scared of it so 19:17 you're doing it right now. You bring it up. You say it like I mean like not even on the podcast like in our normal conversations. You say it all the time. It's like probably the number one thing every day every day we're on the phone. You don't even say goodbye to him for you. Just go man. I hope I don't forget you. 19:36 I like you hope you don't forget me. I hope I always remember who you are. You hang up weird way to say you've done that since two thousand and nine teen dude, and I was like wow, it's a weird way to end the phone calls at first. I was like oh, it's like a bit you're doing that little mate thing. You're like all right, they yeah, but you started being like. I hope I always remember who you are and then you hang up 20:02 every day. You did it this morning. We talked on the phone this morning about how cold it isn't here. I was like made it so cold 20:13 hey buddy, not to be like super sentimental or whatever rise. I hope I never forget you. You're like honestly, I'm pretty annoying. I don't know to eat some bro. Freaking you have pepperoni and yeah dude, you've got a sack of pepperoni. She's trying to like what are you doing? I'm just making sure I don't forget all right. Okay, 20:43 yeah. My just needs a ton of protein and he says it's got. He doesn't want to forget this bag of pepperoni every holiday, every birthday, sir, you can't bring that in here. This is my birthday gift. 20:59 Oh my gosh yeah. So anyways, I guess I have told you that simulating it to yeah. I get the simulating into this other enclosure and they're trying to get. They put him in a small group. He's volunteer yours. That's how we got here. Yeah, yeah, that's how he got to join the worship. We got to eating pepperoni, so you don't forget yeah. It's just a logical path. No, so they put Ken in an enclosure 21:24 with a community. So there's three female orangutan and one male orangutan, which I think anybody was him yeah and him okay, and so I think anybody could see this and say that probably was an oversight okay, because pretty the I don't know what immediately they start competing for who's going to be yes. Yes, none of the reports and he's like a story. He's like dude. I can't beat you up, but I can lock your cage. I 21:54 I read a lot about this and none of the reports tell me the names of the female orangutans okay, but they all tell us the male's name is Otis, which which you've got can Alan, which sounds like the most whole schooled orangutan that exists and then you put them in a community with Otis. It's the kind of yeah yeah, so this has a face scar. He's got 22:21 you know a shin tattoo, yep a motorcycle yeah yeah, so Otis Otis and Ken are mortal enemies. That's my biggest fear. Dude is to get locked in a reggae tan cage with Otis with the with an array tag named Otis. What's your biggest fear? I think the Alzheimer's 22:49 So, Ken and Otis become enemies, but here's the thing. Yeah. So you know in the zoo, like when you go to the big enclosures and they've got the, you walk up to the railing and then it's like a big pit and they're all down there. Well, Ken one day realized, oh. 23:14 the this wall is like a brick wall. I can climb this yeah and so he does he climbs up that brick wall and he jumps over the railing oh no and then he just strolls through the zoo and he goes and he's looking at the animals. He's like oh my God. What are we doing? You're meant to run free free willy. Let's the whales out 23:43 that's the way I happen. It doesn't get a great water, rains, the water from the whale enclosure. He's like be free yeah. He's and why aren't you swimming? They're like they're flopping there. They can breathe though yeah. They don't flop. Do they do? Whales will flop. I would assume anything you put anything that swims on land at flops yeah, so he's walking around. He hits the the snack bar for sure yeah. 24:09 you know he's like blending in with a family they like she's like that's my husband. Hi, so funny, you know well, that's the thing he's he's super peaceful. He genuinely during the art like it's open. It's a bunch of zoos. There's a bunch of gas field trip there. Yes, yes, that's the only time we were rich. The zoo was on field trips really yeah. We weren't like a zoo family. Yeah, that's fair. We were a to be fair. You didn't have a great zoo. The because the park is it was fine. It's pretty. I guess I haven't been 24:37 it's okay. I just assumed it so I guess I guess I just assumed I just that's on yeah, that's on me. I just assume we had everything you could feed the giraffes out of your hand. They can lick all the way around and up your arm. 24:53 Okay, one of them they let you tongue kiss. 25:00 young kiss the dress. I know so much yeah, so we weren't allowed to because we were Christian, but they asked you before well, that was a zoo did not allow us. That's why we were the zoo. My mom said like we were not going to the zoo because I don't want to cause you to stumble by making out with a giraffe. 25:24 I hate the direction this is going right now. So so can you should keep the episode, so I don't keep doing tongue. Can I keep over here being like giraffe tongue down your throat? You know and you're like to tell me the stories. Let me keep going to get. You got to push through gets trying to get through the zoo. How we got here, get got out, can't got out 25:50 the zoo is open is the zoo's open. Everybody's seeing all the animals. Ken's walking around. He's looking at the drafts. He's the elephants and he's just strolling around like he's a park guest and people are stopping and they're taking pictures with him on their little disposable cameras like yeah, they're just taking photos with Ken like he's like 26:11 he's that's the thing he's just totally peaceful and finally some zookeepers notice and they're like wait is that ken allen or otis and so they go and they approach him and they expected him to put up a fight or it to be an issue. They were really nervous about this and now and he goes 26:32 so they do. They clear this little area in the zoo where he was at and they expected they were going to have to like tranquilize him or something and they approached him and he just he literally did that. They saw them and he just let them lead him back to his enclosure and they took him in his closure. They put him back and and that was like get back in there. He's like he's down the wall and they're like all right, so a couple days later 27:00 he does it again. He clives out of the enclosure and here's the thing they weren't sure how he did it this first time in spank him or anything, so he he was like. I guess I could do it again. Yeah, they were gentle. They were like a no no gentle Paris. I'll use that word. We're going to do something else right now. No sorry, we're going to do something else right now. 27:28 I understand how you feel. I hear you, please put the knife away. That's gentle parent, a yeah, so he he escapes again and this time he same thing walking around the zoo, getting pictures taken with people and I should clarify 27:49 the zoo was terrified when this first happened. The first is yeah. They were like oh we're done for yeah. We're gonna be a media fires gonna rip a kid apart. Well they were they were worried about the press. They weren't worried about the kids in the zoo. They were worried that the press was regattas attack. Is that a thing? I mean any wild any wild animal can attack, but Ken was a pretty peaceful animal. They knew that, but any animal that's a risk right, but they were more worried about the negative press that one of our right, one of our giant apes got out 28:19 one of our four foot five hundred and sixty pound apes got out, and so they were afraid for it to hit the press. Well, the next day it hits the press and it was super positive. Boomed. Yeah, it was super positive. The reception people were excited about it because the way that this was portrayed in the in the press was like it was like a bit like it was like a joke, and so they started calling him Harry Houdini, which is H A I R Y 28:49 Houdini, because they heard the story about him escaping when he was a child and getting out and it wait years. This he was born. This is like mid eighties when this is happening. Yeah, this seems like a pretty eighties thing to happen. Yes, yeah, so yeah. I was like Travis the chimpanzee hasn't had eighty eighty five when this happened. Yeah summer of summer of eighty five, which is honestly a very summer of eighty five of then right. I wasn't alive in summer eighty five, but honestly this fits yeah reggae tan summer and so 29:19 the so yeah San Diego gets pumped about yeah can and attendance spikes the rest of summer, because people are hoping to see Ken to see Ken Allen escape the hair. They go come here yeah and he's like hey, I'm not a freaking cat. What do you think I am that kid Alan's like hey, I'll hang out with you 29:45 I'm not a cat, but I'm not a cat. None of this. Yeah. Oh, you got a little, you got a little toy. 29:58 stop, stop it with that, stop it with that you're distracting me. You can't forget. I've seen the world. I've been out everyone's everyone, so especially it was so cool. It was so still is to be honest still so sick. 30:20 Hey, thanks for checking out this episode. Want to let you know real quick. We have an email list and it's not like a hey, we're going to send you our merch and new episodes all the time. We actually give you updates on these stories as we find out about them. So a lot of our episodes we've done a couple years ago now have updates or that the person the top was about passed away or was caught by the police or whatever updates we can find on episodes that we've done. We want to let you know about it so that our episodes just aren't 30:48 you know out there out of date. It's really fun way to keep learning new information and then every once in a while we let you know about new events coming up or new episodes and it's just a way to help us keep spreading the show. Join that email list. You can text till into six six eight six six or there's a link in the description of this episode or you can just go to till and dot com. It's very easy to join this email list. It's everywhere. It's actually really hard to not join it so 31:21 June 13th, 1985 was his first escape. It hits the news, it becomes a big deal in San Diego. He gets dubbed the Harry Houdini, and it hits the streets. And so people started selling T-shirts that said Free Ken Allen. They started making bumper stickers that said Free Ken Allen. There was a fan club that was started, which, super sick, called the Orang Gang. Oh heck yeah. Love that. Yeah. 31:47 And so they were big fans of this guy. This guy. And so people started coming to the zoo with hopes that Ken was going to get out while they were there. But here's the thing, Ken realized that he was being watched. And so Ken, they, Ken was, Ken had like pretty regular like erratic behavior, I shouldn't say erratic behavior, but behaviors that the zookeepers didn't want him to have within the cage. 32:16 primarily with him like fighting Otis and but he wouldn't fight out us when the zookeepers were around yeah he he wait till they're on that he would just smack on us in the back of the head yeah pretty much and so he started to recognize who the zookeepers were because of their uniforms yeah it's a zookeepers actually started dressing like in street clothes so that way he wouldn't recognize them so that way they could catch him misbehaving the 32:46 redirect your energy yeah, and he was and he would say are you a cop? He told me a what the heck is this? You gave your under cover. Yeah, if you're got you got to tell me your license plate has to have caught on the license plate. I'm a sovereign citizen. You should have heard what I would have said 33:16 That wasn't part of the bit, but it fits so well. I hate that. 33:27 Oh, that's great so so for like the better part of a couple months, people are showing up, hoping to see Ken escape sure Ken doesn't do it for anyone. Can Ken's here, Ken's on his own. He's his own man until July, then the and then the zoo keepers like shoot. Do people are coming less and less. We got to get them their skin, so July twenty nine throws around okay, and he does it again. He climbs the wall gets out same thing, strolling the park, seeing the animals, taking pictures with guests. Everyone's excited. 33:56 And then he goes back to his enclosure there's something that they don't give me So he starts literally stoning Otis, And that's when the zookeepers were like, 34:22 I am a zoo keeper and he's like what he's like you said I told you I tell me you can't. I need your day in patch number. 34:32 and you got me doing that and and that's exactly what happened. The zoo keeper show up. He immediately turns himself in and they walk him back into the thing. I was so to notice you should everybody said though that guy yeah. Have you talked to Otis? He kind of dude is not even that the other the girls you put me with are hot. It's not even that it's just that they're the only ones it's just that Otis and it's like I didn't think I was going to like him at first, but they've grown on me. 35:01 you know, and now you know they're my angels and Otis is just there yeah. I don't like him and I don't like this yeah. I'm not a fan of any of this. I could honestly look at me in the eyes right now. I could leave yeah any time yeah. I choose yeah this life yeah and so 35:28 This event was one where they were like, okay, we need to figure this out. Okay, we need to figure out how to stop him because he is he is he's too good at this. He's escaping too much. Yeah. And so what they did is they separated him and Otis. Otis was going to go to a new enclosure. Otis is a Otis is a problem for him. And so trigger a trigger. Yeah, there you go. And then they said, okay, we're all going to put them into a different enclosure for a moment, though. 35:56 and we're going to renovate this enclosure. So they put him in solitary confinement actually and they gave him a tv, a black and white tv to watch black and white movies for like a week while they had an operation underway with his in yeah. They did give him a black and white tv. They let him watch movies for a week because well because they didn't want to torture him. Could you give like the the primates at a zoo like a smartphone and they would just get addicted to social media? I probably probably yeah, probably huh? 36:26 that's an interesting thing. Should we try no? I is torture. Let's just try it on teenagers and stay good idea. So they they put them in solitary. They take all the other girls out and then they go to renovate this. What they did is they hired a group of professional rock climbers to find and identify all the handholds on that wall and they rent a rock climber 36:53 and they identified all the handholds and they patched them with concrete and so they made the wall just essentially this big smooth wall and then yeah. That would have been the easiest thing to do and then they installed a moat and so he'd have to swim across the most enclosures have motes and then rambe had a moat and then to take it one step further. They put in an electric fence at the top of the wall and so they're like there's he doesn't have a chance now like he's got a swim. He's got a climb and he's got a 37:21 get shocked to make it through while he'll be wet at that point or I could just dress like one of you. 37:29 because you guys are dumber than I am yeah, because you all you're all stupid yeah, and so they let him back in an enclosure. They bring in two of the girls that he had before he's there. I like the other and this isn't as fun without Otis here to be honest. One of the I only liked them because I could get them to like me more than Otis now that it's just us. There's no competition. There's just the spark is gone. I realize now that I actually kind of liked Otis 37:58 and I just like beating Otis. So he escaped the enclosure, went to Otis' enclosure and he said, hey Otis, please don't forget me. No, he, one of the construction workers by mistake, left a bar, just some sort of bar and it like got covered up with some dirt or something like that. Sure. And he found it. And so Ken took that bar and he hid it under a rock and he waited for a time when none of the zookeepers were around. 38:27 and he took one of the female ring of things and he taught her how to use it and so he taught her hey. If you go to the window over here and you get underneath it, you can probably break the window and so I don't know how this session went. I don't know. I he probably wasn't like he's like hey, if you do this, you can break it over like, but he there were on record. The zookeepers are on record saying yeah. He taught the females how to break this window with this bar and so a couple days go by 38:57 she goes and she busts that window with that thing and he gets out again and he goes explores the zoo and same thing super peace girls stated the girls got out to the girls got out to the one of them. So here's what happened. All three of them cut out. He goes and he explores same thing, super peaceful. People are taking pictures with them. They're excited to see him. Yeah, they get him. They girls are balling there. I mean just throw and kids 39:27 kids pretty cool though. Kids pretty cool kids gets a cool one yeah. So they get them all back to it. So can peaceful just turns himself in one of the ladies peaceful turns herself in the other one. She runs and so they had to actually what's the word I'm looking tranquilize tranquilize. Thank you. They had a tranquilizer and then drag her back and then they sealed it. They took a metal detector and looked for other other items that were left behind, identified that there was nothing there 39:56 called it good, said, okay, we've got him. There was one more event where someone who was cleaning extended wooden squeegee. And so they climbed to the wall. 40:25 And so he climbed once, felt it, and he was like, oh yeah, forget that, and climbed back down. But he still climbs all the time, he just doesn't climb that fence. The ladies, when they found this squeegee stick, it's like a five foot extended squeegee stick. They're like, I bet we could push that fence up. They climbed, and they got to the top, and they hooked it over the top, and they climbed up the pole of the stick, and then hopped over the fence, and got out that way. And so the two of them got out. 40:48 without Ken and Ken was so mad. It was like you left me. Why I could leave a bar. We used to write Sid for this. 41:08 So same thing, they catch them, one of them trying to run, the same duo, same duo, so one of them tried to run, they have to, yeah, and they drag them back. And then it stops. For like two years, there's no event, nothing happens. People still love Ken, they still have the shirts, he's still kind of like a local icon, but there's nothing major has happened. Until one day, there was a perfect storm. 41:37 and Ken's hanging out in his enclosure, and there is an issue with the pump in the moat. And so they had to drain the moat out. And when they drained the moat out, Ken realized it was his time. Oh yeah. So Ken climbs the fence. No moat no more. And I don't know how he figured this out, but Ken climbs the fence. 41:58 and he climbs over to the edge where the wires connect to the fence to electrify the fence. And he takes a twig and he breaks that wire connection. So now it's not electrified anymore. And he climbs up the fence and out and over the fence and now he's free again. And he roams around, explores the whole thing. Same thing as always, taking pictures with people, super peaceful, having a good time, but then he sees them. He sees the shorts, he sees the vests. 42:26 and the little hats, the zookeepers, Ken and Alan, his namesake, and he sees them and things are a little different this time. It's been two years since he's got out and he says, I ain't going back. And so he sees them and he turns and he runs. And so he just starts sprinting across. And so now he is running through the San Diego Zoo, this orangutan, full speed. The zookeepers are chasing after him full speed. And the crowds are on Ken Allen's side. The... 42:53 there they're throwing up at the zoo keepers and they're tripping them. Yeah, they're like can can can can exactly and so it's like a mad house in there. Everyone that there's a huge mob like coming to see this. It's almost like a parade and everyone's cheering for him. He's running. They're chasing him. He's he's like dodging them, climbing up trees, jumping over them and stuff like that, like escaping these zoo keepers yeah and then it all comes to this kind of culminating moment right when 43:22 the zookeepers corner him near the lion pit and they're nervous that he's going to jump the fence and then obviously that doesn't end well for Ken. And so that's when they decided, okay, we need to take our chance real quick and they did tranquilize him and they got him back. And so after that they learned, okay, we can never have multiple things malfunction at once and have him in there or really have anything malfunctioning and have him in there because he'll find the vulnerability. So then from that moment on, whenever there was repairs, 43:50 or anything happening. He's got to go solitary confinement. He's got to go watch gone with the wind for a couple hours and then he can come back when everything's patched up. Yes, we're watching. I don't know. Just I don't know that old something I don't remember and so that was his last escape. That was his last time he got out, so he had what is that for escapes where he escaped the actual enclosures, but also when he was a child, he was possibly escaping, just unscrewing these bolts 44:20 And he became a folk hero for years. He was remembered and there was, they would run like commercials about him for the San Diego Zoo. And this San Diego Zoo jail and it's got his little number on it. But he was a hero in the zoo until 2001. Unfortunately, he passed away a little early because he had lymphoma. 44:46 and so they put him down, but they have a plaque dedicated to his honor to this day in a zoo. Oh, two thousand December first two thousand, but he's remembered as Harry Houdini with an eye and he is the probably the most intelligent a ring at hand that they've ever had in that zoo and wow yeah, he's a hero. That's crazy. They ran gang. That's pretty cool. Well, 45:15 Thank you for listening to this episode. 45:19 I hope I don't forget you. I hope that years from now I remember that you were here. 45:34 Bit of a laugh. 45:42 Hey, thanks for being here for this episode of things. I learned last night. I promise I will never forget you. If you liked this show, do you want more of it? We actually mentioned it in this episode. There is a episode about Travis, the chimpanzee who was a movie chimpanzee. You know what movie like all you know, like in the nineties and the movie sets were all like what if a monkey was this character? What if the boat? What if the mailman was a monkey? So they had to hire a chimpanzee actor. There was a very famous one named Travis who ended up. You probably know this story to ripping a lady's face 46:12 and so you probably know that story to she want to know pro. It was a big deal. You could watch that episode. It's really it's not as funny as what we're laughing about right now. Right now, you know you're like man. I want next week's episode right now. I can't. I can't wait. I can't wait. You can join us on our memberships. You can go to tillin.com slash support. All that money does is help us make more episodes and grow this show and by by supporting us monthly. You get access to our discord where you can join a community of people who are 46:42 listening to the show and get all the jokes and you know we know when you try to tell a friend about our show and they're like what the heck are you talking about? The discord is only people who get our dumb jokes, so you can join that you can watch next week's episode early. You get a bunch of bonus content. You're going to love it. We would love to see you over there. If not, thank you so much for checking out this episode. Please share it with somebody. We'll see you next time. What things are last night? Things I learned last night is an evergreen podcast network show to see the other shows that evergreens involved with go to evergreen podcasts dot com.