Director: Eric Goode
There is a chimpanzee at the center of Chimp Crazy, and there is a woman who will not let him go — a 2024 documentary series that follows what happens when devotion to an exotic pet collides head-on with the law.
What is Chimp Crazy about?
Former nurse Tonia Haddix has spent years caring for exotic animals kept in captivity, but one chimpanzee becomes something closer to family than livestock. When authorities and an animal rights organization move to take him out of her care, Haddix does not simply hand him over. What follows is a drawn-out standoff played out across courtrooms, hidden locations, and increasingly tense phone calls, as filmmaker Eric Goode traces how far someone will go to protect an animal she considers hers, and how far the system will go to stop her.
Cast & crew
Tonia Haddix carries the series as its central, unpredictable figure, with director Eric Goode behind the camera shaping a story that plays out in real time rather than through reenactment.
Context & significance
The series arrives from Eric Goode, the filmmaker behind the Tiger King documentaries, and applies a similar lens to the world of private exotic animal ownership in the United States — a subculture where affection for a single animal can override warnings from regulators, veterinarians, and animal rights groups alike, and where the line between caretaker and owner keeps blurring the longer the story runs. Goode's team spent years embedded with Haddix and the people around her, and that access is what lets the series track how an argument over one animal's welfare turns into a much larger fight over who gets to decide an exotic animal's fate in the first place.
Where & how to watch
Chimp Crazy is available to stream on K-Time once you log in with a free account, and the platform's Farsi-language interface, along with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, means Persian-speaking viewers can follow every twist of the standoff in their own language.