Keiko Part 1 with Brianna Bowman
1/27/20262 hr 2 min
Can a killer whale really jump that high? For kids of the 90s, the adventure movie Free Willy introduced us to magic of the orca through its charismatic megafauna star, Keiko. In part one of our series, deep sea correspondent Brianna Bowman tells Sarah about his journey from free marine mammal to imprisoned entertainer to Hollywood royalty. Together they discuss what Keiko meant to them as kids, 1990s whale-related activism, and the follies of anthropomorphic projection. Digressions include the power of horse memoirs, the importance of cartoon eyebrows, and the uncommon honesty of the flea circus.
Produced + edited by Miranda Zickler
More Brianna Bowman:
Support Brianna's new podcast Rewilding Keiko on Patreon
Submit a voicemail with your memories of Keiko at rewildingpodcast@outlook.com (Brianna's Note: yes, Outlook! I’m a weirdo)
Linkedin (Brianna's Note: yes I am a double weirdo)
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSarah Marshall· Host0:00
We are a tuna magnet, and we are gonna be here till 11 o'clock when our dads are picking us up. [upbeat music] Welcome to You're Wrong About. It's a new year, and we are talking about everyone's special little guy, Keiko, the killer whale. If you don't know the story, don't worry, you will, and you're gonna learn it from our guest this week, science communicator and journalist, Brianna Bowman. We also have a bonus episode coming at the end of the month about the famous flop, Ishtar, a movie that failed despite starring both Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman, and I get to talk about it with Paul Scheer and Amy Nicholson of the Unspooled podcast, and you can find it, as always, on Patreon and on Apple+. We had a really good time making it. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for being here. Now, let's go talk about Keiko. [upbeat music] Welcome to You're Wrong About, the podcast where sometimes we just talk about everyone's favorite orca, and apologies if your favorite orca is a different orca. We're talking today about Keiko, and we're talking about him with my friend, Brianna Bowman. Brianna, hello!