The Ape Who Went to College is a documentary about a rather unique experiment. In 1978, Dr Lyn Miles at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga, raised a rejected baby orangutan named Chantek as a human child:

By the time he was four, Chantek was a familiar sight on campus. His photo appeared in the university yearbooks alongside the students, and he sat in on lectures: he loved human company. Chantek had a riotous sense of humour. His favourite game was to steal food from students and he’d hide in the women’s toilets, wait until a student went into a cubicle and then stretch an arm under the door to provoke a fit of shrieks.

His language was becoming more complex. When he didn’t know a sign, he adapted others: ketchup was ‘tomato-toothpaste’, and a Big Mac was ‘cheese-meat-bread’.

A campus worker who had suffered an accident to his hand was ‘Dave Missing-Finger’. Chantek loved outings too, including trips to the lake where he’d bathe, and to the takeaway. But his interaction with the human world was causing problems. Drivers would gawk at the sight of an ape in a car, and sometimes Dr Miles was forced to pull off the road for safety. University lawyers voiced fears of a lawsuit if Chantek caused a pile-up on the motorway.

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After two years Chantek was moved to Atlanta Zoo, where he lives with other orangutans. He cannot accept they’re the same species as him, though – he calls them ‘orange dogs’. Dr Miles now has to go to the zoo as a visitor to see her beloved Chantek. He asks her for his favourite foods; he’s forgotten many words, but still remembers the sign for ‘I love you’.

Update: The video gets deleted from YouTube, but you can watch it on the PBS website instead.

Featured image: Taken from the documentary, Chantek paying for food at a fast food drive-thru (video).