now with science!

June 26, 2020 6:04 AM

Ze Frank shares True Facts About The Macaque.
posted by ChuraChura (19 comments total)

My favorite thing about his True Facts videos is when he cracks himself up. Ze Frank is a treasure.
posted by xedrik at 6:17 AM on June 26, 2020 [8 favorites]

Yes, he's got staying power. I didn't know about the cultural transmission of seasoning their food. I like that kind of thing, will be nattering on to other people about that.

This was an unexpected way to get me to watch an ad for a computer game, though.
posted by illongruci at 7:20 AM on June 26, 2020 [2 favorites]

Today I was reminded that macaques have entered the stone age.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 7:51 AM on June 26, 2020 [3 favorites]

So, ChuraChura, are you telling us this is all true?
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:00 AM on June 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

I will personally vouch for just about all of it! Ze Frank put out a call on Twitter a few weeks ago for primatologists who study macaques; one of the three people who he thanks I suggested to him and a second is someone to whom I have applied for a job!
posted by ChuraChura at 9:11 AM on June 26, 2020 [30 favorites]

I always enjoy these for their own zany qualities, but also because I am reminded of my long-running feud with a coworker who insisted the Morgan Freeman one was actually narrated by Freeman himself. Still hasn't backed down and, I have heard from a third party, once complained to a gathering about how stubborn I am about it.

As for macaques, they are brilliant and I would happily put on a livestream of them sitting in thermal pools while snow settles on their heads.
posted by Caxton1476 at 9:23 AM on June 26, 2020 [4 favorites]

Heh. The bit about hot tub water being like “used soup” was spot on.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:42 AM on June 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

I am reminded of my long-running feud with a coworker who insisted the Morgan Freeman one was actually narrated by Freeman himself. Still hasn't backed down and, I have heard from a third party, once complained to a gathering about how stubborn I am about it.

Respect. This is a hill I would totally die on.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:50 AM on June 26, 2020 [3 favorites]

I saw this last night, it's great!

Small world, ChuraChura. One of the three people he thanks is a friend and colleague of mine, as well! I had no idea she'd contributed, but about three quarters of the way through I started having a suspicion I was going to see her name credited at the end.
posted by biogeo at 9:52 AM on June 26, 2020 [7 favorites]

Heh. The bit about hot tub water being like “used soup” was spot on.

I thought he said "you soup".
posted by mrnutty at 10:06 AM on June 26, 2020 [8 favorites]

"you soup"

Ah. That makes sense.

Even better!

*shudders*
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:46 AM on June 26, 2020 [3 favorites]

Loving that Metafilter has a Far Side level of primatologists in-house.....not saying that just for eponysterical value.
posted by bonobothegreat at 10:49 AM on June 26, 2020 [9 favorites]

Ze Frank has been our households go-to if we need five minutes to get us out of the existential dread and grind.

I'm trying to use him sparingly -- one or two at a time, about once a week. (Unless the dread gets very bad, of course).
posted by bumpkin at 11:07 AM on June 26, 2020 [2 favorites]

I was very excited when Lincoln Park Zoo got macaques. I happened to mention it to a guy I ran into who was an animal keeper at Brookfield (the other zoo in Chicagoland) and he said he absolutely hated macaques because you had to suit up in hazmat suits to work with them because of the risk of Macacine alphaherpesvirus 1 which is extremely deadly for humans.

I still like seeing them but they don't do the winter hot tub snow monkey thing at all in LPZoo despite having a heated hot tub. They have the choice of being outdoors or indoors and in the cold they tend to choose to be indoors (because they are not crazy).
posted by srboisvert at 12:22 PM on June 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

I periodically need to rewatch The Remnants when Ze Frank pops up in my feeds; I'm not sure if it was better left as a pilot and an idea that was never allowed to live, than to have been created and been maybe only OK, but I still feel like there was something there with legs. I first saw it here the blue back in the day.
posted by mhoye at 1:35 PM on June 26, 2020

this made my night! i knew about the subject (thanks, Nat Geo!) but not of Ze Frank. Almost as good as having Werner Hertzog narrate.
posted by mollymillions at 7:52 PM on June 26, 2020

This was a delight, thank you
posted by Kitchen Witch at 3:33 AM on June 27, 2020

At what point exactly did the word "learnings" replace "lessons"? I feel like it had to be sometime this century, but I expect to be surprised with some 19th century citation.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 4:00 PM on June 27, 2020

Has Ze Frank shifted more towards real true facts? There are still jokes, but I detected some non-BS info in there, too, which struck me as not in keeping with his earlier schtick.
posted by Meatbomb at 6:24 AM on June 28, 2020