Talking About Monkey Girl Takes Us To Bobo, Fifi & Ivan The Gorilla

A couple days ago one of my old, longtime friends, and I, were talking about something and the subject of her cute daughter came up. The cute daughter was nicknamed Monkey Girl due to more than one person remarking that "she's as cute as a monkey".

Well, that aforementioned old, longtime friend sometimes took umbrage to her daughter being known as Monkey Girl.

The latest iteration of umbrage somehow morphed into the subject of Bobo the Gorilla.

Bobo was the most famous Washingtonian for many years. And Seattle's top tourist attraction til other attractions came along. I remember the highlight of a visit to Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo was seeing Bobo, and later, after Bobo got married, his wife, Fifi.

Bobo first came to fame in the early 1950s, he was adopted as an infant by a family in Anacortes. Anacortes is a town in Skagit County, on Fidalgo Island. Eventually Bobo grew too big to be living in a house.

So, Woodland Park Zoo became Bobo's new home. His adopted humans visited Bobo frequently, and he was always real happy to see them.

You can read a comprehensive Bobo the Gorilla article in Wikipedia.

Bobo and Fifi were not Washington's only famous gorillas. Ivan the Gorilla was both famous and eventually infamous.

Ivan the Gorilla lived in a small enclosure inside Tacoma's B & I Circus store. Ivan eventually became a cause celebre. Wikipedia also has a comprehensive article about Ivan the Gorilla.

Bobo died before Woodland Park Zoo was rebuilt, with a new natural large gorilla habitat. Bobo and Fifi never successfully mated. I do not know if Fifi remarried after Bobo died.