The Good Whale: A New Podcast from Serial Productions and the New York Times - The New York Times
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Fans of the movie “Free Willy” are outraged to learn that the real whale who played Willy lives in a tiny pool at an amusement park in Mexico City. So well-intentioned experts embark on an epic science experiment to try to teach one celebrity orca how to be free — while the world watches.
“Free Willy” fans demand the release of the movie’s real-life star. Why shouldn’t a captive killer whale have his own Hollywood ending?
Keiko swims east for four weeks, unobserved, with no human contact. How to recreate that mysterious time? As a musical, of course.
In the summer of 1993, the movie “Free Willy” — about a captive killer whale that’s heroically set free — was an unexpected hit. But when word got out that the real whale who played Willy, an orca named Keiko, was dangerously sick and stuck in a tiny pool at an amusement park in Mexico City, the public was outraged. If Warner Bros. wanted to avoid a P.R. nightmare and not break the hearts of children everywhere, then it was clear: Someone had to free Keiko — or at least try.
Keiko was hardly an ideal candidate for release. He’d lived in the care of humans for more than a decade, since he was a calf. He had millions of human fans but not a single orca friend. And he had missed out on uncountable lessons about how to live in the ocean — skills no trainer in the world knew how to teach.
