Jane Goodall: Disney's "Chimpanzee” good for nature-starved kids

Just in time for Earth Day, the new Disney nature documentary, “Chimpanzee,” opens this Friday and reportedly will satisfy everyone in the family, from the antics of Oscar, a three-year-old chimp and his family in the rain forests of Ivory Coast, to the allegorical behavior of the primates.

And a good thing, too, says famed anthropologist Jane Goodall. Kids need a dose of nature to attract them away from their technological obsessions.

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Ms. Goodall, whose research institute will reap a portion of the first-week ticket sales, says she hopes the film will reach youngsters. She told the Canadian Press wire service:

“I think actually what children are lacking is contact with  nature….We didn’t have these films when I was young… By and large there was no television and that certainly didn’t harm me. Films like this, yes, they’re great compared to the video games, which mostly are absolutely terrible.”

Tim Allen narrates the documentary that follows Oscar and his family in the Ivory Coast’s Tai National Park. Ms. Goodall was not associated with the making of the film by director Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield. But the filmmakers collaborated with Christophe Boesch, a Franco-Swiss biologist who has studied the chimp’s family for 36 years.