Animal Talking with Gary Whitta

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Gary Whitta began streaming himself playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons daily a month before Animal Talking began, in the form of Animal Crossing Mornings. The show helped the channel gain a growing audience and identity. During his playthrough, Whitta came up with an idea to create a talk show set that paid homage to his favorite shows of the genre, such as The Tonight Show, The Larry Sanders Show, and Between Two Ferns.[1] A pilot episode was livestreamed in the set on April 25 with his friend and internet personality Naomi Kyle, which was well regarded by viewers. The show would later produce four more shows that week, before settling into a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule, with a permanent schedule at 7PM PT every Wednesday starting from episode 16.

The show is filmed in Animal Crossing: New Horizons on Gary's island of Kawaii. The set was put together with in-game furniture created by or gifted to the Whittas by viewers of the show. The in-game camera is utilized to film the show, although its limitations require the host avatar to move for better angles. Guests appear on the show as Animal Crossing avatars, with the wardrobe supervised by fellow Twitch streamer Kate Stark. On the occasion that a guest does not play Animal Crossing, executive producer and Gary's wife, Leah Whitta would customize her own avatar to match the appearance of the guest and puppeteer them live as they speak.[2] The production and guests speak together through Discord.

Additional staff members include Adam Nickerson, who serves as band leader and edits full episodes into ten minute highlight videos that can be accessed on the show's YouTube channel. The logo was designed by Chandana Ekanayake with Leah Whitta. The theme song was composed by Kenny Fong, and also credits Tom Young, Cameron Rose, Chris Petty, Desmond Splitter, Christian Lucy, and K.K. Slider.[3]

Due to the show's viral success, the show has been approached by potential sponsors, cable television networks, and advertisers. However, Whitta has rejected these opportunities, citing disinterest and stating "As soon as it becomes cynical, monetized, or corporatized, I think the whimsy and authenticity of it will disappear."[4]

The show has been well received by viewers. Animal Talking was featured on the Twitch homepage, with its fourth episode reaching over 12,000 viewers and was number 14 on the site's most watched streams that day.[8] Episode 10 pulled in a total of 339,000 individual viewers,[9] while Episode 11 reached 18,000 concurrent viewers, a record for the show.

The Verge proclaimed Animal Talking as "2020's Hottest Late-Night Talk Show". Touching on the uniqueness of the concept, Megan Farokhmanesh highlighted the pros of the show taking place in the video game: "On any other talk show, it would be an agonizing minute and a half of mistakes. Here, it's what makes Animal Talking so special."[10] Screen Rant's Christopher Teuton commented that "while most (...) traditional late-night talk show hosts are currently filming (...) and holding interviews over live chat services like Zoom, it's refreshing and unique to see the same format translated so perfectly here inside of Animal Crossing: New Horizons." He praised Whitta's skill as an interviewer and host, with "his conversations with Hollywood celebrities, musical geniuses, and video game enthusiasts are almost always just as enjoyable as those of his professional late night show counterparts, if not more so."[11]

• Animal Talking on Twitch
• Animal Talking on YouTube