If you logged onto Twitch Wednesday night, there’s a good chance you stumbled across a show called Animal Talking, a late-night talk show set in the world of Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
Animal Talking is a talk show complete with monologues, guests, musical guests and a working set. It’s like if The Tonight Show was held in the basement of a virtual home with friends.
The show was conceived on a Saturday and after just two episodes, Animal Talking was featured in Entertainment Weekly and other gaming/entertainment outlets. That shouldn’t be a total surprise, though; not only is New Horizons one of the biggest games of the year, but during these trying times players are getting creative, putting on virtual graduations and weddings while people shelter in place. So why shouldn’t someone host a virtual talk show?
Wednesday night’s episode was particularly special, though. Animal Talking was featured on the front page of Twitch and creators Gary and Leah Whitta (who are married) and game developer Adam Nickerson had to be ready.
“I was more nervous than I have been about anything in ages,” Gary told Newsweek. “My wife said to me, ‘I had more fun doing that than I had at the Rogue One premiere.'”
Gary was the screenwriter for the 2010 film The Book of Eli, starring Denzel Washington; co-wrote 2013’s After Earth, starring Will Smith; and yes, co-developed the story for 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
So you can say Gary is famous—or “micro-famous,” as he likes to put it—but putting on the fourth official episode of Animal Talking was an experience he and his team won’t likely forget.
That episode of the talk show drew 12 thousand viewers and was the 14th most-watched stream on Twitch that day. Impressive stats for a show that was less than a week old.
EARLY DAYS OF STREAMING
The origins of Animal Talking actually start with the first-person shooter Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, or PUBG, for short. Gary started up his Twitch account just playing PUBG, but then he became bored with streaming it, as he wasn’t gaining an audience—and, by his own admission, he wasn’t very good at it.
“I had trouble finding an identity for my channel. I don’t really want to do video games, everyone else does that and I don’t have a lot to offer,” Gary explained. “No one wants to watch me play golf, they want to watch Tiger Woods. Why would you want to watch me play PUBG when you can