I was reading Snopes.com, the internet story debunking site, because Lindsay Beyerstein linked to the Snopes page debunking the fact that Obama was not the anti-christ (who knew!). Anyway, while I was there I came across this page.
Claim: Mister Ed, the talking equine of television fame, was a horse.Holy Crap! Mister Ed was a freaking zebra!
Status: False.
...The producers of the show were ready to throw in the towel and write off the venture when one of the putative Mister Ed's trainers came up with a solution: the nearby Jungleland animal park in Thousand Oaks, California, had a trained Grevy's zebra that was being used in live shows for the park's daily tour visitors. The zebra (a female, called "Amelia" by its Jungleland handlers) was trained to perform many of the same actions (e.g., opening and closing its mouth, stamping its feet on cue) required in the Mr. Ed role, and Jungleland consented to lend her out for a few days' filming. -- Snopes.com
Apparently because of the fact that black and white transceivers were so bad a black and white striped zebra looked monotone. I feel kinda violated.
UPDATE: ARRGH! Snopes.com, you bastards... Apparently I have been punk'd under by "False Authority Syndrome".
By Grabthars Hammer Snopes will pay for their insolence!
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