Oregon Zoo Mourns the Death of Tracy Morgan’s Otter Doppelganger
It’s only May, and already it’s been a pretty tough year for animals with tenuous connections to pop culture. In January, Perry, the miniature donkey who served as the model for Shrek’s best friend died at the age of 30. Now we’ve just learned that an animal that briefly appeared in an episode of 30 Rock has ed away as well. No, we’re not talking about “Little Jenna,” Jenna Maroney’s pet gibbon/adopted child.
In the Season Seven episode “Unwindulax,” Liz tells her writing staff that TGS needs to come up with a new idea that’s guaranteed to “go viral,” her example being “that otter that looks like Tracy.” We then see a quick split screen featuring both Tracy Jordan and an actual real-life otter.
NBC
Tracy’s furry doppelganger was an otter named Tilly, who sadly just ed away at the age of 16. According to The Statesman Journal, Tilly was “adopted by the Oregon Zoo as a pup after she was found injured and malnourished” following an animal attack. But the orphaned otter went on ”to thrive at the zoo” and even “care for other river otters.”
As the Oregon Zoo noted, Tilly won their “Mom of the Year” award in 2013. So it seems that she wasn’t a total murderous asshole like most male otters.
But most importantly, she was on a network TV show one time for approximately three seconds. While it’s unclear exactly how the 30 Rock writers learned about Tilly, several months before the episode aired, a number of people on social media jokingly suggested that the picture of the zoo’s otter, taken by Portland photographer Carli Davidson, bore a striking resemblance to Morgan.
As far as we know, the similarities ended there. Like, no zookeepers have claimed that she boasted about getting other otters pregnant.
It’s obviously sad to learn of Tilly’s death — even though most of you had either forgotten all about this otter or didn’t know she existed in the first place — but she actually lived quite a long life for an otter. Per the Oregon Zoo, the “average life expectancy for river otters is 12.9 years in accredited Association of Zoos and Aquariums, according to the Oregon Zoo.”
So Tilly was practically the George Burns of river otters.
