History Main / PollyWantsAMicrophone

* Inverted in ''WesternAnimation/{{Rio}}'' where all the parrots are able to actually talk, but none of the humans can understand them. In fact, they [[AnimalTalk can actually talk to other birds and animals]], but they cannot talk to people.

* Inverted in ''WesternAnimation/{{Rio}}'' where the Spix's macaws can actually indeed talk, but none of the humans can understand them. In fact, said macaws [[AnimalTalk can actually talk to other birds and animals]], but they cannot talk to people.

* Creator/EmilyShort's InteractiveFiction game ''VideoGame/{{Glass}}'' features such a parrot--as the protagonist. You're locked in a cage, but by saying the right words at the right time you can influence the train of thought of the people talking in the room, and make their conversation reach one of the different outcomes.

* Digit from ''WesternAnimation/{{Cyberchase}}'', who happens [[WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}} Iago's]] [[Creator/GilbertGottfried voice actor]].

* * In the pilot of ''Series/SomethingIsOutThere'', Jack Breslin goes back to his apartment where he left Ta'Ra and finds the place ransacked by the MonsterOfTheWeek and Ta'Ra missing. After the requisite CatScare involving Jack's pet parrot, Jack says out loud, "Where the hell could she be?" The parrot obligingly informs him (out shopping).

* ''Film/CarryOnBehind'' has a talking mynah bird, whose vocabulary is mostly innuendo.

* There are [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSXSOEiv3N0 talking parrots in real life]], though they're mostly incapable of true language use.

** Parrots and corvids (crows, ravens, magpies, and similar) are highly intelligent for animals and many species are capable of both mimicry and are fairly adept at solving problems.
** The 'magenpies' described in ''Literature/MyFamilyAndOtherAnimals'' certainly seem to have been able to mimic humans, and seem to have been able to link certain utterances to effects.
*** There is a parrot and a crow at the Pittsburgh Avian Conservatory. The parrot cannot say anything, but the crow learned, because everybody was busy trying to teach the parrot and he [[TheUnfavourite wanted the attention]].
** Though not only do they have short attention spans, but they can be moody and very tricky. Alex was notorious for this; while the researchers were trying to teach other parrots, he would feed them wrong answers.
*** Not just moody, but sometimes actively unhelpful. He was described as having the emotional maturity of a toddler. So sometimes you'll get a right answer, sometimes no answer, and sometimes a deliberately incorrect answer, [[{{Troll}} because it's more fun to watch you get frustrated than it is to get a reward]].
*** Wraa! [[MemeticMutation Prob]][[{{Troll}} lem?]] Wraa!
* The Guinness Book of World Records lists the bird with the largest vocabulary as Puck, a budgerigar (or parakeet). That's right, a parakeet. His vocabulary was in the range of 1,700 distinct words, and he displayed somewhat of an understanding of context, as do many other talking parrots -- it's just not a straightforward, human-like understanding of context.
* Parrots are one of the few animal species capable of recognizing rhythms and [[http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0617/p18s01-hfgn.html dancing to them]].
* Mockingbirds are an interesting example in that they don't usually mimic human speech, but can mimic almost any ''other'' kind of sound. They've been reported mimicking everything from other birds, to cats, to car horns and ringing cell phones. The Australian Lyrebird does the same thing.
** In fact, there have been multiple instances of Lyrebirds actually mimicking complicated sounds such as police sirens, jack-hammers or airplane noises when living in a zoo, yet being unable to speak a single human word.
** Great Bowerbirds also mimic sounds they hear - from wheelie bins being dragged over gravel to dogs barking to mumbled/distant human conversation - but no coherent speech.
* Ravens have been reported to mimic the howling of wolves when they find a deer or other large prey animal trapped in snow or underbrush. [[SummonBiggerFish The howling attracts the attention of]] ''[[SummonBiggerFish real]]'' [[SummonBiggerFish wolves]], who come to check out the possible intruder; instead, they find and kill the deer, and the ravens get to scavenge the carcass's remnants.
** Ravens can also mimic human speech, but the extent of their abilities is not as well-known as parrots as ravens are seldom kept in captivity, except at the Tower of London--and those, as documented in the book ''The Ravenmaster'', are not intentionally taught to talk after one nearly caused an international incident.

* In ''VideoGame/TheSims2'', you can teach a parrot to talk. (Or a kestrel, because it's really just a palette swap.) Of course, it, like your Sim, will still be SpeakingSimlish.

-->-- '''Hotspur''', ''Theatre/HenryIV''

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[[quoteright:350:[[Film/{{Paulie}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/paulie_98.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[TalkingAnimal He talks everybody out.]]]]

* Averted in the AlternateHistory AlienInvasion novel ''In the Balance'' by Creator/HarryTurtledove. One of the aliens is quite excited on discovering there's an animal called a parrot who'll say exactly what it's told, as their human collaborator is refusing to make further propaganda broadcasts. The collaborator is tempted to let the aliens make idiots of themselves, but reluctantly informs them that no human would take anything said by a parrot seriously.

* Kokapetl from ''Anime/TheMysteriousCitiesOfGold''. Though his habit of reminding Tao to remember his ancestors could be something he was taught, there is plenty of evidence that he actually understands what he is saying. For example, he will often call something to the attention of the human characters by telling them to "come and see" and provides early warning of danger on more than one occasion.

** The narrator actually [[LampshadeHanging Lampshades]] the fact that there's nothing inherently supernatural about ravens learning to speak basic words - people train them to do it all the time - and initially suspects its nothing more than an escaped pet. One possible interpretation of the poem is that the bird's supernatural nature, maybe even its ''existence'', is a product of the narrator's own grief-stricken delusions.

** The narrator actually [[LampshadeHanging Lampshades]] the fact that there's nothing inherently supernatural about ravens learning to speak basic words - people train them to do it all the time - and initially suspects its nothing more than an escaped pet. One possible interpretation of the poem is that the bird's supernatural nature, maybe even it's ''existence'', is a product of the narrator's own grief-stricken delusions.

* With ''WesternAnimation/TheCasagrandes'' being a regularly down-to-earth cartoon universe, TalkingAnimals simply don't exist here. However, due to parrots being able to mimic human speech in real life, Sergio gets a pass and the writers are allowed to exaggerate his "human" traits as much as they want, to the point where they've basically turned him into an [[LionsAndTigersAndHumansOhMy equal among the humans in the world]].

* ''Film/OneHundredAndTwoDalmatians'' has Waddlesworth, a blue-and-green-winged macaw who thinks he's a dog (a Rottweiler, to be exact), and is voiced by [[Creator/MontyPython Eric Idle]].

* Ellsworth from the ComicBook/MickeyMouseComicUniverse was introduced as this: he was Goofy's pet mynah bird, the joke being that the pet was smarter than the owner. Given the setting, however, readers who don't know Ellsworth's origin story likely see him as just one FunnyAnimal in a world full of them.

* The title character of ''Film/{{Paulie}}'' is such a parrot; the catch is that every ''other'' parrot in the movie ''isn't'', and most humans have difficulty believing that Paulie ''is''.

* Iago from Disney's ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'' has his intelligence enhanced by some magic from Jafar.
* And also voiced by Creator/GilbertGottfried, Digit from ''WesternAnimation/{{Cyberchase}}''.

* Inverted in ''WesternAnimation/{{Rio}}'' where the Spix's macaws can actually indeed talk, but none of the humans can understand them. In fact, said macaws can actually talk to other birds and animals, but they cannot talk to people.

* Iago from Disney's ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}''. A line in ''Return of Jafar'' implies that Jafar taught him, possibly using magic. For most of the original movie, Iago pretends to be a regular parrot when in the presence of characters other than Jafar. He drops this after the protagonists turn on Jafar, though, and no one in-universe seems particularly surprised by his fluent speech.

* Merlin's "highly educated", snide and sarcastic pet owl Archimedes in Disney's ''WesternAnimation/TheSwordInTheStone'', of course.

* The parrot of ''Film/OneHundredAndTwoDalmatians'', who thinks he's a dog, and is voiced by [[Creator/MontyPython Eric Idle]].

%%* ''Film/HomeAlone3''

* An African Gray Parrot by the name of "Alex" was intelligent enough to not only have a vocabulary of 150 words, but also a basic understanding of them. He was capable of counting a few items and announcing their number (including saying "none" if no item matched the color or shape he was asked to count), and apparently coined a {{Portmanteau}} - calling an apple a banerry (banana + cherry). When he died in 2007 at the age of 31, his keeper asserted that his intelligence and grasp of language was on par with a human toddler.

* Kokapetl from ''Anime/TheMysteriousCitiesOfGold''. Admittedly, his habit of reminding Tao to remember his ancestors could be something he was taught, but there is plenty of evidence that he actually understands what he is saying. For example, he will often call something to the attention of the human characters by telling them to "come and see" and provides early warning of danger on more than one occasion.