The Talking Moose was a humorous talking cartoon utility for the Apple Macintosh, originally created in 1986 by Canadian programmer Dr. Steven Halls. It was the first animated talking agent on a personal computer and featured an animated moose that would appear at periodic intervals with some joke or witicism.

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  • The Talking Moose was a humorous talking cartoon utility for the Apple Macintosh, originally created in 1986 by Canadian programmer Dr. Steven Halls. It was the first animated talking agent on a personal computer and featured an animated moose that would appear at periodic intervals with some joke or witicism. The moose would also comment on certain system events or user actions and could even 'speak' what the user typed into the accompanying Moose Proof (as in 'proof reader') apple menu accessory. The moose was the first facially animated talking agent with lip synchronization and it became the seed idea for future talking agents, such as Clippy the paperclip on Microsoft Windows, and Prody Parrot from Creative Soundblaster. The Talking Moose used Apple's Macintalk software, the first version of which famously made the original "Never trust a computer you can't lift" speech at the Macintosh launch in 1984. Apple's development of Macintalk had petered out and they granted Halls permission to use, and continue refining, the software for free. Halls did not just improve the fluidity of the speech and the reliability of the interpretation but gave the moose a large libray of comedic observations and wisecracks which gave it a distinct character and encouraged a wide and loyal fan base. The original Moose was distributed with the Bob LeVitus book Stupid Mac Tricks in 1989. Later versions allowed full speech integration for software developers and even a HyperCard plugin. In the 1990s, development of the program was taken over by Uli Kusterer under the name Uli's Moose - for which he later obtained Steve Halls' blessing. This Moose was also included in Bob LeVitus' book "iMac (and iBook) I didn't know you could do that".
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  • The Talking Moose was a humorous talking cartoon utility for the Apple Macintosh, originally created in 1986 by Canadian programmer Dr. Steven Halls. It was the first animated talking agent on a personal computer and featured an animated moose that would appear at periodic intervals with some joke or witicism.
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  • Talking Moose
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