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It
was truly a humbling sight to behold at B-Fest
2004. Despite the presence of films
like Spawn
of the Slithis,
The
Beatniks
and a hardcore porn version of Alice
in Wonderland
-- it was a short film, Monkey
Business,
featuring singing monkeys that broke the
back of many a B-Fester that year. Of
course those singing monkeys were wearing
diapers. And quite a few of those monkeys
had -- very obviously soiled themselves.
Wow.
Of
course, those monkeys weren't really
talking and singing. They were real
monkeys whose mouths were animated over to
match the dialogue and songs; poked and
prodded into action by unseen hands -- or
cattle prods from off screen.
Well,
I've manage to unearth another one. This
time a full-blown wild western melodrama
complete with a dastardly villain, a
damsel in distress and valiant masked
hero. All of them monkeys. Hee-hee.
Monkeys in funny hats, that is.
Our
short opens at the farm of Little Orphan
Fanny (a
monkey in a bonnet and curls).
She's about to lose the farm to Dirty
Dawson (another monkey in a black
coat and hat complete with a long black
Snidely Whiplash mustache). Dawson
will foreclose on the mortgage at six
o'clock tonight unless she can come up
with the money.
Dawson
slinks off and Fanny cries, loudly, not
knowing what to do. Her sobs are so loud
they attract the attention of The Lone
Stranger (yet another monkey with a
hat, badge and domino mask). He
puts the spurs to his horse, Plastic (a
Great Dane), because he's always
ready, willing and able to help out a
pretty girl. (It's the code of the
west and all that. And if you don't know
what that is, go watch Rustler's
Rhapsody.)
The
Stranger confronts Dawson at his office,
and after a quick exchange of insults,
they fight.
But
unfortunately, they must have started to
fling their own poop at each other because
the censor stepped in, denying us the
privilege of watching two monkeys dressed
as cowboys beating the snot out of each
other. Dawson
gets his comeuppance, but the mortgage
still has to be paid. The Stranger tries
to raise the money, but all his ventures
-- a lemonade stand, a paper route and
selling Fuller Brushes door to door -- net
him not one red cent. Discouraged,
the Stranger heads to the old Rot Gut
Saloon for a sarsaparilla to drown his
sorrows. The saloon girl (another
monkey), belts out a divaesque
tune, much to the audience's delight.
Especially the Stranger, who flips so bad
for her he winds up in the rafters.
Meanwhile,
as the clock ticks closer to six, Fanny
wonders what's become of her hero. The
narrator rats him out, telling her he's at
the saloon making googley eyes at the
saloon girl. Well,
he was making eyes at her, but now he's
more interested in the money being thrown
at her in appreciation of her musical
talents. He takes up a guitar and cranks
out an old folk number about the weariness
of women. It brings tears from the
audience but very little money. When Fanny
tells him to kick up a notch, the Stranger
is magically joined by a crazed drummer
and a possessed piano player. Laying down
a crazy meringue beat, this is more to the
audiences liking and the money flows in,
more than enough to cover the mortgage
payment.
The
farm is saved! (Whew.)
And Dirty
Dawson is foiled, who admits they've made
a jack-ass out him. (And
we'll just let you envision that last
visual joke.)
The
End
And
you thought The
Terror of Tiny Town
would be the most [expletive deleted]-up
western you'd ever see.
I
remember watching an interview with one of
the stars of Battlestar
Galactica,
I think it was Dirk Benedict, who talked
about the chimpanzee that inhabited the
costume for Muffit: the robot dog. The
chimp was pretty temperamental, and when
it wouldn't cooperate, the trainer would
take him back stage for a little
"persuasion" session, after
which shooting would commence.
And
when I say "persuasion" I don't
mean giving him a banana.
It's
stories like that one that can make you
cringe a little while watching shorts like
this one. Who knows what kind of
persuasive training is involved to get the
monkeys to do what they do. It
all seems harmless enough, though, in this
instance. (Except for the very
visible string tying the Strangers hand to
his guitar. Yikes.) The stars here
were Tippy and Cobina, the feature
attractions of Manuel Vierra's Musical
Pets Revue.
The
film was directed by Lou Lilly, who had
another talking animal short, Down
on the Farm.
Lilly was a gag-man for Leon Schlesinger's
Looney Tunes, making him one of the
denizens of the famed Termite Terrace.
Lilly had a hand in several of Bob
Clampett's surreal shorts; most of them
turned out as propaganda pieces during
World War II. The two most recognizable
are Russian
Rhapsody,
featuring the singing "Gremlins
from the Kremlin" who torment Hitler
on a flight to bomb Moscow (and
if you look closely, most of those
gremlins are caricatures of Schlesinger's
staff.) The second was Draftee
Daffy,
where no matter what, Daffy can't get away
from his draft board representative (who
resembles a bowling pin). Lilly
also had a hand in the truly bizarre Hare
Ribbin',
but his biggest contribution was the
co-creation of the Red-Hot Ryder character
for Buckaroo
Bugs.
Ryder would morph slighty for the next
year's Hare
Trigger
short, but you probably know him better
now as Yosemite Sam.
Lilly
co-wrote this piece with Charles Shows,
who would go on to work on the
Hanna-Barbera staples Yogi
Bear,
Huckleberry
Hound
and Pixie
and Dixie.
There's some familiar voices, but I'm not
sure if Fanny was Julie Bennet or Bea
Benederat. Anna Osborn headed up the
animation for the project, and the whole
thing fell under the UM&M TV Corp
banner.
Lilly
might have had a hand in more of those old
cartoons. We may never know because the
credits weren't all inclusive until right
before he left to form his own advertising
company. His experience with Clampett and
Chuck Jones, and their signature influence,
sure shows up in The
Lonesome Stranger,
though. And
that's why The
Lonesome Stranger
isn't quite as traumatizing as an
experience as Monkey
Business.
(And
in retrospect, Monkey
Business
wasn't all that bad, a lot of us had just
been up way too long at the time we saw
it.) There are some really funny
gags to be had here -- if you can keep
your eyes open during all the groan
inducing bits.
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