Baby Monkey, Baby Monkey

There are many elements to having a successful video. Sometimes, it's not just the video itself that matters. I mean, it has to be kind of good in whatever way it is that makes a good video. (Oh, come on! You can't figure out if something is going to be popular or not just by watching it! There are just too many variables and NONE of them are defined! None of them!) But there are times when music really helps. (Take Nyan Cat for example. I still don't know what that is, but without the music, it would be nothing more than a cat made out of a Pop-Tart riding a rainbow through space.) The video below is one of those videos. The music really makes it. And it will get stuck in your head. Enjoy your weekend with "Backwards on a pig, baby monkey" stuck in your head all the live long day.

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Enter The Invisible Monkey

Who would have ever thought that those car commercials that we are bombarded with when they're having a "special event" would turn out to be rather amusing? Enter Dodge and enter PETA and you've got yourself a recipe for a wee bit o'hilarity ensuing. The hilarity ensues immediately after the annoyance over the emergence of PETA subsides, by the way.

See, Dodge made an ad that promoted their Dodge tent event. I don't know when the practice of erecting a tent became equated with a good deal on a shiny new vehicle, but it has been that way for quite some time now. They mention what a great deal you can get yourself on a brand new Dodge Charger, Dodge Journey or Dodge Grand Caravan. (What's a Journey? Is it named after the band? Shouldn't they have had Steve Perry in this commercial? I'm pretty sure he's not doing anything these days.) Not only that, they'll give you sixty days to see if you want to keep the vehicle. (There is, of course, no mention of the eight gazillion strings that are inevitably tied to such an offer. Things that I would imagine might include not having driven the car over 30 miles in those 2 months and never having turned on the air conditioning.)

That's when voice-over guy (the lovely and cancer-free Michael C. Hall) says that this whole thing could not get more amazing. He soon realizes that he is wrong when a little monkey wearing an Evil Knievel jumpsuit comes out and presses down on one of those ACME detonator things that Wile E. Coyote was always using to try and do in that sneaky roadrunner. The monkey pushes it down and a bunch of confetti blows out of somewhere. Voice-over guy deadpans, "I stand corrected." Not bad. Funny. I liked it. Maybe you will, too. Behold!

But who did not like it was PETA. PETA doesn't like anything having to do with cute animals being mistreated. I know. I know. All the monkey did was push the lever. But that is bad, according to PETA, because that little monkey had to be taught how to do that. (It's also bad because the little monkey is really a chimpanzee and there is, apparently, a difference. I don't know if it offended the chimp, but it really seemed to rile up PETA.) According to the website "Where's the Monkey?" in which Dodge tries to explain why they altered their commercial, they informed them "...about the poor conditions of working animal "actors." They told us how these animals are usually separated from their mothers at a young age and are usually discarded at seedy roadside attractions after they get too old to act." What sort of "seedy roadside attractions"? The only seedy roadside attractions around here are taco trucks and fruit vendors. None of them have monkeys. I'm not saying that what PETA is saying is false, I'm just saying I want more information of these primate abusing attractions that allegedly congregate roadside.

Dodge said that this made them sad and they took the spot off of the air. They also said that "Dodge is firmly committed to never using great apes in our advertisements again." While I suppose that is good, they don't mention anything about never using mediocre apes in their advertisements, so...fingers crossed!

But, wait! There's more! They took the ad off of the air and tweaked it just a little bit. They removed the chimp from the footage. Oh, don't get me wrong. They left the jumpsuit and the walking over to the blowy-uppy thing and the confetti that booms out from somewhere. That's still there. There just is no monkey. The monkey is invisible. Wait. Invisi....? Behold!

Most awesome! Very amusing! I'm glad that Dodge didn't completely ditch the ad. I'd like to see Dodge keep the invisible monkey in upcoming future ads. I'd also like to see PETA burn off of the face of the earth. I'm all for animals not being mistreated. And with everything that you can do digitally these days, there's probably no reason why Dodge can't just make a cyber-monkey instead of using a real one. But I'm never for PETA making an appearance. From what I can tell, they do one thing really well, and it's not caring for animals. It's their own attention whoring that they're so successful at.

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Every Monkey Was Kung-Fu Fighting

One of my biggest pet peeves? That's right. Animals dressed as humans. See, animals don't need clothes. They're animals. They have fur. Again, they don't need clothes. Another one of my pet peeves is right along that same line and that would be animals being taught to do things that they're not supposed to do. You know, like in those Russian circuses where they routinely have bears riding bicycles or playing ice hockey. Or even in American circuses where they have elephants walking a tightrope or seals setting zebras on fire or something like that. (I haven't been to a circus in a while, so they might not still be like that. Some things may have changed.) But it's when the animal finally, finally gets sick of being forced to skate around on ice and (assumedly) feeling like an idiot and they attack the moronic human beings who were making them do these obviously unnatural animals acts, for some reason, people are surprised. They're either surprised or the whole story is deemed incredibly newsworthy but in an odd sort of way. When these sort of animals attack, it's always reported in that serious tone of voice as if something horrible has happened. I'm not so sure that it has. And I certainly don't understand why there isn't more of a "of course this happened" tone to the reporting of such incidents.

Tell me something. If you hear that some guy has been teaching monkeys to do karate, how do you think that story is going to turn out one day? Not well, I'm guessing. Not well at all! Tell me when was the last time that you thought that a monkey who knew how to do karate would be a good idea. I'm guessing never. I know that I never have. But clearly, I think differently than a one 42-year old Lo Wung.

According to those fine folks across the pond at The Telegraph, Mr. Wung "...taught the monkeys (taekwando) so they could entertain crowds outside a shopping centre" in China. Um, so they could entertain crowds doing what exactly? Wouldn't they need someone to do the taekwando ON?

Listen, a beast, an ape, a primate, whatever you want to call the thing, it has the strength of at least ten men, probably more like twenty. A thirty pound primate can kick the ass of a 200-pound man ten times out of ten on any given day. Any zoologist (or Planet of the Apes fan) will tell you that. And you're going to teach those sort of creatures how to do martial arts? What is wrong with you, sir?

Now, I don't know exactly what sort of methods are used by an amateur Chinese taekwondo monkey trainer, but I'm guessing it doesn't involve lots of pats on the head and little treats. It's just a guess. By the way, if you're still not sure how this story is going to turn out, what if I told you that the trainer tripped and fell amidst his monkeys that he had trained how to do karate? Then would you be a little more clear on which direction this thing was headed?

The guy fell and the monkeys finally saw the opportunity that they had apparently been waiting for. They knew that this taekwondo crap that they were being taught would come in handy for something and they had a hunch it wasn't just for entertaining those crowds at the mall. But when this guy did a face plant, that's when they knew. And that's when they didn't "go crazy", that's when they "went monkey" on the guy. Only they didn't just "go regular monkey" on the guy. They went "karate knowing monkey" on the guy. Ouchie.

I would like to extend my utmost thanks to one of the bystanders who has provided us with his hilarious account of what transpired after the unfortunate tripping of the trainer. According to a one Hu Luang, "I saw one punch him in the eye - he grabbed another by the ear and it responded by grabbing his nose. They were leaping and jumping all over the place. It was better than a Bruce Lee film." It sounds better than a Bruce Lee film. (Then again, almost anything is better than a Bruce Lee film if you're asking me.)

The guy then made the ill-advised move of grabbing a stick which he was going to use to control his revengeful monkeys. The monkeys knew what that stick was for and they weren't having any of it. They took the stick away from their trainer and used it for what it was for. A beat down. That stick-brandishing monkey who had been trained in taekwondo (there's a sentence I never thought I'd type) clocked the guy over the head with it. (It's at this point that I'm really hoping that people were cheering on the monkeys. Given the account by Mr. Luang (I'm assuming it's a "mister". With a name like Hu Luang, I really cannot tell.), I'm really picturing that they were doing just that. Perhaps gathered in a circle, loudly chanting "Mon! KEY! Mon! KEY! Mon! KEY!")

Sadly, this doesn't end with the guy getting his face ripped off. No, instead the guy managed to tangle the primates up in a rope that he had been using to keep them from running off. Huh. If I had to choose between my monkey using martial arts on me and pummeling me into a bloody pulp (in public none the less) or having them run off, I'm thinking I'd be for choosing the running off. But not this guy. He got those monkeys all roped up and under control and when he did "...he made the monkeys kneel on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs to punish them and make them show remorse for their nasty attack." Yeah, that'll make it so this doesn't happen again. Sure.

They're animals, for cryin' out loud! They have their own methods and techniques of protecting themselves. They don't need to be spinning around in the air like that Bruce Lee guy. Bruce Lee wasn't a monkey! I swear he wasn't! I've heard that Kung Fu Fighting song many times in my life and it doesn't mention anything about monkeys! So why would you train monkeys (monkeys who are already stronger than you without the martial arts, by the way) to do taekwondo? I don't get it.

What say next time you teach them something a little more exciting. I know! Teach them how to drive a car! Or to really kick things up a notch, how about a bus?! Maybe teach them how to drive a tractor and have them work a farm! Wait! I've got it! Firearms! Teach the monkeys how to use a gun! That will end well, won't it? Um, no. No, it won't. It will end poorly....why? Because they're MONKEYS. They don't get to be like humans, they get to be like monkeys. No karate. No tractors. No guns. For the love of God, no guns.

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