Monkey Magic ...

I was randomly looking at stuff on YouTube today when I came across a clip from a show called "Monkey" that was originally shown in the 70's in the UK but has since been repeated on a couple of occasions, due to it's massive cult status. It's truly bizarre stuff, but extremely entertaining if you like that kind of thing (which I do). So I thought I'd share it with you ...

Basically, there was this mountain in Japan that gave birth to an egg (I know! Rubbish omelettes, right?). But this was no ordinary egg, it had the ability to roll up hill for starters, and one fateful night in a raging storm it was struck by lightning and hatched ... a monkey. Not just any old monkey though, oh no, this was a monkey king, “the funkiest monkey that ever popped” apparently (I think they say popped).

The monkey king is vain and arrogant, wild and reckless, and has the most amazing sideburns, he gives himself ridiculous important titles such as “The Great Sage, Equal of Heaven” (Seriously dude! Get over yourself already!) But soon his narcissism pays off and he draws the attention of the heavenly bigwigs who decide to offer him a job as “Keeper of the Peach Garden of Immortality”. Nice! But then he goes and blows it by eating all the peaches. (Tsk! Monkeys today, eh!) Even more arrogant now that he's immortal he causes much fuss and rumpus, cruising around on a pimped-up cloud, fighting anything that moves with his magic staff (which he seems to think is a big deal, although all it does it change length ... so not THAT impressive) and summoning monkey-warriors by rather oddly blowing on hairs he has plucked from his own chest! So understandably the VIP's upstairs get bored of dealing with his shit and imprison him under a mountain, supposedly so that he can learn humility ... but actually so that they won't have to look at his scary facial hair.

And there he stays.

Until ... the young priest Tripitaka, (who is supposed to be a boy but who is quite obviously a girl) releases him, wanting some monkey muscle to protect and aid him on his pilgrimage to India. Of course Monkey tries to escape, wanting to return to his old ways of throwing poo and causing chaos, but Tripitaka is as smart as he is bald and enslaves Monkey with a magic head band that only people from the 70's could truly appreciate. Monkey grudgingly accepts his fate and sets off for India with the nubile Tripitaka.

They soon accrue other companions; Sandy, ex water demon and cannibal who speaks with an inexplicably English accent and has the hairstyle of a franciscan monk joins them, having been somewhat harshly chucked out of Heaven for breaking a cup! And Pigsy, a blonde, greedy pig monster with a penchant for tam-o-shanters, who likes to fight with garden implements and who was also expelled from Heaven but for the rather more serious charge of sexual harrassment. All it needs then is for Tripitaka's horse to get eaten by a dragon, who is then so overcome by remorse (understandable, I feel the same way every time I eat bacon) that he assumes the shape of a horse and pledges his life to serving young baldy. And there you have it, our merry band of weirdos heroes.

Every week they would have a new adventure, battling spirits, ne'er-do-wells and even each other, always outrageously overacting on the lookout for an exciting opportunity and always finding some worthy moral to patronise enlighten others with.

Good stuff.

All I can say is, there must have been an awful lot of drugs being taken in the 70's