Genius Chimp

Laurette Spang On Working With Monkeys

From original Battlestar Gallactica (Pictured in Man From Atlantis) star Laurette Spang's page on working with a monkey in a robot dog suit:

Then there was Muffit, Galactica’s K9 counterpart to R2-D2. “Oh I loved the daggit,” Spang notes. “What made the daggit so lovable was that there was a monkey inside. Evie the monkey always let you knows how she felt. There was one day on the bridge ¬– with the whole cast – and the daggit came running in, with that funny little sound it made.

“We’re all very tired, it’s the end of a long, long day on this huge set. Here comes Evie, who decides to pull off the daggit head and throw it on the floor! The director yells: ‘Cut, cut, cut!’ We stop, the trainer makes sure Evie was okay, they screw the daggit head back on, start up again – and Evie does it several more times. This monkey had just had it! She was letting us know: ‘No more. I am done.’ I worked several times with the daggit and always felt it should have played a bigger part in the show.”

Monkey Hand African Proverb

Wodi soa ensa, fye wo ensa. (Oji)

When you eat a monkey's hand, look at your (own) hand.

N.B. -When you enjoy yourself at the expense of others, remember that you are liable to the same misfortune.

Oduacen se, nea 'ko ne yem no, enni nede, na nea vo n'afonnom no, enye nedea.

The monkey says, that which has gone into his belly is his; but what is in his mouth is not his.

N.B.—Any external possession is uncertain, however well secured.

Wit and Wisdom from West Africa, Richard Francis Burton

Tim Burton on Working With Chimps

From an interview with TIm Burton about making Planet of the Apes.

Is it true you didn’t particularly like the real chimps in the film?

What I loved about the first movie was that chimps were good, but they’re actually the most evil f***ers in the world! Look at any research on primates and I think you might agree that chimps are the scariest. In their culture they have murderers, serial killers, and they’re as strong as hell! They can go psychotic on you; one day one was trying to hump me and the next day he was spitting on me, throwing s**t at me.

The thing that made them so unnerving to me is that since you were a child they’ve been anthropomorphised and cute–ified, and you look at them and they are very cute and kind of similar – but also not similar, its that unknown quality. That’s the uneasiness about them; most humans would say "Oh they’re cute" because it’s a way of pushing off that dark undercurrent. And that’s what’s weird about the nature of the material itself; without saying anything it shows you about the underside of humanity.