Despite their long history in comedy, I've never found primates of any kind to be inherently funny. I don't care how human they act, how many cowboy hats you put on them, or how many props you give them, they're just not that humorous. Of course, now I must contradict myself by saying that pretty much anything can be funny if it's placed in the right context, which is why The Chimp Channel, a program which ran on TBS for one season in 1999 and whose cast consisted entirely of chimps, sometimes made me laugh, despite my aversion to the idea of monkeys being a kind of comedic Holy Grail whose mere presence brings comedy to any situation.
In a nutshell, The Chimp Channel was a sketch comedy show with chimps, spoofing the television shows and movies of the day. Based on that premise alone it's no wonder the show only lasted one season, but the writing was actually quite solid and funny, and they were able to get some great performances from the animals. The series was actually much better than it had any right to be. I don't see how a show consisting of an all-chimp cast could have lasted very long, no matter how funny they tried to make it, but the TV landscape has seen more than a few shows like this one that were just too outlandish to ever find a wide audience. If you're lucky enough to catch these types of shows when they're on, they provide a nice respite from the mundanity of "normal" television fare. Also, it helps if you like chimps pretending to be characters from Star Wars.
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5-28-2006 @ 3:11PM
RAB said...
I come from exactly the opposite position regarding primates in comedy: I find them fascinating to watch under any circumstances, comedic or otherwise, so The Chimp Channel was perfect for me. The humor wasn't based entirely on seeing chimps in human clothes but was sort of a latter-day SCTV, with the episodes jumping back and forth between the programs on the eponymous channel and the behind-the-scenes antics at the station, and I'd agree its success rested on the solid comedy writing.
One odd joke that's stuck with me all this time is the pompous staion news anchor being named "George Heinlein" -- which must be some kind of reference to the famous science fiction writer Robert Heinlein (who actually did have a relative named George) but I've never been able to figure out the precise reason for it, or why it always struck me as so funny. A lot of the humor in the show was like that: stuff that was very funny, but which defied explanation as to why it was funny.
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5-29-2006 @ 12:52AM
MW said...
I can only think of one funny moment from the show that I can remember: a parody of Armageddon where it was made into a TV series. They showed the "first episode" where chimp heroes had to stop an asteroid, and then there was the preview for the next one:
"The asteroid is back. And this time, it's got a gun."
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