Glorching Gorillas

Monkey Business

Humans have long been fascinated by primates. One of the few bipedal mammal orders, the primate is easier to identify with that any other animal. Except for maybe sloths. They belong to the order Pilosa and are related more to an anteater. Lesson of the day. I thought about doing some research to determine where the phrase "get the monkey off my back" came from, but that sounds to exhaustive. Instead I thought about 10 superior simians. There are no listings from the Planet of the Apes series as that would be too derivative considering the new motion picture and all.

10. Evil Monkey

The only monkey I know of with enough sense to become one of Jehovah's Witnesses, I thought we'd start off with him. Introduced as a gag the Evil Monkey has appeared many times in the Family Guy series. His evil deeds seem to include pointing with gnashed teeth and abusing drugs while listening to Foghat. In an episode focused on the evil Monkey it is revealed he is evil because his wife cheated on him. Chris and the Monkey set their differences aside and the monkey helps Chris with a school project. The Evil Monkey's last known where abouts are Jake Tucker's (the kid with the upside down face) closet.

9. Detective Chimp

Detective Chimp is currently a member of the Shadowpact, a group of mystic heroes in the DC comics universe. A minor character created in the 50's, he was used as a vehicle to move animal related comics to the budding furry society. Kidding. He came to relevance again very recently. At one point it became evident that his detective career had no merit on it's own as a chimpanzee had no legal rights and could not even press charges when people would not pay him for his services. He became an alcoholic and made the Oblivion Bar his permanent dwelling station. When the Spectre started killing off mystics, it was Detective Chimp that rallied the together to form the Shadowpact. Though he has no superpowers his detective skills and intelligence are invaluable to the team. He even chats with detectives like J'onn J'onzz and Batman from time to time.

8. Rafiki

This list would be incomplete with out a grapefruit-colored-backside baboon. The only baboon I could think of is Rafiki from The Lion King. "Rafiki" is the Swahili word for friend. He's kind of a wise older monkey. He meditates and scribbles pictoral prophecies. He also has a very keen sense of smell, as he can smell a particular lion's musk from a great distance. I always thought it would be funnier if Simba would have farted after eating all those bugs and that would have been what tipped off Rafiki. Rafiki also has a penchant for using physical abuse in his tutelage. Smacking a student over the head should be explored more when it comes to modern day instruction. Spare the rod spoil the cub.

7. The Monkey From Raiders. "Bad Dates"

This monkey hung out on the shoulder of some bad dude that was in league with the Nazis. The guy had an eye patch. Are there ever any good guys that wear eye patches? Any how this monkey makes the list because he saved Indy's life, from a certain point of view. When Indiana Jones goes to eat some dates his friend Salla snatches his arm out of the air and says, "Bad dates". Salla had seen that the monkey had eaten the dates and quickly died. Too bad too because the monkey was smart, smart enough to rat out Marion while she was hiding in that basket. That pirate looking guy should have trained him to identify tainted fruit. Instead it appears he spent his time teaching the capuchin to salute in the same fashion as the other Nazis.

6. Optimus Primal

Is that Optimus Prime in a monkey suit? Noooooo. It's Optimus Primal, leader of the Maximals. He was introduced in 1996 in one of the first ever CGI television shows "Beast Wars". By today's standards he looks kind of dumb, but back then he was beautiful. His duties mostly consisted of saying something cool and confident when it was time to go to battle with the Predacons. On Beast Wars the Predacons were led by a Megatron that was a big purple T-rex. Ape and T-rex battles are a common thing I guess. My favorite episodes had a raptor named Dinobot lurking around. Sometimes he was good, and sometimes he was bad. Either way Optimus Primal would always beat down on the bad guys.

5. Guenter

In the Futurama episode titled Mars University Fry deals with feelings of inadequacy as he is surrounded by an intellectual population. His self conciseness becomes greater when he finds out his room mate is a super intelligent and indignant monkey named Guenter. His super intelligence is provided to him by a hat that Professor Farnsworth constructed in order to help him get a degree from Mars University. After giving Fry a hard time Guenter eventually breaks his hat while saving the crew from falling off a water fall. His broken hat allows him to talk, but he isn't as intelligent any more. The writers of Futurama jab the network by naming Guenter as the president of FOX.

4. Gorilla Grodd

Gorilla Grodd is a gorilla whose mental and physical abilities have been greatly enhanced. At some point an alien vessel crashed into a jungle inhabited by gorillas. The vessel gave all the gorillas enhanced mental powers and they formed a city. Gorilla Grodd is a bad gorilla. He used his new found mind control abilities to try and take over the city, and then the world. Luckily the leader of Gorilla City, Solovar, contacted The Flash with his mind and everything was OK. Grodd later blowed up Solovar though, so who's laughing now? In JUSTICE Gorilla Grodd is given a yellow power ring from Sinestro. That with his mental powers makes him nearly invulnerable. In the VS system card game Grodds abilities often include gaining control of your opponents units, mirroring his mind control powers.

3. King Kong

Personally I don't care much for King Kong. The dude can't even talk. Having said that his influence over monkey media is mega. There have been 3 movies titled King Kong, but many sequels and rip offs like Mighty Joe Young. King Kong lives on Skull Island. The island has native humans, who's cranial remains lend to the island's name, and dinosaurs. There is even a T-rex like creature. The T-rex is botched though. In the old one you can see it has 3 fingers. In the newer Peter Jackson version King Kong's go to move is to rip the tyrant lizard's jaw asunder. This is horse crap. A newton is a measure of force about equal to the weight of an apple. The T-Rex has a hypothesized bite force of 180 kilonewtons. That's the weight of 180,000 apples. An average apple weighs about a half a pound. So that's like saying King Kong can lift 9000 lbs. An industrial forklift could do that, but it would be a slow process. The way Kong does it in the movie from an outstretched position? What a joke!

2. King Louie

Time for some orangutan action! King Louie is the coolest. Oddly even though he can already speak, he desires to become even more like a man. He thinks he can accomplish this by acquiring cutting edge human technology. That's right fire. How can a talking, dancing, singing orangutan not know how to make a fire? If he was a bit smarter he would have asked for an iPod or a gun or something more useful. King Louie's appearance in Tail Spin was even cooler. He had a swinging club and Balloo was his cargo pilot pal. Probably flew in the drugs from Columbia for him. Pineapple margaritas and the cover charge wouldn't have financed that club on it's own. Some feel that his portrayal was done in a racist fashion. I don't think so. If that the case all white people are big gray lazy bears.

Side note - The first McDonalds toy I remember ever having was a King Louie.

1. Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong

Was there any doubt? These two are what monkeys should be. They mock our human need for pants while sporting things like hats and ties, but letting their under carriage hang loose. Donkey Kong was the first big hit for Nintendo. Without him there may not have been a Mario. His barrel throwing prowess has been proved time and again. He is surely the strongest of the two. In Donkey Kong Country for the SNES if you came across a big bad guy you better switch over to DK. Diddy Kong would just bounce of them. Donkey Kong's strength is proved to be the greatest in Nintendom in his latest outing, Donkey Kong Country Returns. *Spoiler Alert*

Once you defeat the bad guy at the end, DK makes sure he is out of commision by flying up to the moon and then punching the moon down onto the villain. Luckily the volcanoe the villain was destroyed upon shot the moon back to it's proper lunar position. Still Diddy Kong is no slouch. He is the faster of the two and typically the coveted character while playing 2 player. His recent additions of a jet pack and a peanut gun make him an invaluable ally in retreiving stolen bannanas. Those who know of the devastating face violation know not to mess with Diddy Kong.

Bonus Glorching.

Look at this stupid thing...