"Fly, my pretties!"

Am I the only one who doesn’t get the intrinsic humour of monkeys? I just don’t think they’re funny. Yet American advertising wizards still feel compelled to put them in commercials (especially beer commercials...I don’t know what that’s about). The series of commercials featuring monkeys in the office place that debuted during the Super Bowl is the most recent example of this. Oh, look, the monkeys are acting like humans. How amusing.

I feel this "monkey business" (bad pun, I know) is a lazy advertising practice. Some ad hack can’t think of a clever or witty ad hook, so he goes with monkeys (or a cute kid or a talking animal...whatever). The old saying is that "everybody loves monkeys." Well, I’m part of "everybody" and I don’t love monkeys. In fact, I think I rather dislike monkeys.

Monkeys I don’t hate: Donkey Kong, the monkey that saved Indiana Jones from eating the poisonous date in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Brass Monkey, the Rally Monkey (though he’s pushing it), "Monkey" by George Micheal, and Chunky Monkey ice cream (please note the conspicuous absence of Marcel the monkey from the TV show "Friends." Screw that monkey. If I get a chance, I’ll run him over).

Monkey commercials pander to the lowest common denominator–that jackass in middle America who giggles with glee whenever he sees a monkey in shirttails. It’s the same audience that tunes in to America's Funniest Home Videos and watches without any sense of shame, guilt, or irony.

I guess it’s time to face facts: these people outnumber me, and so long as they do, I’ll continue to be inundated with images of monkeys driving cars and drinking beers and talking on the telephone. I guess there’s only two possible courses of action: either stop watching TV (unlikely) or train some monkeys to thin out the herd in middle America (less unlikely?). I could have my own monkey army...