Cheetah the Chimp dies at 80.
 

Anyone see that headline?

80? That's one elderly Simian!

He outlived both his Tarzan film co-stars, Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan.

So, he must have been a year old in the original film..? He looked too big for a one year old Chimp, well, to me anyway.

Saw that. Grew up watching Tarzan films. Read all the books, too. The books were a lot better than the movies.... pretty much as always in those days.

Gosh, that was a long time ago.

Getting old disgracefully now then? ;-)

Ha. Mostly just an old curmudgeon.

In my youth, it cost 10 cents to see a Tarzan movie: 14 cents if you went to the really fancy movies down town (yes, pennies actually had value).

Even though popcorn was 10 cents, too, we always snuck our own in. Some things never change. :)

Then graduated to sneaking half a bottle of vodka into nightclubs, tucked in the waistband? :-)

The article about the chimp said they had to "verify" him, as there was an argument that it was a different animal. I am genuinely fascinated: just how do you "verify" a chimp?? He appears to have outlived everyone else associated with the films and DNA samples weren't taken back then, so how? It's almost Pythonesque: "Yep, that's 'im, Guv. Recognize 'im anywhere..."

Facial recognitions software? Chimps have faces, right?

In the books, Cheetah was a monkey that would sit on Tarzan's shoulder. Guess monkeys weren't smart enough (cute enough?) to do the movie part so they went with a chimp.

My brother and I went to the Saturday matinees for kids back when -- 25¢ would get us both in and buy a large cup of popcorn. I must have been 7 or 8, my brother 5 or 6 or we wouldn't have been allowed to go alone, so that's 66 or 67 years ago! I agree that the books (which I read all of) were better than the movies. It was after DDay and the Movietone news reel was always full of the war in Europe. It came before the feature. I didn't let my little brother forget that I was in charge.

Yes, I think a chimp is a lot more photogenic than a macaque/similar and they can interact with humans in a more intuitive way than most simians.

Imagination: far, far cheaper than CGI.

One-off throwaway line that was no problem on radio........

Who is Arthur Dent??

You *really* don't know? He's better known in some places as Dent, Arthur Dent. Or the late Arthur Dent.
If so you probably don't know who Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox and Tricia McMillan are either. Or Marvin. Or Gag Halfront. Or Slarty Bartfast.
Or a thousand and one other friends of Douglas Adams. God, I miss that man.
Sorry... derailed thread alert.
Please resume your normal program... as soon as you're sure what it is.

Nope, never heard of them.

If they are TV characters, then forget me. Apart from news and a couple of sports, I have no idea about it.

They were characters in Douglas Adams' Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.
Started out as an episodic Science Fiction play on the BBC back in the 70s (IIRC). Then somebody had a set of cassettes with the radio series at work.
Then the BBC re-recorded it as a set of LPs. Then it came out as a series of paperbacks (I have them all) and then as a BBC TV series. There was a game on the Apple ][ by Infocom (got that too - mint condition).
I don't want to talk about what happened after that. It was horrible.

But the BBC has a long tradition of taking great stories and turning them into really cheap-looking TV shows! It's expected of them. (Zaphod's second head reportedly cost more than the first (real) one.)

Text-only games - those were the days. Developers could put their efforts into a good story rather than pretty pictures (Myst was a rare exception).

As it happens, liquor by the drink was illegal in my state until about 20 years ago. You HAD to bring your own bottle to a night club. The clubs sold set-ups for the same price as drinks in other states. Strange liquor laws in the Bible Belt states.

Johnny Weissmuller, the original Tarzan, was always my favorite. He was an Olympic swimmer... guess that's why they always had scenes of him and Jane swimming. That and Jane looked pretty good wet.

In the later books, turns out Tarzan was a wealthy Englishman. He returned to civilization, didn't like it, and went back to the jungle. Jane went back with him... and of course they found Cheetah and lived happily ever after.

Ah, the simple life style... no cell phones, emails, texts or bills. Tarzan was way ahead of his time in the back to nature movement.

I do wonder, as I can't remember, how well an Austro-Hungarian did a British Toff accent..?

He was supposed to be a Lord, yes, no?

What is a "set-up", btw?

Yup, a lord.

A set-up is the mixed drink/cocktail without the alcohol. Around here, that's commonly 7-up, ginger ale, or coke, as in Coca Cola :)

Weissmuller didn't make the movie where he went back to England. One would presume Tarzan would speak with somewhat of a Simian accent... then again, it's the movies and anything can happen.

The film "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan" was about him returning to his lordly origins. With Christoph Lambert as Tarzan.
Features Ian Holm as a Frenchman who discovers him in the wild and teaches him English -- which explains his French accent!**
It's notable for its well-researched chimp scenes, in which Lambert does some pretty good chimp behaviour.

(** Don't get me started on Highlander -- Lambert playing a Scot with a French accent; Sean Connery as a Spaniard with a Scottish accent. Arrrgh!!!)

Which presumably explains the premise of Smokey and the Bandit! Illegal to transport beer through the Southern States?

The BBC radio series would be a great place to start:
http://www.amazon.com/Hitchhikers-Gu...5784448&sr=8-1

Trevor

A Frenchman teaching English???

Ce n'est pas possible! I suppose that with the whole Frog-Jock Entente Cordiale thing, anything is/was possible.

Connery? Yes, he always played himself. Remember Red October?

Вот дерьмо Джок, американская подводная лодка!
Vot derʹmo Dzhok, amerikanskaya podvodnaya lodka!
;)

From a business perspective having a nice French girl teach the language classes guarantees high attendance and frequent renewals. If Mylène Farmer had taught English at my high school instead of Ms. Svoboda......

It's very dangerous to get legal lessons from popular movies, (although I don't think that Smokey and the Bandit ever actually said it was illegal, it was kind of implied through Bandit's actions as a "blocker" for the semi containing the beer), and a whole lot of people think of that movie as proof that Coors beer used to be illegal east of the Mississippi.

But that's silly. It's not now, nor has it ever been to my knowledge, illegal to transport beer through 'dry' areas. It's illegal to sell beer in those areas. Coors is not pasteurized, and at that time did not have distribution set up except in areas close (some claim a single day's drive) to their brewery in Golden Colorado.

The Bandit was pursued because he picked up Sallie Fields' character, who was a runaway bride, having just left Smokey's not-so-bright son at the altar. Smokey was never chasing the semi containing the Coors.

Trevor

Not exactly. Transporting beer/liquor across Southern states is not a problem. Half the counties you drive through, though, will have a maximum amount you can have in your possession for "personal use." Usually something like 2 cases of beer or two bottle of liquor. Commercial transport of any quantity is legal.

As I recall, the Smokey and the Bandit idea was to move beer from Texarkana to Georgia because it was Coors beer. At the time, Coors was a big fad (and pretty good beer) but it was only available in the central part of the US that included Texas, but not East of there. Coors claim to fame back then was it was brewed cold, and kept cold all the way to the liquor store refrigerator... never allowed to warm. They seemed to have skipped the "keep cold" part in the movie. Artistic license I suppose.

Psht. You'll be telling me that I can't practice medicine, despite having watched ALL the episodes of ER. That's 15 years of med school!