Spanking Our Monkey
Back in the late 70s/early 1980s, life was pretty grim for many of us kids. Mrs Thatcher, Jim'll Fix It, the prospect of joining the dole queue, and worst of all...absolute shite television. Yes, you kiddiwinks here (ie. those under the age of about 35) have no idea of the crap we were "entertained" with, back before we were old enough to hang around the VG all evening, and when a "games console" gave you hours of fun, moving a line up and down your TV screen while a dot bounced back and forth.

There was one thing myself and my friends NEVER missed when it was screened, however, and it sent us into a frenzy, recreating the choicest scenes from the latest episodes. The program in question was "Monkey", and for those unenlightened souls (oh yes, nice tie-in there) who don't know it, it was about this monkey who hatched from a stone egg, who rode around on a pink cloud, and was on pilgrimage to India, guarding a priest who was a chick, with his mates who were a fish and a pig, but they were all blokes, not animals. Apart from the Priest, who was bald. Got that? No? Get the box set then, it's classic stuff!

Oh, I forgot the important bit - fighting. Lots of martial arts, leaping about and twirling colourful banners and dodgy plastic swords and magic staffs. It was fucking epic to us 10 yr olds, and encouraged us to tool up and set off on pilgrimage too, down to the local park.

Now, my friend's little brother was called Adey, and a grumpier little fat shit you have never met. Kind of like Eric Cartman, only more bad-tempered, he decided that HE was Monkey.
Ordinarily, one of us older kids would pull rank and over-rule him, but Adey had a trump card - he had a Monkey-style fighting staff, given to him by the Gods, on top of a mountain.

OK, so we soon found out it was actually out of his Dad's allotment, where it was used for growing runner beans, and had originally been a Surveyor's pole. About 7 feet long, painted black and white, with metal tips, it was Adey's prize possession. What's more, he really could spin it about a bit, he was practically a Ninja! (Looking back, 30 odd years later, I can see Adey, gracefully backflipping in slow motion, whilst twirling his stick and flattening two massive skinheads who dared invade our park. I suspect my memories are not wholly accurate.)

Adey was obsessed with Monkey, his Mum even made him a yellow neckerchief, and he had the power to disrupt even our football games, when we saw him stamping towards us, spinning his magic Staff. We'd scramble to grab weapons of our own, sticks from fences, whatever, then surround him in the traditional Martial Artist way, brandishing our weapons, ready to fight. At this point, we would invariably break with the traditional, sacred way of the (celluloid) warrior, and would rush Adey together instead of getting twatted one at a time.

For a little fat bastard, Adey would put up quite a fight, and that stick was a liability, you really didn't want to get clouted by it. Being so long, it would keep us at bay for some time, whilst we traded insults in OTT-cod-Chinese accents, just like on the TV series. (Eeeh, you couldn't get away with that these days, they'd send you on a course, etc etc)

Inevitably though, little Ade would succumb to superior numbers, and would end up getting clattered over the head a few times and thrown in the brook ("Ha, cool off Fish-face!"). Time and again, our scraps would be interrupted by some well-meaning adult who spied us from their car, would jam on the brakes and "save" the poor little kid being bullied...who would promptly return for another round, another beating, after they'd gone.

Looking back, those care-free days seemed to last for years. Days of honorable battles against demons (ie. other kids who were stupid enough to come to our park without any sticks), pilgrimage (to the aforementioned VG, for Wham Bars) and adventures a-plenty, too many to recall properly.

I do remember quite clearly the day it all ended though, and Monkey was despatched for the final time. One of our number managed to purloin some sort of massive rake from his Dad's shed, and this was a dead-ringer for the weapon used by Pigsy from the TV show. Finally, we had an equaliser, there would probably be bolts of lightning when the two weapons clashed.
Soon enough, Adey appeared on the horizon, Staff in hand, yellow neckerchief on, berating us as usual:
"Ah so, you lazy good-for-nothings want to lie about all day thinking about sexy ladies? Hiiii-yaaaah!!! Take that..."
We encircled him, as per usual, then he noticed the massive rake.
"Erm, hey, where did you get that. That's not fai..."

CLAAAAAANG!!!

No bolts of lightning, no magic cloud, just little Adey, on the floor, his magic Staff broken in two, and us lot, I'm sorry to say, joyfully beating the crap out of him, and enjoying every second of it. We launched him into the brook, and retired to the swings, bored of Monkey and being Chinese warriors.

It was then that the evil black four-legged demon that lived in a nearby cave appeared on the scene, looking for vengeance for having his evil plans foiled.
Otherwise known as Prince to his owner, this was a particularly large and boistrous black labrador which was obsessed with humping everything that moved (as did we, in later years, strangely enough), and we'd all flee to the safety of somewhere high when he escaped his garden.

Poor little Adey was clambering out of the brook in tears when Prince spotted him and set off in pursuit. Adey knew the beast was bearing down on him, but he was beaten, his Staff was broken, his wellies were full of water, doom was inevitable.
We cheered as Prince launched onto his back at full tilt, and tragic Adey bawled, unable to fight him off. It was probably just a few seconds before Prince's owner dragged him off and helped poor Adey to his feet, but it was long enough for all of us.
One of the Big Kids, who knew about such things, shouted :
"It's Spunky Monkey!", we all howled, despite not having a clue what he was on about. From that day on, Adey was known as Spunky, even though his obsession with playing Monkey was well and truly over.

Yes, we were utter bastards, just like all kids. Years and years later, I saw Adey in a pub and he's now tall, and built like a brick shit-house. I neglected to remind him of our martial arts sessions, but the suicidal idiot inside me was screaming for me to pluck a hair from my sideburns and blow it really fast, to summon my magic cloud to take me home. Luckily, I suspect, I chose to get a taxi...


tl;dr - Nasty kids bully a little brother after watching a telly program, and now wonder how they didn't accidentally kill the poor wretch.
(Rsoles, Mon 18 Mar 2013, 21:20, 10 replies)

[insert tedious pedantry about everything you've got wrong about an old tv series]

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 18 Mar 2013, 22:11, closed)

Yeah
but describing it properly would be even more tedious, perhaps? Anyone who is unaware of the series can go and Google it...
Anyway, to 10 year old kids, it's about fighting, everything else is irrelevant.
(Rsoles, Mon 18 Mar 2013, 22:21, closed)

I don't normally bother with things like this... but...
ffs O_o
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Tue 19 Mar 2013, 12:26, closed)

[anecdote about the bloke who played pigsy in the 1st series]

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Tue 19 Mar 2013, 14:43, closed)

what? you did mention sheds though so well done.. .
(MayorBoris, Mon 18 Mar 2013, 22:18, closed)

Tripitaka
was a girl!
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Tue 19 Mar 2013, 6:01, closed)

And she gets her jugs out on the interwebs, too
Google Masako Natsume... but I warn you Monkey fans that fapping to Tripitaka feels very peculiar!

Talk about turning Japanese...
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Tue 19 Mar 2013, 10:15, closed)

hmnnn.... what should be more peculiar is the fact that you would be fwapping off to someone who is quite dead.
( Tesco Quality 60.825659, -0.788337, Tue 19 Mar 2013, 13:10, closed)

Well, I wasn't suggesting pounding one out over her freshly-exhumed corpse

(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Tue 19 Mar 2013, 13:37, closed)

prude

( The Light in Chains don't touch the Pope's boner, Tue 19 Mar 2013, 14:23, closed)