Monkey News

"What we're doing here, right, is just giving you a bit of monkey news that's gone on, where a monkey's been involved in it. Good little story an' that." - Karl Pilkington (The Ricky Gervais Podcast, 5 December 2005)

A regular section of the show in which Karl talks about a story, either factual (whilst often being very inaccurate) or fictious, where chimpanzees have been featured for unusual purposes. Ricky introduces this section with a "jingle" - "Ooooh, Chimpanzee That! MONKEYNEWS!" - as is usually the case with other features of the show. On the last show of the first series, Karl announced he would no longer be doing "Monkey News" as he believes all news featuring monkeys has been covered.

List Of Monkey News Items

(to do - link to show pages)

2003-01-11 - Hairy kid (hints to monkey news)

2003-01-18 - (First Monkey News?) monkey that finishes the day off with a brandy.

2003-01-25 - (first time jingle is used) Monkey caught smoking a fag

2003-02-01 - Monkey named Crap

2003-02-08 - Monkey nicking dvds in Hackney

2003-02-15 - Monkey in India, waiting for the train

2003-03-15 - Monkeys havin' a good chat

2003-03-29 - Monkey photographer

2003-04-05 - Monkey marriage

2003-04-12 - Monkey foils a bank robbery

2003-04-26 - Monkey Alfred makes a deal

2003-05-03 - Monkey that gets a decent job at a train station

2003-05-10 - Monkey that got a gig in a hairdressers

2003-05-17 - Monkey on a PC, typing "this is not a practical joke"

2003-05-31 - Monkey 86, drives off to Spain.

2003-06-07 - Monkey marriage II (another monkeys got married)

2003-06-14 - Monkey homeless in Russia

2003-06-21 - Monkey business & monkey gets a thump in the head

2003-06-28 - Monkeys join the army

2003-07-05 - Monkey health spa run by chimps

2003-07-12 - Monkey prison.

2003-07-19 - Monkey runner in the olympics

2003-07-26 - Monkey on a tricycle

2003-08-09 - Monkey mechanics on a Halfords ad ("bit of bonus monkey news for ya...") / Monkey prostitute

2003-08-16 - Monkey washing a potato & monkey football team

2003-11-01 - Monkey in an old peoples home

2003-11-08 - Monkey on a chat room

2003-11-15 - Monkey superhero

2003-11-29 - Monkey throwing

2003-12-06 - Monkey racing driver

2003-12-13 - Monkey on a plane with no nuts

2004-01-03 - Monkey victorian ape woman

2004-01-10 - Monkey escapes from the lab

2004-01-17 - Monkey farmers have a shoot-out

2005-05-28 - Monkey swat team (short)

2005-06-04 - Monkey porn

2005-06-11 - Monkey chef

2005-06-18 - Monkey in a home

2005-06-25 - Monkey musician

2005-07-02 - Monkey poker player

Famous Monkeys

Monkey 86 - Drove to Spain after nicking a car from a magician he used to work for.

Marty - The web-using monkey you can supposedly have a chat with over the internet.

Ham - The first monkey to be sent into space. According to Karl, had one button that fed it bananas and a second that did "everything else", e.g. go left to the moon and reverse back to Earth.

Enos - The second monkey to go into space, following Ham's successful mission. In real life, the rocket did not sustain proper altitude and the mission had to be aborted so Enos was returned safely to Earth. In Karl's world, the two buttons became reversed so the one for "everything else" began dispensing bananas. Fortunately, Enos figured it out and is now living in a monkey retirement home with Ham and all the other "Chimponauts" "talking about the old times and that."

Crap - The first monkey to have his name tattooed to his forehead.