My monkey baby

Last night saw one of the most extraordinary pieces of television I have ever witnessed. My Monkey Baby could have been a heart-wrenching story of three couples who are unable to have children, and their quest to find something to fill the sadness that these gaping voids have left behind. But no. Instead it was a programme about three sets of Bobby J Hillbillyies and their adopted monkeys, who they paraded around in special monkey nappies for nearly an hour. I had to pinch myself several times to be sure that my eyes weren’t lying to me.

One of the women had had six real children, all of whom clearly had the right idea and had hopped aboard the nearest tractor out of there and not spoken to her for a decade. Couple this with the lingering shots of a long-unused swing in her garden and her husband sat in his garage on his own with a can of beer, and you pretty much had all the pieces to a smothering control freak of a mother jigsaw. Any hint of sympathy that she might have curried with the audience disappeared the second that their wedding photo, complete with the ever-popular monkey-as-bridesmaid, was shown. And have you ever wondered what a monkey would look like in a dress with lippy and eye shadow? Well, look no further.

Honest to God, I spent the entire show torn between getting angry at society for letting such an abomination happen, being unbelieveably creeped-out by the whole thing, and holding back tears of unrestrained laughter.

Next up was a hippy who lived with six monkeys, one of whom (named ‘Silly Willy‘) slept with her whilst her husband was confined to the spare room. At a guess, I’d suggest that most of her co-habiters had larger IQs than her.  And finally there was a young couple who bought a baby monkey for thousands of dollars and had already discussed such life-defining matters as who would get custody of ‘Butters’ should they ever split up in the future.

And to think, all of these people have the power to vote.