Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Peripatetic Chimp Continues to Fascinate McNeil

As far back as May of 2007, McNeil has been fascinated with the story of a certain castaway chimp. He even contacted an Australian reporter about it! McNeil is still pondering the implications. He has tracked down more information and provides a "link" to the Pitcairn Islands Study Center, which he swears will bring Jerry Lewis into the story of our wandering chimpanzee. And so it does: "On the dark night of December 21st 1959, Robert sneaked into the zoo and stole back Moko. It was not as if Robert wanted to steal him because he was obviously very attached and so he left in the animal’s place a cheque for $1,000 and an IOU for $2,000... The missing animal naturally made headlines and the story even appeared in Life Magazine... During this missing period Mr. Moke appeared in the Jerry Lewis movie ‘The Bell Boy’ [sic] which must have earned Robert a bit of money." As McNeil notes in his email, a lot of the story is sad - the harmless typos peppering the account add to the heartbreak somehow - and I don't like to "link" you to sad stuff but here is the "link" anyway, you're a grown person.