WOULD YOU LIKE TO TOUCH MY MONKEY…?

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

Last night was the first time that we’ve actually bothered to watch the World Series, because thus far it’s between two teams I don’t really give a dámņ about. But hey, any Series that features near-death rescues of wandering uniformed three year olds certainly gets my attention.

It was a really good game, unless of course you’re a Giants fan. Having no real vested interest in either team, I could admire the play from both sides. However, being a latecomer to all this, and knowing pretty much nothing about the Angels…

Would someone please explain to me what the hëll is up with the monkey?

I’m sitting there watching people waving stuffed monkeys and wondering if it was a stuffed monkey giveaway day or something, and suddenly there’s this frickin’ uniformed “Rally Monkey” on the screen, holding up a sign reading “Believe in the power of the monkey.” And the announcers are discussing this in a matter of fact, everyone-knows-about-this manner, in the same way that they could make a reference to Babe Ruth’s calling his shot and everyone gets the reference. Me, I’m totally out of the loop.

How long have these monkey shines been going on? Whose bright idea was it? How the heck did it catch on, anyway?

PAD

14 comments on “WOULD YOU LIKE TO TOUCH MY MONKEY…?”

  1. Ask and ye shall receive. From a sports news site:

    “Rally Monkey was born on June 6, 2000, on the stadium’s giant video monitor when the Angels were playing the San Francisco Giants.

    Trailing in the sixth inning, the Angels staff played some canned video from the 1994 movie “Ace Ventura, Pet Detective” that featured a monkey jumping up and down. Then they flashed the words “Rally Monkey” on the screen. The crowd roared, the team went on to win and the monkey became the mascot.”

    – Elayne (looking forward to seeing the vampires dance too)

  2. To add to Elayne’s comment, there was no master plan behind the Rally Monkey. The guys who ran the video board just wanted to do something to liven up the crowd. There was no crowd of Disney executives planning how they could develop and market the monkey.

    Note also that were the monkey not successful, it would not have lasted. There are rules about when the monkey appears:

    1. The Angels must be behind or tied.

    2. It must be the 7th inning or later

    3. There must be at least one man on base.

    Since its inception the Angels have a record of something like 60-40 in games where the Rally Monkey appears, and that’s in two and a half seasons. This year the record was staggeringly high.

    Yes, the fans go nuts for it, since besides the activity on the field, it’s the only entertainment the fans get at “The Big Ed.” (Well, there’s the college age kids who shoot t-shirts into the stands, similar to the one that killed Marge Flanders, but that’s done in many stadiums.)

    But I can honestly say that I’ve been to several Angels games the last few years and I’ll be dámņëd if that monkey hasn’t come through every time. Lately though, the monkey has come to represent the Angels’ all-out spirit on the field. I’ve been a baseball fan all my life and I’ve never seen a team with such a positive attitude and spirit both on and off the field.

    Finally, I’ve often found it odd that niether the Angels or Dodgers have ever had a mascot like the Phillie Phanatic, the San Diego Chicken or that “Youppi” thing in Montreal.

  3. And for those into superstition, the time the Rally Monkey didn’t work in this series was when they broke the rules and showed him in the sixth inning of the game the Giants won.

    For what it’s worth, the local San Jose sportswriters have invoked the “B-word” aka Buckner a la 1986, a World Series I’m sure Mets fan Peter watched, dammit (says this Red Sox fan), in reference to the Angels coming back from 5-0 with seven outs to go to win.

    Most common lines about the monkey up in the Bay Area; Rally Monkey Tastes Like Chicken (tied in with the waving of rubber chickens whenever Barry Bonds gets yet another intentional walk) and Shock The Monkey. The monkey, btw, is played by the same monkey from Friends and Outbreak. While I don’t believe they showed this on screen last night, the paper reports that the Monkey’s debut last night had a scene of Mel Gibson from Signs seeing the monkey, followed by a pullback to show crop circles spelling out “Show Me The Monkey”.

  4. Oh, it also occurs to me to point out that since the Angels are owned by Disney, the Rally Monkey qualifies as a Disney character.

    Y’know, Rally Monkey David does have a certain ring to it as a kid’s name… 🙂

  5. On the other hand, Rally Monkey David would automatically become trademarked and liscenced property of Disney/ABC.

    But then again, it wouldn’t violate existing contract – PAD, didn’t you say Paramount only owns your firstborn?

  6. Some of the best Sports mascots just happen. The Phoenix Sun’s Gorilla came about when a singing telegram messenger delivered a telegram to someone at a Suns game and then decided to hang around and have fun at the game. He was a big success. Of course, several year’s later the Suns took control of the Sun’s Gorilla and fired the original one….

  7. The monkey wasn’t needed tonight, Angels won 4-1.

    Some mascots just need to be “eliminated” from the scene, the Dallas Cowboys “Rowdy” character for instance. So very sad, even worse than the team right now.

    jeff

  8. Julie Schwartz was right. I mean, yeah, he always talked about gorillas, but it’s the whole primate thing.

    Have they actually started mass producing little plush Rally Monkeys in Angels uniforms? If they did, they probably couldn’t keep them in stock.

    Poor Dusty Baker’s kid. He was doing on the outside what the Giants were doing on the inside.

    PAD

  9. At the website ‘www.rallymonkey.com’, there are t-shirts and monkeys, but no monkeys in t-shirts or uniforms.

    Of course, it’s only a matter of time before the Limited Edition 2002 World Series Rally Monkey merchandise starts appearing.

    jcpetersen

  11. Rally Monkey, Schmally Monkey!!

    My favorite capuchin monkey of the moment is the ‘monkey with a cold’ languishing on a couch in a Sprint Wireless ad….which started running about the same time as the World Series started!! Coincidence??

    I had either the flu or a particularly tenacious cold for most of last week, and could really identify with the little fellow!! I tell ya, that’s one expressive capuchin!!

    Hooper

  12. Personally, I’m just hoping that someone out there decides to pick up that poor little lamp from the Ikea commercial as their mascot. I mean… she left the thing out on a rainy curb all alone, cruelly replacing it with a new lamp! Sob!

  14. Ah, our wondrous Rally Monkey. Not the silliest thing in beisbol this year, what with the homer hankies in Minnesota, but close.

    And we love it that way.

    Yes, they play movie clips with the Monkey inserted for good measure. In each clip you hear the beginning of Disturbed’s track “Down with the Sickness”, with the drums pounding and the line “Can you feel that?” ringing throughout the stadium. In addition to the Signs clip, here are some other films the Monkey has invaded:

    Batman (“How do we get hold of him?” “He gave us a signal!” The switch is thrown, the light goes on, and a huge image of the Monkey’s head fills the sky.)

    Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (“Look into the pool, Frodo. What do you see?” Why, the Monkey, of course!)

    Risky Business (The parents leave, the music goes on, and the Monkey slides out dancing into the hall.)

    The Hunt for Red October (which a team exec said in January was the new motto for the season – never would have guessed how prophetic that would be with these new red uniforms) (Connery raises the periscope to see what he can see, and is shocked to see the Monkey floating by on a small boat, complete with Popeye’s theme.)

    And what would, of course, be PAD’s favorite clip, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan:

    The Enterprise has been battered.

    “Captain, we’re receiving a hail.”

    “BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF THE RALLY MONKEY.”

    “Onscreen.”

    Exit Khan, insert Monkey. The phrase “If you make noise, he will come” fills the jumbotron. And then it begins.

    They then show the Rally Monkey jumping up and down to the tune of, what else, “Jump Around” by House of Pain. The crowd simply goes NUTS for these clips. And yes, the record this year once the Monkey appeared was amazing. I think the Angels only lost something around a dozen times after they released the Monkey.

    (And yes, it seems a little odd that we had to have a mascot for a lot of fans to get into the game, but if the little bûggër can help my wife become a baseball fan, I’m all for it.)

    lwk

    Anaheim, CA

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