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Animated Monkey by Don Johnson |
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Animated Monkey A monkey makes an appropriate addition to one's Busker Organ shows, but keeping a real monkey for these odd occasions involves a lot of expenditure on peanuts. My wife Avril purchased me a toy monkey from Marks and Spencers as an appropriate Christmas present, to sit on my recently-completed organ when it was played, but it seemed rather too 'tame' in more ways than one. However, also present at Christmas was an animated toy reindeer, that moved and played 'Jingle Bells' (or something similar) when one squeezed its paw. I therefore decided to genetically modify both to produce something more like the real Busker's assistant. Without the aid of any local anaesthetic, I skinned both animals very carefully - only cutting the skins at their bases. I cut one of the wires connecting the speaker in the reindeer (since I wanted my own music to take precedence), then replaced the reindeer skin with that of the monkey - inserting the start switch into one of the arms as it had been in the reindeer. It was quite a tight fit, but eventually the new skin covered the mechanism. In the opposite action to liposuction, I then inserted some toy stuffing, to create a suitably well-fed looking monkey. My wife provided a fez and a bolero jacket, so that the little chap would be suitably dressed for performances. The video file shows my new assistant in action, and there is also a still picture taken during the studio recording session for any simian fans. He does have the advantage of costing little to keep, vets bills are practically non-existent, and he never makes any rude gestures or actions to upset my audiences.
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