Yes, this is ANOTHER show about monkeys in space. Before Rocket Monkeys and Space Chimps, there was a little cartoon called Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys.
This show was produced by Hallmark Entertainment and Monkeyshine Productions, Inc., airing in syndication as part of Bohbot Entertainment's Amazin' Adventures animation block. You might recognize the creator, Gordon Bressack, from his work on Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain. It premiered in 1996 - on August 16th in the United Kingdom and on September 7th in the United States - and received one season of twenty-six episodes.
So what exactly is the show's plot? Well, during the 1960s, when people were sending primates into outer space, one rocket with a chimpanzee in it veered off-course and wound up being discovered by the most intelligent race in the entire universe, a race of aliens so advanced that their name is unpronouncable, so everybody just calls them the " ". They gave the chimpanzee enhanced intelligence, weapons, fancy sci-fi technology, and the name of Captain Charles "Chuck" Simian (voiced by Jerry Doyle) - and the mission of protecting the universe from the evil Lord Nebula (voiced by Michael Dorn), a half-human/half-black hole who wants to swallow the universe in a "Big Crunch" and then remake it in his own image. Charles is aided by a group of primates... as in, not just monkeys, so the show's title being Captain Simian and the Space MONKEYS is a bit of an oddity, but that's just a nitpick. There's...
- Spydor (Dom Irrera), a wisecracking spider monkey with a habit of picking pockets and thinking up get-rich-quick schemes.
- Shao Lin (Karen Maruyama), a golden snub-nosed monkey and the only female member of the team, skilled in martial arts and full of Buddhist wisdom.
- Gor-illa (James Avery), a creatively named gorilla with the strength of... well, a gorilla but is nonetheless very gentle and naive.
- And Dr. Splitz/Splitzy (Maurice LaMarche), an orangutan with a split personality. Dr. Splitz is a scientific genius, Splitzy is a yokel mechanic.
Here's the TL,DR version of what I just typed: it's basically Star Trek meets Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, except with simians instead of reptiles.
I feel like this is one of those shows where the first episode you watch has to be the pilot - otherwise, there's a very good chance that you'll have absolutely no idea what's going on. And wouldn't you know it? The pilot episode is a two-parter. And I'm not just going to review one part of a two-parter, that would be incredibly stupid. And hey, it wouldn't be the first time I reviewed two episodes of a show in one review on my blog, so we're watching the first episode (or the first two episodes if you consider the two parts separate episodes) of Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys: "Yes, We Have No Bananas" and "Yes, We Still Have No Bananas".
The episode starts off with somebody in a spaceship trying to fly away from... this.
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| Seriously, what IS that? Some sort of offbrand Starship Enterprise? |
Wouldn't you know it, I review the first episode and I STILL have no idea what's going on. Anyway, the whatever it is starts firing lasers at the spaceship, causing it to crash land on an alien planet. The pilot of this strange craft takes off his helmet, revealing to the audience that he's a monkey. Though considering we already heard monkey noises as the spacecraft got hit with the lasers earlier, we probably could've guessed that for ourselves.
Actually, this is Charles, the titular Captain Simian. I actually forgot that he was a chimpanzee since he looks more like a regular monkey to me. He's not out of the woods yet - Kylo Ren's backup ship is still firing lasers at him, sending him scrambling into some kind of alien forest to hide. He calls up Houston to give them - and us - some exposition: basically, everything I already told you at the beginning of this post. For those of you who need a refresher, chimp goes into space, goes off-course, found by aliens who give him super-intelligence and made him more anthropomorphic.
Here's what the " " (all voiced by Oliver Muirhead) look like, by the way. I think I saw similar-looking creatures during the Paraphanelia Wagon sequence in Halloween is Grinch Night.
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| "Grinch is gonna getcha, Grinch is gonna getcha, yes indeedy fa-la-la! RAH!" |
The " " explain to Charles that he shall now be the defender of the universe. They give him a cool spaceship and dub him "Captain Simian". But if you can believe it, he initially wants to use the spaceship to go back to Earth. Dude, these mystical super-advanced aliens offered you the role of PROTECTOR OF THE UNIVERSE. I know it seems a bit daunting, but that's not an offer you can just turn down.
Is it just me, or does Charles/Captain Simian kind of look like Chris Pratt? I dunno, I think it's the hair.
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| Calling it now, if they ever do a reboot of the show, Chris Pratt is who they'll cast as Captain Simian. |
Next, the " " fill Charles in as to who he'll be protecting it from: Nebula, a former "Class 2" humanoid of unparalleled evil. Apparently, that was his ship we saw shooting lasers at Charles earlier, and he wants to get his hands on something called "the anti-force"... or at least he would if he HAD hands.
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| If your cat hacks up something that looks like like this, I would recommend taking them to the vet. |
Helping Nebula out with his evil plan is Rhesus 2 (Malcolm McDowell), a rhesus monkey who was also sent into space and who Nebula made an intelligent cyborg. He walks around with his brain sticking out of his head, and he can even take it out and swap it for another one... that can crawl around on its own. I don't know what the most disturbing part of that sentence is.
Equally disturbing is that Nebula had a Rhesus 1 before Rhesus 2... and their remains are still splattered on the floor nearby, a puddle of blood, bones, brains and eyeballs. Thanks for the Nightmare Fuel, Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys!
The " " provide Captain Simian with a glowing orb called the Orbitron (Jeff Bennett) to aid him in his quest, then head off to the tenth dimension. The Orbitron explains that it is capable of more than four thousand functions - none of those functions, of course, being just zapping Nebula and blowing him to smithereens. After all, it wouldn't be much of a cartoon if the main villain got defeated in the first episode.
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| "No, I do not have Glinda the Good Witch riding around inside me!" |
The Orbitron then points out that Captain Simian will need a crew, so he'll scan his mind and provide some candidates for him to choose. "All I know are earth and monkeys," Captain Simian tells it. "And I need them in less than eight minutes." This is because Nebula and Rhesus 2 are in the process of destroying the force field that protects the planet they are currently on. To get the candidates there, the Orbitron has a wormhole that leads directly to Earth. How convenient.
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| Whoa, Captain Simian. Take a few steps back, we don't need to see every pore on your face. Also, nice cheekbones. |
Candidate #1 is a spider monkey, the aforementioned Spydor, who lives in New York City. Specifically, he's one of those cartoon monkeys that dances around in a vest and fez while somebody plays an organ grinder. Is this still a thing? I don't think I've ever seen somebody playing an organ grinder while a monkey dances in real life. Heck, is it even legal for somebody to have a pet monkey nowadays?
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| "If you don't keep dancin', my ORGAN grinder is gonna be a MONKEY grinder!" |
The spider monkey is beamed up by the Orbitron, who then shows Captain Simian the next candidate - Shao Lin, who lives in Tibet and is considered a goddess. This is where things get confusing - Spydor is a non-anthropomorphic monkey, and Charles needed to be turned anthropomorphic by the " ". But Shao Lin already looks pretty anthropomorphic to me. Why is there an anthropomorphic monkey in the same world as non-anthropomorphic monkeys?
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| We see her standing alongside humans - she's very tall. I'm pretty sure golden snub-nosed monkeys aren't that tall! |
Candidate #3? An orangutan, Splitzy, who lives in a zoo and is being mocked by a kid who thinks it's funny to spray soda at animals locked in cages. The kid also doesn't know much about animal biology, because he keeps calling Splitzy a monkey. Orangutans, as we all know, are APES, not monkeys. They don't have tails. They're also stronger than humans, so that kid better hope Splitzy doesn't escape and attack him.
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| Okay, Captain Simian specifically said he needed MONKEYS. Why is the Orbitron showing him an ape? |
And finally, we see Candidate #4, a mountain gorilla who tries to scare off some poachers by channeling King Kong, but is initially unsuccessful... until the poachers threaten his little brother.
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| I can't think of anything funny to say about this screencap, so here's a gorilla joke: what do you get when you cross Magilla Gorilla with Harry Houdini? An esc-ape artist. Ba-dum kssssssssh. |
The gorilla is beamed up as well, leaving the poachers at the mercy of hungry lions. Once each of the candidates has been beamed up, Captain Simian and the Orbitron give them an intelligence boost and the ability to talk. The first thing each of them says is that they want a banana - 'cause they're primates, get it? If they were elephants, they'd be asking for peanuts. Captain Simian tells them that there are no bananas in space and that the fate of the universe is in their hands. Spydor compares Shao Lin to Princess Leia, demonstrating that he's the smart-mouthed comic relief of the team.
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| So how long until one of them makes a joke about flinging their waste at people? |
After the Orbitron fills them in off-camera as to what's going on, Rhesus 2 shows up to end Part 1 on a cliffhanger. On to Part 2... but first, a word from our sponsor!
Oh, wait. This blog doesn't HAVE a sponsor. Never mind, then...
After Captain Simian recaps the first part for us, Rhesus 2 starts firing lasers at the Space Monkeys, but then decides to make them an offer. If they give him the anti-force, he'll only destroy their bodies. "A mind is a terrible thing to waste," he says, just before his brain launches out of his head and attacks Captain Simian. Rhesus 2, when people say to "use your brain", I don't think that's quite what they meant...
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| And by the way, nobody wants to see your exposed brain. Could you borrow a helmet from Mojo Jojo or something? |
Then some robots emerge from Rhesus 2's ship to fight the Space Monkeys, who promptly make scrap metal out of them. Rhesus 2 attempts to take Shao Lin hostage, because of course it's the girl who he's trying to take hostage. But you do recall that I said Shao Lin is skilled in martial arts earlier, don't you?
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| "I'm just going to assume that because you're a girl, you're totally helpless and I can hold you hostage no problem!" |
Yep, Shao Lin goes Kung Fu Panda on his robotic tush. Rhesus 2 scampers back to his ship, claiming that Nebula WILL get the anti-force, and he WILL use it to destroy everything so THERE. The Orbitron suggests that they all head to THEIR ship and get off the planet before Nebula continues his attack on it. So they all do that, although Shao Lin needs some convincing because she thinks that, as a goddess, she shouldn't have to take orders from Captain Simian.
Once the ship takes off, they have themselves a little dogfight with Rhesus 2, and then the Orbitron says that he knows how they can defeat him... that is, if Captain Simian asks politely. Before there can be any polite-asking, Gor-illa accidentally smushes it. But they still manage to get Rhesus 2 off their tail... only for another laser to take their ship out, sending them to another planet. Nebula shows up and demands that they give him the anti-force. He didn't ask politely? The Orbitron would not approve.
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| A great way to tick Nebula off is by bringing up that Disney movie called The Black Hole - and, specifically, how it was a box office bomb. |
Captain Simian is all "We're not giving you the anti-force!" and then Nebula is all "I'll get the anti-force somehow, and then the universe shall be MINE!" and then leaves. So what's Captain Simian's plan now? They're gonna get the wormhole working again and go back to Earth. Okay, let's see where he's going with this...
As Dr. Splitz/Splitzy tries to fix the wormhole-making machine, he figures out that it causes space-time displacement at whatever coordinates are programmed. So this must be the anti-force. Hopefully Nebula doesn't know that. Once the wormhole is working again, they all go through it... except Captain Simian, who tells Shao Lin that he can't go back to Earth with Nebula running amok. He even makes a Casablanca reference. Because, hey, it exists, right?
Captain Simian's new plan is to fly the anti-force into the nearest sun before Nebula can get ahold of it. He takes off in a rocket, Nebula's ship starts firing lasers at him, and... yeah, this is where we came in. So is Captain Simian doomed? Nope - guess what emerges from a wormhole?
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| Now available at your local Toys 'R' Us! Provided you live in 1996, that is. |
Inside the ship are Shao Lin, Dr. Splitz/Splitzy, Gor-illa, and Spydor, who pick up Captain Simian and show him that they made a few adjustments to make the ship more simian-friendly - specifically, they filled it with plant life. Apparently, by leaving the wormhole open, they were allowed two-way travel and the four (or five, if you count Splitzy as a separate character) got lost in time and space. But that did allow them to relive the 1970s.
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| "Sorry, Spydor, but I don't think those new uniforms are gonna work for us." |
The Orbitron is fixed now, too - and it likes to imitate Steve Martin for some reason. And Dr. Splitz/Splitzy has a plan to get rid of Nebula's goons. A plan that involves... a disco ball?
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| "Here's the plan: Gor-illa, Spydor and I will distract them with our funkylicious dance moves. Then you and Shao Lin will punch their lights out!" |
As the ship flies towards the sun, it splits apart into five ships, allowing Captain Simian to be the only one risking their life - and allowing the others to take out some of the enemy ships. Captain Simian shoots the disco ball, which has the anti-force inside of it, towards the sun... only for Rhesus 2 to swoop in and snatch it up in HIS ship. Wah wah wah wah WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH...
The ship reforms back into one, and the good guys make their getaway. Nebula gobbles up the disco ball with the anti-force inside. But it absorbs HIS power, not the other way around, reducing him to just a puny pathetic human with a black hole-colored body. And then his ship explodes. The Space Monkeys' plan worked like a charm.
With the anti-force destroyed, of course, there's no more wormholes, which means they can't go back to Earth. But, Captain Simian says, they'll find a way back there someday. Unless, of course, the show gets cancelled after just twenty-six episodes.
What's the Verdict?
From the unbelievably stupid-sounding name, you'd probably expect Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys to be crap, right? Well, you'd be wrong!
This was actually quite good! The show somehow resisted the urge to rely entirely on "dur hurr monkeys are funny" to get laughs and actually took itself seriously for the most part - and the jokes it DID include are, for the most part, pretty funny. The characters were all engaging, with the villain in particular being really cool, the animation is decent, and the voice actors all do a great job. And am I the only one who gets Road Rovers vibes from it all?
So, yeah. I recommend checking this show out. You can find it on Tubi and Amazon Prime. Go in with an open mind and you might just find yourself liking it. Certainly much better than Rocket Monkeys.
By the way, yes, the show did do a Planet of the Apes parody episode. It was called "Planet of the Humans".
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