The Virtual Pub
Come Inside... => The Library => Topic started by: Grumpmeister on July 23, 2008, 11:24:26 AM
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While I'm not normally an opera fan, its Monkey cloud9:
And they are being brought back for the BBC olympic coverage cloud9:
The 1970s cult TV series is now an opera and its characters front the BBC Olympics coverage. But it's a mystery to those who never watched it. What on earth was Monkey about?
Say the two words "Monkey Magic" to a man in his late 30s and he'll turn into a child, putting on a funny voice and then moving his lips in exaggerated fashion.
A Japanese television series based on a 16th Century Chinese novel, badly dubbed in English, does not sound like a sure-fire children's hit. But Monkey - or Monkey Magic as it became known in the UK - was an unlikely success.
Fed a late-70s television diet of Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, The Million Dollar Man and the Red Hand Gang, youngsters watching Monkey on BBC Two one evening a week saw something completely different. And in the coming months, the characters that gripped a generation could find a new legion of fans.
An opera based on the famous Chinese novel that inspired the series, Journey to the West, opens in London a year after its Manchester premiere. Monkey: Journey to the West is another collaboration between Gorillaz creators Damon Albarn, who pens the music, and graphic artist Jamie Hewlett.
Hewlett has also designed the characters fronting the BBC's coverage of the Olympics in Beijing. "This is going to be the summer of Monkey," he declared last week.
For die-hard fans, the fascination has never dimmed. Although people aged under 33 could be discovering the characters for the first time, the popularity of the story has endured and the BBC series still enjoys cult status. There are several websites dedicated to it and a fan club on Facebook has 65,000 members.
But the collective memory of grown-up Monkey-watchers is a bit vague. They pick out certain motifs - Monkey riding a cloud, big sideburns, a headband, egg struck by lightning - but are a bit hazy on what was actually going on.
'Kung fu for kids'
Monkey was king of a monkey tribe and, as the memorable opening sequence explains, was hatched from an egg in a storm on a mountain top. He is later imprisoned under a mountain for disobeying the gods.
He is released by the young Buddhist monk Tripitaka, on the condition that he escorts him on a long journey to retrieve sacred scripts from India. They are joined by two other miscreant monsters in human form, Sandy and Pigsy. It's joyous, partly because of its predictability but also because it was so fantastically realised
So begins a series of encounters with demons and baddies, including some spectacular fight scenes, usually with Monkey using his magic staff that can grow in size. He can also fly on a cloud.
Tripitaka represents the moral force of the story, although he is probably best remembered for being played by a woman, in the finest panto tradition. He puts a headband on Monkey which he can tighten through prayer when Monkey steps out of line.
Guardian television critic Ali Catterall recalls rushing back from Cubs on a Thursday to get back for 6.15pm.
"It was kung fu for kids. Your older brother watched Bruce Lee and you would be into Monkey. It had dazzling storylines and it looked amazing. The day after at school, one of you would be Monkey and one would be Pigsy."
The one-dimensional characters play on children's recognition of archetypes from a young age, he says, and unlike the Water Margin, which was another Japanese adaptation of a Chinese novel, viewers could dip in and out of Monkey.
The stories in Monkey followed a formula, usually with the hero resolving in-fighting at the palace.
"Pigsy fails to get off with pretty princess, Monkey plays up and Tripitaka admonishes him with ever-narrowing headband. It's joyous, partly because of its predictability but also because it was so fantastically realised."
For children's television, this was ground-breaking, says Lee Atkinson, 36, who runs a fans' website.
"No-one had done this at the time. We hadn't seen this on British television. As a kid it was easy to impersonate. The sound effects were easy to do with your mouth and we all like to swing broomsticks around and pretend we're kung-fu masters."
It comprises a series of stories about a real-life journey of a 7th Century monk
The appeal as a child was the larger-than-life characters, he says.
"Pigsy was over-lustful, Sandy was over-philosophical and Monkey over-arrogant: Exact opposites of what Buddhism strives for and Tripitaka guides them on the way to enlightenment."
The television series never gets to the end of the story, but the novel reaches a resolution when Monkey learns to use his ego selflessly.
Playwright Colin Teevan, who adapted the story of Monkey for the Old Vic in 2001, says the journey becomes the sacred scripture the travellers are seeking.
"It's the story of the genius and the self-destructivity of mankind. Monkey is ingenious and witty and violent and impatient.
"He wants enlightenment and he wants it now but he does not know that one must journey and suffer to attain it. It's about what it is to be human - and it's about a monkey!"
How much the Buddhist themes resonated with the fan base in the UK is debatable.
And with a new generation used to sophisticated special effects, the magic of the original Monkey series may never be rekindled.
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Dont eat babies! cloud9:
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Not sure about the BBC reimaging of them though
(https://www.virtual-pub.com/SMF/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fnewsimg.bbc.co.uk%2Fmedia%2Fimages%2F44856000%2Fjpg%2F_44856094_hewlett_pa226.jpg&hash=930080990ae2741ca364ad0c4e8c29ba31d020b0)
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Not sure about the BBC reimaging of them though
(https://www.virtual-pub.com/SMF/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fnewsimg.bbc.co.uk%2Fmedia%2Fimages%2F44856000%2Fjpg%2F_44856094_hewlett_pa226.jpg&hash=930080990ae2741ca364ad0c4e8c29ba31d020b0)
Shite. Run the originals.
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Couldnt agree more, bring back Monkey and the Water Margin happy088.
If the BBC are going to show repeats they may as well show decent programs. cloud9:
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(https://www.virtual-pub.com/SMF/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.postimage.org%2FaVHXwsi.jpg&hash=0c4ba8312c0c7f4f0aff04018694c4d9a8b8c246) (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=aVHXwsi)
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(https://www.virtual-pub.com/SMF/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fnewsimg.bbc.co.uk%2Fmedia%2Fimages%2F44856000%2Fjpg%2F_44856093_cast_bbc466.jpg&hash=c1f4ba9a8e39f8d1a7b8168725339cbc0544d03a)
Ok this is bugging me now, who is the guy on the left. I know its been years since I've watched the show but I'm damned if I can remember him.
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shrugs: Never heard of it... never seen it... never want to... noooo:
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Missed much ~ you haven't.
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'Even a starving camel is still bigger than a horse.' whistle:
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The camel is a noble beast
He's large and very hairy
And when he's only got one hump
He's called a ...................................
Finish it for yourselves
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"What is wisdom? It has little to do with beliefs. These change year by year from person to person. Only one who does not dare give up beliefs because he has no wisdom will insist that others believe as he does. Cleverness learns something, but wisdom gives up some certainty every day."
whistle:
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Man with hole in pocket .............. feels cocky all day.
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"A fool who knows he is a fool is farther along the road to wisdom than a wise man. What is there to know? After every summer comes an autumn, and there are times when even Heaven and Earth do not belong together. Love is not a crutch for cripples to lean upon."
rubschin:
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Dumb man climb tree to get cherry, wise man spread limbs
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"The harp does not play music if its strings are too tight or too loose. The music comes only when the strings are stretched just right."
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Panties not best thing on earth, but next to it
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"To straighten out the crooked, you first do a more difficult thing - you must straighten yourself."
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Wise man never play leapfrog with unicorn.
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"Grey hairs do not make a wise man. A man may waste a lifetime digging up a mountain in search of mythical crows' eggs. A man may waste a lifetime growing rich or chasing power. What is a life that's not wasted? Perhaps one in which we learn a little."
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Passionate kiss like spider's web ... soon lead to undoing of fly
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"No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit."
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Before becoming master fisherman, must be master baiter
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"Perhaps all creatures are very much more than what they seem. The tree has its roots; the iceberg only shows its tip. Perhaps we are all much more even than we know. So, while the meanest peasant lives in misery here, he may be elsewhere in triumph, making the very stars."
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A flower goes through much dirt before it blooms.
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"Do spirits watch most private moments? Sweet innocence stirs some fish-cold heart."
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He who cannot describe the problem will never find the solution to that problem
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The man that cuts up fire wood gets warm twice...
noooo:
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'Alright! Let battle commence! Wine and... bananas! Bring on the dancing girls!'
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A naked man fears no pick pocket
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'The wicked go to hells, the good go to heavens and the pure neither live nor even die, but those hit on the head tend to fall unconscious.'
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Man with one chopstick go hungry
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'Now where's that spell against amphibious apes?'
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Man who run in front of car get tired.
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A naked man fears no pick pocket
many a mickle macks a muckle...
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Man who run behind car get exhausted
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'A white horse is most easily lost in a snowstorm.'
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'You can't convince a deaf man by talking'
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Foolish man give wife grand piano, wise man give wife upright organ.
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'You can't convince a deaf man by talking'
Already used that one point:
'When what is indestructible meets what is irresistable, the female all too often wins.'
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'You can't convince a deaf man by talking'
Already used that one point:
'When what is indestructible meets what is irresistable, the female all too often wins.'
Bugger! Banghead
I imagine you are on the same site I am.
'The fact is we are kings ourselves. You could say that we two kings of Orient are. But joking set aside....'
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'They'll be sorry. They'll be sorry if I die - except that I can't. Whatever you do it ends up raining. What's it all for? What's the point of it all? And if it hasn't got a point, what's the point of that?'
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You can always ask the great sage a question TG:
http://www.greatsage.net/forms/faq.html (http://www.greatsage.net/forms/faq.html)
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Right. I have asked if there is a cake shop that sells trains and the sage spake thusly :
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but not as dangerous as a little scorpion!
rubschin:
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"Ohh, look... a woman"
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Where?