Monkey Magic - in the UK

[brian]

Something for the Brits!

Monkey Magic is now being repeated in a non-fixed slot of around 12pm midnight on Thursdays! Dated music and camp action still can't damage this kitch blast from the past, with great character interplay, benevolent words of wisdom of Buddha...and, of course, the irrepressible Monkey!

Oh - and if you need reminding... here is a link to jump start your memory!

[Blue Mythril]

Ha! "Born from an egg on a mountain top..."
*starts singing*
I loved this series when I was a girl, and I mean LOVED it! Funfilled stuff, definately a "classic"
Sorry, got all excited *still singing* "Monkey magic, monkey magic"
I really don't remember being bothered in the slightest by the series' "corny" qualities. It was just so much fun.

[Lacedaemonian]

The series ran 18 months ago on channel four, and I managed to watch a fair few episodes. It still has its charm. I wanted to get a book about the Monkey King and the 'pilgrimage' but failed to find one.

[Blue Mythril]

Doth my eyes decieve me?
There is someone here who has only recently seen Monkey? Shame on your TV studios for not broadcasting Monkey!
tsk tsk
For me, I think much of its appeal is in the childhood nostalgia aspects. Its great I know, but its just one of those things that had a fairly big impact on my upbringing... I can thank Monkey for a whole pile of my interests today

[Lacedaemonian]

I watched them all as a child but did not understand fully why a monkey man was beating demons up, whilst protecting a female priest.

[Blue Mythril]

LMAO!
Oh dear, I should send you this dialogue that two radio comedians (Merrik and Rosso for all you Aussies) did for Monkey. Its funny as all hell, and expectedly it plays on the tripitaka ambiguity.
Actually, some of the Monkey cycle comes into Kim Stanley Robinson's new book "The Years of rice and Salt" (or somehting along those lines). Though I havn't really got past the first chapter, and I don't know much extensively about Monkey beyond the show, so I really am I bit unsure of the connection... but its there

[Lacedaemonian]

My mother knows loads about these myths but will not divulge her source of information. Perhaps the hippy bitch saw it all in a dream when she was dropping acid in the sixties....

[Foxbat]

Monkey Magic is good stuff but my favourite was The Water Margin. They should bring that back as well

[I, Brian]

In the world before Monkey...

Hi-yah!!

Superb.

Anyone been through the link for some nostalgia?

[Lacedaemonian]

I have graced most Monkey sites in a previous quest to download the soundtrack and to discover the origins of the aggressive little fellow.

[polymorphikos]

Any book of Chinese mythology in your local library should contain info on him. There's a very common series of uniform books of mythology that contains an excellent retelling. I can't remember the name, though.


Haven't seen the show in ages, but basically Monkey was some monkey who worked in the Celestial Palace, ate some magic immortality-giving peaches, irked Buddha and then said that he could jump higher than/over Buddha. He jumped and jumped until he came to five pillars, which he urinated upon and inscribed something offensive upon. He then went back to Buddha, who merely acted smug like in all the statues and showed Monkey the writing on his hand. I thing that led to Monkey getting locked in the rock, and Tripitaka getting him as escort. I always remember something about an elasticated bottle that held Monkey no matter how hard he tried to break it, because it was unbreakable. That and something about a tortoise.

Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en is the book it's pulled from. If I've gone and told a bunch of pewople something they already knew then sorry.

[Lacedaemonian]

I was looking for something that specifically told the tale of the Monkey King. Reference books just skim and cheat you out of all the good stuff.

[polymorphikos]

Journey to the West is available on Amazon, and not a reference book, but the original telling.

[I, Brian]

So there.