Welcome to the Temple of Monkey.
Come.. Worship at his hairy feet!
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“In the worlds before Monkey, primal chaos reigned. Heaven sought order, but the phoenix can fly only when it's feathers are grown. The four worlds formed again and yet again,
As endless aeons wheeled and passed.
Time and the pure essences of Heaven,
the moistures of the Earth,and the powers of the Sun and the Moon all worked upon a certain rock - old as creation,
and it magically became fertile...
Elemantal forces caused the egg to hatch,
from it then came a stone Monkey -
The nature of Monkey was irrepressable!”
The show brings back fond memories of countless hours of mischief. It was all good.
MONKEY or MONKEY MAGIC as i always referred to it, was based on Wu Cheng en’s legendary 630 ad Chinese epic - Journey to the West, also known as Saiyuki, Hsi Yu Chi, or just plain old Monkey - from the abridged Arthur Waley version, about Tang Monk Xuanzang (TRIPITAKA) and his pilgrimage to india. Apparently the Journey really did take place, although the book makes the tale fantastical with the addition of Chinese fables, fairy tales, legends, supersitions, popular beliefs, monster stories and anything else the author could find in the Taoist and Buddhist religions.
For anyone not familiar with the story, it goes something like this...
Dismayed that the land of the South knows only greed, hedonism, promiscuity, and sins, Buddha instructs the Bodhisattva GUAN YIN to search Táng China for someone to take the Buddhist sutras of transcendence and persuasion for good will aka the great vehicle scriptures back to the East for translation. The Bodhisattva finds four willing disciples for the monk along the way, who agree to help Xuánzàng in order to atone for the sins of their past lives :
Sūn Wùkōng or MONKEY, previously Great Sage Equal of Heaven, and God of God knows what, trapped by BUDDHA for rebelling against Heaven.
Zhū Bājiè, sometimes translated as PIGSY, or Pig, was previously Marshal Tīan Péng, commander of the Heavenly Naval forces, banished to the mortal realm for flirting with the Princess of the Moon, Chang'e.
Shā Wùjìng - The river monster, also translated as Friar Sand or SANDY, was previously Great General who Folds the Curtain, banished to the mortal realm for dropping and shattering a crystal goblet of the Heavenly Queen Mother.
Yùlóng Sāntàizi - or YU LUNG, The third prince of the Dragon-King, was sentenced to death for setting fire to his father's great pearl. He was saved from execution by Guānyīn, to stay and wait for his call of duty. He was later turned into a horse for Xuánzàng.
Throughout the journey, these four brave travellers have to fend off attacks on their master and teacher from various monsters and calamities.
The pilgrimage takes an arduous fourteen years to complete, after which, each traveller is promoted to a higher post in the bureaucracy of the heavens.
Hats off to David Weir, who brought out the personality of the characters perfectly when he wrote the script for the English dubbed version of MONKEY, without the luxury of having even the most basic grasp of the native language … Pure Genius.
Looking back, it’s amazing how the show wasn’t subject to some kind of censorship. Monkey’s rebellion against the gods, heaven and authority in general, and the fact that he ‘loves to fight’, would have the powers that be screaming ‘holy war’ these days.
Of course, I was too young to understand any of this back then, in fact, apart from the odd word that I could pick out…. pigsy, fool, oi !, sissy, demon, pooftah..(my parents had a right old squirm explaining that one)..the rest was lost on me. Still, I found ‘the way’ they spoke hilarious and the funky disco music that played as battle commenced, courtesy of GODIEGO, was the best thing ever ! Hey..I was only eight !! The theme tune too deserves a special mention - 'born from an egg on a mountain top, funkiest monkey that ever popped..'. It was never going to win any awards, but boy once it got in your head it stayed there!
But what really drew me in was the visual content -The wonderfully o.t.t. facial expressions of the characters, everyone of them larger than life, the fact that at any given time they could break out into dance for no particular reason, and the ‘special’ effects. Sure they were cheesy, tacky, certainly not up to the standard of todays tv shows, but the series probably wouldn’t have achieved the cult status it has if they were. Demons, Gods, Spirits, cloud flying, Kungfu, vampires, witches, beautiful old Chinese costumes, talking horses and dragons... The stuff that feeds a young boys imagination. In the world of Monkey, anything is possible.
It wasn’t until I watched the series again as an adult that I realized what my dad found so funny, and why my mam would throw sideways glances at him several times during the course of the show !
Ye Gods! It is absolutely packed with thinly veiled adult humour, innuendo, double entendres and political incorrectness :
‘Alright! Let battle commence! Wine and bananas! Bring on the dancing girls!
‘Grow stick….Grow again stick….Grow nice and large again for King Monkey ! ’
Or the scene where a pig monster tries to get some sweet lovin’ from a fairy in the belly of a giant fish !!
Totally madcap, the situations the characters find themselves in make no more sense to me now than they did back then, but that’s Monkey. Don’t try to make sense of it, just roll with it.
If you haven’t seen any of the series since you were a kid, I strongly suggest you go and buy a dvd now, you’ll love it in a completely different way.
So, here we are, 2007. What has possessed me to lash together a page about my all time favourite kids show, 26 years after the last of the original series was shown on British Tv? (the series ran from 1979 to 1981))
Well, ... I watched the movie ‘Monkey King’ recently and the memories came flooding back. Having a little time on my hands it seemed like a good idea to put them here to share.
I’ve tried to break it down into sub pages which are easy to follow, and not too hard on the eyes, including episode guides, pictures, clips and anything else I could get my hands on.
I'm no web designer, so bear with me 
It’s very much a work in progress, so I don’t know when, or if, it will be finished, but hey, just like the show, the destination isn’t the important thing, it’s the lessons you learn and adventure you have trying to get there !!
Enjoy.
Lee. 17th April 2007.
News
February 18TH 2006 - ABC News.
The cult television series Monkey is being remade in its home country, Japan.
If you know which TV character was 'born from an egg on a mountain top' and the lead line of "in the world before Monkey, primal chaos reigned", you probably have the ABC to blame.
The Japanese series Monkey was a mainstay of ABC afternoon television programing in the 1980s, generating a cult following for its theme music, its fight scenes and dialogue that sometimes lost a little in translation.
Fast forward 30 years and Japan's top rating TV network is trying to recreate the Monkey magic.
When ABC Radio's AM program visited the set in the Tokyo suburb of Shibuya, the fight scenes of old were in full swing.
But there are a few differences to the show that Australian fans grew to love.
Blonde Monkey
Chief among them, a new look for the main character - Monkey, played in the new series by Shingo Katori and his very blond hair. "I bleach it every 15 days -- if I don't, it goes black," he said.
Katori says his 2006 version of monkey is a punk rocker, yelling about love.
Known in Japan as Saiyuki, or the "Journey to the West", the series is based on a classic Chinese tale of a priest and three companions, travelling to India in search of Buddhist scriptures.
The original was a hit and its star Masaki Sakai remains a familiar face on Japanese television, appearing in variety and cooking shows.
Producer Yoshihiro Suzuki says those behind the new series are hoping their version will be just as endearing.
"We already have offers from countries in Asia - South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong and Singapore who are broadcasting it," he said.
"Normally shows are broadcast overseas when the series is finished but this time it's only three or four weeks after Japan.
"I've heard there may be some interest from Australia too, so I really hope that will be realised as well."
Australian backdrops
If Australians get to see it they might notice that the scenery of ancient China looks a little familiar.
Parts of the series were shot in New South Wales at Stockton Desert near Port Stephens and the Blue Mountains last year.
Actor Shingo Katori, says the knowledge of the original series was a surprise.
"At night we would go out for a beer after work and I'd become friends with some of the local people," he said.
"They didn't know we were there to film the show and they said, 'you're a surfer from Japan right? So I said, yeah, right'.
"When I asked if they knew about the show, everyone started singing 'monkey magic, monkey magic'."
Diehard fans might not be ready to contemplate a new version of monkey .
They might still have some unresolved issues from the original, like whether the priest character Tripitaka was played by a man or a woman.
But for those whose mis-spent youth involved calling up a flying pink cloud, a magic fighting stick and some good old fashioned battles with demons, it will bring back some memories and confirm once and for all, as the show's old closing line said "the nature of monkey was irrepressible"