...or seahorses, for that matter. Actually, if you combine the two names, you come up with seamonkeys, and they are perhaps the only animals that are okay to order from a comic book. But monkeys? As in, actual monkeys like the squirrel monkey seen in this ad from the 1960s? The one in the...adorable sweater...who is so tiny he fits in your hand...okay, it's not that I don't see the appeal, it's just...whose idea was this?
A few days ago I managed to snag a few issues of the Fantastic Four - #s 56 and 61! - from Wilmington's Fanboy Comics at a great price. One of these issues has the ad you see above in it, which really makes me wonder what people were thinking 45 years ago. I mean, here we are, taking great strides as a species, from the fight for racial equality to a moon landing, and someone's great idea is "hey! Let's sell monkeys to 11-year-old kids! We can puts ads in the back of comic books!"
At this point, someone undoubtedly said "But where will we get the monkeys?", to which the original person must have replied, "I don't know, just take them from the jungle, I guess."
I do honestly wonder how many poor squirrel monkeys were sold and then died because this ad said to feed them basically anything (they even like lollipops!), or how many monkeys just showed up dead in the mail. It's sad to think that people were stupid enough to consider this to be even a remotely good idea - and even though we as a race do some really dumb things today (where do I even begin??), it's nice to think that you can't just order a monkey in the mail anymore.
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