We had an interesting lunchtime conversation at work today about the old school View-Master and the cool slides that we had back in the day. A co-worker mentioned that her favorite View-Master slide was from the show "Lancelot Link." This spawned an afternoon full of laughing to hard we were crying. In case you don't remember, which I'm sorry to say that most people don't, "Lancelot Link" was a Saturday morning show that only ran for two seasons from 1970 to 1972. In our opinion, it was probably the funniest show we've ever seen on TV.
Like the old show "Get Smart", "Lancelot Link" was a parody of the various spy movies and series that were popular in the mid-sixties through early seventies. The main difference between the two is that "Get Smart" used humans for all of the characters, while "Lancelot Link" used trained chimpanzees. Yes, chimps. Who doesn't think chimps wearing costumes and dressing like all sorts of characters from spy movies isn't funny? If a chimp dressed as an Arab shiek doesn't make you laugh, then I don't know what will.
Between the spy adventures there were "Laugh-In"-styled blackouts: "Chimpies" were this show's answer to Laugh-In's "quickies," showing random sight gags and jokes. A regular weekly feature was chimp TV host "Ed Simian" introducing a musical number an all-chimp band, "The Evolution Revolution." An album of these songs, recorded by studio musicians with lead singer Steve Hoffman, was released on the ABC/Dunhill record label. If you're a fan of classic rock, then you would have noticed a strange similarity "The Evolution Revolution" songs to songs by "The Grass Roots." There were also Lancelot Link comic books and other merchandise, including Halloween costumes and the always popular lunchboxes.
I did some research and found some interesting trivia about "Lancelot Link." The two main writers, Stan Burns and Mike Marmer, won an Emmy award in 1972 for writing the infamous "Gone With The Wind" sketch on "The Carol Burnett Show", which television critics say is one of the funniest variety show sketches ever written. I also discovered that Hollywood animal trainer Frank Inn trained the chimps. Frank is the genius that trained Arnold the pig on "Green Acres" and other animals on "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "Petticoat Junction." I was also surprised to read that "Lancelot Link" was the #1watched show in Zaire in 1987. And to think some people say there's no life for a show after it's cancelled. The most interesting thing I found out about the show was about filming the "Evolution Revolution" music video scenes. Early episodes showed the chimps flailing away at their instruments wildly, with the film editor cleverly cutting the visual action to synchronize with the recordings. After hours of filming bedlam in the studio, someone decided to just play the music on the set, so the chimps could hear it. The chimps fell into the rhythm and started to "play" their instruments realistically.
On our afternoon break, we played a video clip that I found on You Tube, and two co-workers and I sat there watching and were honestly laughing so hard we looked like we were crying. Yes, it was that funny. If you don't believe me, see for yourself: here's a bonus Link Of The Week for you to watch tonight if you need a good laugh http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmTmvBzNFY4&mode=related&search.
If you're like my co-workers and me, you were sick to your stomach today when you heard the news of the shootings at Virginia Tech. I don't want this to sound like I could not care less about the fact that over thirty people were murdered by a gunman today; I'm saying this because among the sadness and anger that we felt, we were able to get our minds off of that tragedy and find something to laugh about for a few minutes.
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