Friday 12 December 2008

Don't Tell Cheeta

I hope news of this finding (dubious though it may be) doesn't reach Cheeta. As we learn from his utterly wonderful memoir, Me Cheeta, Hollywood's premier primate is touchingly convinced that mankind is on a mission to rescue the world's animals from the horrors and mortal perils of the wild and rehabilitate them into the safe and glorious human world. They can even benefit from the humans' great ongoing project, the War on Death - Cheets certainly seems to have done so, having outlived all other chimps by several decades.
I can't recommend Me Cheeta highly enough - it's the truest, funniest, most scabrously filthy Hollywoood memoir ever penned, a true ape's-eye view of the human monkeyhouse. And it is at times very moving. Cheeta's total, unquestioning love for Johnny Weissmuller permeates the whole book, and the scene of his final, unexpected reunion with the wreck that was once the most beautiful man in the world is almost unbearably moving. Put it on your Christmas list!

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