Monday, August 1, 2011

Johnny Weissmuller And A Monkey, A Swinging Colombo And Then A Really Loud Recovery.

This is my blog, and it is Monday, Hello!

First I thought it would be nice with Johnny Weissmuller and a monkey, this as a proper introduction, because the last time I wrote here it was about both, but without any monkey, and the monkey, which is a chimpanzee is a part of Tarzan, and then again Johnny Weissmuller, the only true believable Tarzan figure.

Johnny Weissmuller and a monkey.
Then the monkey, which is a chimp, also has a name, Cheeta, in 2008 it turned 76 years old and was the oldest living known chimpanzee, it lived in happy retirement in California, how it is today I do unfortunately not know, how old it really got, or if it still is alive.

Cheeta on its 76 birthday.
Cheeta of course also was a big fan of its co-star Johnny Weissmuller, which is on the picture together with other co-star Maureen O`Sullivan. Cheeta probably remembers swinging in threes together with Johnny Weissmuller.

Cheeta swinging from the threes together with Johnny Weissmuller.
In the picture are also Jane and Boy, Tarzan was probably very occupied with swinging from threes so he did not have too much time to spend thinking about a name for his son, and without any neighbors close by they maybe did not need anything more complicated, at least not unless they received more children and more of them were boys, but then maybe he would just call them all "boys" instead. Nevertheless, Johnny Weissmuller was really good at swinging in the threes.

Johnny Weissmuller swinging from a three.
You can really see that he was a great actor and athlete the way he was swinging. Big Gunnar always says that when in a hammock, he thinks of Tarzan and the way he swung, because a hammock is also a great way of swinging.

Big Gunnar in a hammock.
Here he has fallen asleep in the hammock, but he probably thought about how great Johnny Weismuller swung before he gently rocked to sleep. Big Gunnar is great at swinging from both threes and hammocks, but if one is not as good as Big Gunnar at swinging from the threes, just a hammock then can also be fine to swing in. The hammocks are also older than Tarzan, they were introduced to Europe in the 1490`s by the very famous explorer and hammock entrepreneur Christoforo Colombo, (also named Christopher Columbus).

Christoforo Colombo famous explorer and hammock entrepreneur.
He is said to have found the natives using them in the West Indies on one of his confusing travels ( Christoforo Colombo was not the best navigator even if he was a skilled entrepreneur) in the year 1492, this of course says nothing about how old then the hammocks really are, just that they are older than Tarzan (1912), and therefor have been swinging longer. I think he does not seem very happy in this painting, maybe it is from before he started in the hammock business, because you really can not be in a bad mood after you have been swinging in a hammock.

But then again maybe he is sick, you can get sick even if you have been swinging. Johnny Weissmuller got sick in his old days, and ended up at a hospital where things did not look to good, but then he probably remembered one more thing he used to do besides the swinging, he used to shout really loud.

Johnny Weissmuller shouting really loud.
So he shouted really loud and long in his hospital bed, and afterwards he got much better and could continue his life. At least this is how the story goes, and I sort of like the story this way. Also you can once again almost feel how loud he was shouting, great actor, I must agree with Big Gunnar on that.

I really must remember to have my own hammock painted red, but maybe Mondays are nice for swinging in a hammock, or if that does not make things better, one can shout a little? Of course with decency and respect for any listeners.
Have a nice Monday,
F.W.G

2 comments:

  1. The Tarzan in the top picture is Lex Barker not Johnny Weissmuller. The other pictures are of Johnny.

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  2. The chimp Cheeta was supposedly moved to a preserve near Tampa Florida. There was a story in one of our newspapers, the St. Petersburg Times, that told of his recent death at age 80. He died this past December I believe, less than a month ago. Experts say it could not have been the original chimp from the Tarzan movies because chimps are really, really old if they reach 40.

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