Once you have read this article see if you can work out what the first misstep in this little incident at Wirth’s Circus was.
The West Australian 23 Apr 1934 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article33016056
I know it is hard to spot, so I will give you a hint. I think it was when they gave a monkey a loaded rifle. But I could be wrong.
I wonder if the monkey was actually aiming at Charles Broomhead or if it was a lucky shot? I notice he was wounded in the back, I wonder if the monkey saw that Mr. Broomhead’s attention was not on him, and dealt with him somewhat inappropriately.
It sounds a bit like a teacher chucking a piece of chalk at an inattentive student doesn’t it?
I thought monkeys usually threw poo when they wanted to get attention? Clearly the ones that do this are less well armed than ‘Tarzan’ was. What is the moral to the story? ‘Never give a monkey a gun’? or possibly ’Never turn your back on a drama queen’?
Brilliant share!
I was lucky to stumble across this one, there is no way I would have come up with ‘shot by monkey’ as a search term!
Clearly the incident gave rise to the “joke” What do you call a monkey with a gun? Answer “Sir”. Bet that was where the problem lay! Neat story.
I don’t think that guy will ever be disrespectful to a monkey ever again!
I wonder if Mr. Broomhead was ever an animal trainer and Tarzan his first pupil? That would be justice. More probably Tarzan just misheard the call of nature for the call of the jungle.
I really wanted to article to say that the monkey was, in true circus style, riding on the back of a pony. All I could see when I read this was a cowboy monkey! Cowboy gone rogue maybe, he dreams of riding triumphantly off into the sunset leaving an evil opressor in the dust.
Ape will rise! Shot in the back by a monkey, of all the bad luck.
I wonder who on earth thought that such an idea would end well?
I wonder how many times the act had been performed before it all went wrong?
Armed monkey – the title says it all. Reminds me of Jumanji… ~cue jungle drums~
I was going to type the Tarzan call at the start of this reply, but my keyboard ran out of a’s. Aaaaaa…. aaaaaaaaaa,aaaaaaa…..aaaaa,aaaaa,aaaa……..
Giving a monkey a loaded weapon is a bit like giving one to a small child isn’t it? Even if they know the rules you can guarantee they will completely disregard them at the worst possible moment!
Ooooh, hang on, found Johhny Weismuller doing that famous Tarzan call…. AAAaaaaaaaaa…cough hack…. cough
lol… absolutely!
Oh how lovely! Revenge of the planet of the apes?
You mean less of the “Aaaaaaa” and more of the “Get your hands off me, you damn, dirty ape!” ?
Um… that ape’s holding a gun. Don’t you mean “Please let go of me and I’ll give you a whole case of bananas”?
He seems to be a pretty crap shot though
lmao – I’m still going to be super polite!
True, no point tempting fate. He might hit what he is aiming at next time!