monkey business

The affairs of smallish, non-human primates - both New World and Old.

This term may also refer to the activities of non-monkeys when said activities resemble the activities of true monkeys.

While I believe monkeys are a truly noble breed and may one day wrest stewardship of the planet from our dirty hands, many view the monkey as a goofy, irresponsible prankster, and thus the term "monkey business" connotes mischievous, playful activity.

See Also: shenanigans.

Name of the yacht on which it was later revealed that a photograph had been taken of a nubile Donna Rice (now conservative crusader Donna Rice Hughes) sitting on the lap of a very married (to another woman) Colorado Senator Gary Hart, then the leading candidate for the 1988 Democratic nomination for President, said photograph then sparking an intense media scrutiny of the Hart campaign and of Hart himself, and ultimately leading to his withdrawal from the race.

I love to write long sentences.

Two excellent old comedies.

The first is a Marx Brothers film from 1931, written by Wlll B. Johnstone and S.J. Perelman, in which the brothers play stowaways on a ship. The plot itself involves gangsters and kidnapping and a good girl and a bad girl (played by Thelma Todd, who did 'bad girl' supremely well) but it's most memorable for the routines in which they try to evade the ship's authorities. Perhaps the best-known bit is when Zeppo, in his funniest screen moment, steals Maurice Chevalier's passport and they all try to pass themselves off as him as they disembark.

The second is a 1952 Howard Hawks pic starring Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers. Grant plays a chemist who develops a youth formula. He is testing it on a chimpanzee who surreptitiously dumps it in the water cooler. When Grant and his wife (Rogers) drink it, they regress mentally, behaving first like wild teenagers and then stubborn children. Ginger Rogers was a brilliant comedienne, something I wasn't aware of before I saw this movie. Marilyn Monroe plays the boss' secretary ("Anyone can type," he says as she sways out the door) whom the teenaged Grant takes on a joyride.