Which Monkey Island has the smallest number of monkeys?

[Marius]

6 minutes ago, BillyCheers said:

Well, in the opening post it he clearly said “monkey head shown in the game”

 

My case:

[Vainamoinen]

1 hour ago, Marius said:

I have another angle that that causes even more confusion!

What about the box-art Monkeys? Do they count? Do we have to seperate "Logo Monkeys" and "In scene Monkeys"?

@Vainamoinen please clarify!

 

 

According to that Escape box the chicken looks very much alive! Thank you, Playstation 2 version, for clearing that up.

Authoritative Word on the Matter of BOX ART for the purposes of this thread, by N. G. P. Vainamoinen

 

1. Steve Purcell is wholly incapable of painting box art for a Monkey Island game without any monkeys on it. We've known that for some time. In Rex' key art for ReMI, the lack of monkeys with pirate hats, eye patches, peg legs, pipes, swords, or sai is frankly disgusting.
2. Come to think of it, has it occurred to y'all how we're seeing all sorts of animals in the Return to Monkey Island teasers, trailers and screenshots, but never once a proper monkey? Guys, I'm telling you, ReMI will be about bringing the monkeys back.
3. These special cover/poster/key art Purcell monkeys are of course not represented in the game, but we have to ask ourselves whether the none-embellished ones on the TSoMI and LCR covers actually are. I think the TSoMI BA monkey could be one of the Jojos, even though his/her eyes are woefully unblue. But no way is the monkey to the left of the LCR BA the Jojo in the game (he's not nearly stiff enough).
4. In the case of Escape from Monkey Island, the playstation cover doesn't throw off our count because infinite plus ten equals infinite.
5. So with a certain prejudice I'd say there's no monkey that's not in the game on the TSoMI box, two new monkeys on the LCR box, one unseen monkey in the ToMI key art and whogivesashit in the Escape artwork you're showing (which I have seen for the first time, thank you for that).
6. The rules state that the live monkey heads counted has to be IN THE GAME. Box art isn't. So Box Art doesn't count. Funny, I should have made that the first point, but here we are.

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by Vainamoinen

[Staple Remover]

But how many primates are in the Monkey Island series?

[ThunderPeel2001]

We know apes aren't included... but what about chimps? Are there actually any chimps in the Caribbean? And would you spot it if one appeared?

[JacquesSparkyTail]

13 minutes ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

We know apes aren't included... but what about chimps? Are there actually any chimps in the Caribbean? And would you spot it if one appeared?

Is captain lechimp a chimp? He looks like a gorilla but he could just work out a lot. 

[Vainamoinen]

If it has a tail, count it in. No tail, no cookie.

 

 

Edited September 2, 2022 by Vainamoinen

[Niemandswasser]

1 hour ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

We know apes aren't included... but what about chimps? Are there actually any chimps in the Caribbean? And would you spot it if one appeared?

Chimps are apes, along with gorillas, orangutans, bonobos, and, of course, Bigfoots. The latter is the only ape species native to the western hemisphere, so there are no chimps in the Caribbean. 

[Scummbuddy]

Sam and Max: Hit The Road had the most Bigfoots... Bigfeets??

 

It's probably "Bigfeets".

[Niemandswasser]

39 minutes ago, Scummbuddy said:

Sam and Max: Hit The Road had the most Bigfoots... Bigfeets??

 

It's probably "Bigfeets".

I think it's probably fair to say that Hit the Road has the highest number of non-human primates in the non-MI LucasArts canon. Unless we're counting Wookiees? ...Christ, we're not, are we?

 

EDIT: No, damn it, we can't go making that statement definitively! There were a significant number of monkeys running around in Infernal Machine, and I think Desktop Adventures may have had some as well. Wheels within wheels, fires within fires...how deep does the mystery go???

Edited September 3, 2022 by Niemandswasser

[Vainamoinen]

So I think we've got the TSoMI count down, plus minus one (5 + 1).

Three heads on one monkey (3) + Donald Duck hat monkey (1) + Banana swing monkey (1) + optional wedding bottom monkey.

 

LeChuck's Revenge is at 3 and that will pretty definitely make it the winner. That must mean I'm going to cast my vote now. 😘

 

Escape has doesn't have "infinite", of course, but a definite count may still pose a serious problem. If only we had an Escape expert @madmardi around.

 

A definite count for Tales is impossible, as there is definitely overlap that we can't fathom. I'm still wondering where all the additional monkeys on top of the thirteen Montevideo monkeys are coming from.

 

Can we get a definite count for Curse, provided that (a) background monkeys are the same, they're just making their rounds and (b) arms and legs are just prosthetics waved into the screen (don't you know anything about movies?)? On that note, are the monkeys in the theater the same as on LeChuck's ship? Certainly you have an answer.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 3, 2022 by Vainamoinen

[ThunderPeel2001]

12 hours ago, Niemandswasser said:

Chimps are apes, along with gorillas, orangutans, bonobos, and, of course, Bigfoots. The latter is the only ape species native to the western hemisphere, so there are no chimps in the Caribbean. 

What if someone sailed with their pet chimp from the Eastern hemisphere?

[BillyCheers]

I misread the poll question and voted CMI by mistake…
 

Why were you even looking for the game with the smallest number, @Vainamoinen? Is that some kind of sick monkey shaming? 🤨

[BaronGrackle]

2 hours ago, Vainamoinen said:

Escape has doesn't have "infinite", of course, but a definite count may still pose a serious problem. If only we had an Escape expert @madmardi around.

I was referring to the Monkey Kombat section, in which Guybrush encounters timid monkeys, smelly monkeys, strapping monkeys, and brawny monkeys in infinite amounts.

 

I would use the same logic to argue there are infinite pirates in MI1, during the swordfighting section.

 

13 hours ago, Niemandswasser said:

Chimps are apes, along with gorillas, orangutans, bonobos, and, of course, Bigfoots. The latter is the only ape species native to the western hemisphere, so there are no chimps in the Caribbean. 

The great tragedy is that during the 90s and early 00s, pop culture raised us on everything being a monkey. Let's blow our minds: MONKEY KOMBAT IS A LIE.

 

Anxious Ape - not a monkey

Bobbing Babboon - monkey

Charging Chimp - not a monkey

Drunken Monkey - monkey

Gimpy Gibbon - not a monkey

 

THREE-FIFTHS OF THE MONKEY KOMBAT STANCES ARE ACTUALLY APE KOMBAT!!

 

But MI1 failed us originally. Ten years before Herman Toothrot told us he was H.T. Marley, he was telling us that he found enough chimpanzees on Monkey Island to crew a ship, and also these chimpanzees were monkeys.
 

There have been no chimps seen in the MI franchise (with the possible exception of Captain LeChimp). Are we to actually believe that Herman found enough chimps on Monkey Island to crew his ship? If a crew of chimps sailed the Sea Monkey back to Mêlée and sold it to Stan, then where did they go? Are they dead? Did they sail back to the Eastern Hemisphere?!!

I trained a bunch of chimps to crew the ship and sail it back to Monkey Island. They were supposed to get help and come back for me. Something must have happened.

How come you didn't just go with the chimps?

WEEKS on a boat full of monkeys.
Oh, joy.

Edited September 3, 2022 by BaronGrackle

[Vainamoinen]

2 hours ago, BillyCheers said:

Why were you even looking for the game with the smallest number, @Vainamoinen? Is that some kind of sick monkey shaming? 🤨

 

Didn't want the thread to end with post 2. Worked out marvellously.

[KestrelPi]

Can the MI2 dancing monkeys truly be said to be alive if they only exist in an imaginary void where the credits are happening?

[Jake]

Guybrush also exists in that void!

[Niemandswasser]

8 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said:

What if someone sailed with their pet chimp from the Eastern hemisphere?

 

The chimp would have eaten their face off in the third week and the ship never would have made it, as of all the great apes they're known to be the worst with a compass.

 

7 hours ago, BaronGrackle said:

Anxious Ape - not a monkey

Bobbing Babboon - monkey

Charging Chimp - not a monkey

Drunken Monkey - monkey

Gimpy Gibbon - not a monkey

 

THREE-FIFTHS OF THE MONKEY KOMBAT STANCES ARE ACTUALLY APE KOMBAT!!

 

This brings up a great point which my previous post accidentally obfuscated: chimps, orangutans, gorillas, and bonobos are the *great* apes (along with humans and Bigfeets), but there are also the lesser apes of the gibbon family (including the siamang). My point is that...shit, I actually don't think I had one.

[KestrelPi]

4 hours ago, Jake said:

Guybrush also exists in that void!

 

But guybrush doesn't ONLY exist in that void. Presubably we're looking at an imaginary, out-of-fiction guybrush, since there's no real in-fiction explanation for what is happening.

 

I think at this point regardless of how you count there's no version which doesn't put MI2 at least number of living monkey heads, regardless. Tales and CMI both have more than 3 monkeys on a screen at a time, MI1 probably has 7 living monkey heads, but it could possibly be counted as 5. Escape has loads. So it's MI2, for sure.

 

My argument about the intro monkeys is that if 'living monkey heads' is to count for anything it must mean that

 

1) You have to be able to see at least part of the head

2) It has to be at least arguably a distinct monkey (which means either it appears with other monkeys in the same shot or it's at least plausibly a different monkey)

3) It's alive within the fiction of the game. (that last part because if it had to literally be alive then all the games would have 0 monkeys)

 

Since the monkeys of the MI2 intro exist ostensibly outside of the fiction of the game, they fail on that point, and so MI2 has 1 monkey.

 

An alternate 3) is 'it appears on screen during the game and is depicted as alive'

 

In this version MI2 has 3 monkeys.

 

I don't care which is which, I just want people to argue about it.

 

 

Edited September 3, 2022 by KestrelPi

[Niemandswasser]

The "fiction of the game" is pretty porous and reflexive, though--Guybrush addresses the player directly in MI1, and in every sequel he makes some reference or other to being a character in a video game. The fictional world is only ever as consistent as the current scene needs it to be.

[madmardi]

17 hours ago, BaronGrackle said:

I was referring to the Monkey Kombat section, in which Guybrush encounters timid monkeys, smelly monkeys, strapping monkeys, and brawny monkeys in infinite amounts.

 

I would use the same logic to argue there are infinite pirates in MI1, during the swordfighting section.

 

 

Hmm.. I could get on board with this.

[Vainamoinen]

23 hours ago, BaronGrackle said:

I was referring to the Monkey Kombat section, in which Guybrush encounters timid monkeys, smelly monkeys, strapping monkeys, and brawny monkeys in infinite amounts.

 

Then again, what in the game says that it's not the same timid monkey, smelly monkey, strapping monkey or brawny monkey? It's of course absurd but I always seem to employ an ensemble cast kind of logic here. One monkey actor for "the smelly monkey", one monkey actor for "the monkey who walks in the background", and all the waving arms, legs and tails don't count because OF COURSE they're animatronics.

 

Anything else would go way over budget! Those monkeys don't come cheap, they're unionzed. 💸

 

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Vainamoinen

[Niemandswasser]

10 minutes ago, Vainamoinen said:

Anything else would go way over budget! Those monkeys don't come cheap, they're unionzed. 

 

 

 

Damn right they are. If there's one thing a monkey knows it's that a bunch is better than one.

[ThunderPeel2001]

8 hours ago, Niemandswasser said:

 

Damn right they are. If there's one thing a monkey knows it's that a bunch is better than one.

 

*barrel

[KestrelPi]

This really isn't good enough, I demand you all have a heated argument about the legal status of out-of-fiction but in-game monkeys. If we don't keep this going we'll have to start thinking about the coundown to ReMI.

[Scummbuddy]

Who would win?

 

Giant Monkey Kombat Robot or tiny, hat-wearing monkey piloting Smirks' "The Machine"?

 

Different fighting styles for sure.