| My name is Kevin Shaughnessy and I love monkeys. During the Superbowl this year, there was a commercial featuring a man that had a “monkey on his back” because he was having so much trouble finding a “hip family sedan”. In this case, there literally was a monkey on his back, which I’m assuming was supposed to be the funny part. When he finds his car, the monkey stays at the car dealership with a bunch of other monkeys presumably left by other men who were facing the same sedan predicament. |
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Linguists will tell you the phrase “monkey on his back” originated in the early 1600’s after Shakespeare saw a picture of a Pygmy Marmoset perched on the back of a Papua New Guinea tribesman. Of course, this particular species is a very hostile primate when living in packs. So in reality, the salesmen at the dealership in this advertisement would have been attacked almost immediately by these monkeys using what one anthropologist has called “the Pygmy’s fearsome claw seemingly designed for eye-gouging.” Also, all the cars would be smeared with feces. My name is Kevin Shaughnessy and I love monkeys.