They'll kick your ass...unless you have bananas.
A hilarious, yet still very well written, animated sci-fi series focusing on the exploits of a rag-tag crew of a interplanetary ship composed entirely of monkeys from Earth. They have been transformed into anthropormorphic, intelligent versions of themselves by the
Applied Phlebotinum of the " ", a mysterious race of benevolent aliens whose name can't be spoken or written, only thought. The sworn enemy of the " " and the Space Monkeys is Lord Nebula, an immensely powerful being who wants to destroy the universe and recreate it in his own image. Nebula's second-in-command is Rhesus-2, a rhesus monkey whom he turned into a
Hollywood Cyborg with several interchangeable brains. All around awesome show but was canceled after a relatively short run because it didn't sell enough action figures.
Tropes:
- Action Girl: Shao Lin.
- Actor Allusion: In "Rhesus Pieces", Rhesus-2, portrayed by Malcolm McDowell, has the wrong brain put in his head by Dr. Splitz/Splitzy, resulting in the following: "There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs..."
- Affectionate Parody: The series lovingly satirizes various Science Fiction tropes and franchises.
- Apes in Space
- Attack Pattern Alpha: Used almost to the point of ridiculousness (which was probably intended).
- Badass Furry/Badass Crew: The Space Monkeys.
- Berserk Button: Don't hurt Gor's friends. Seriously. Just don't.
- Big Bad: Lord Nebula.
- Body Swap ("Escape from the Plant of the Apes")
- Brain in a Jar: Rhesus-2 is a cyborg with exposed, removable brains.
- Brought Down to Normal: Lord Nebula is nigh-omnipotent in the first episode and about to carry out his grand plan, only to lose most of his powers thanks to the apes and spend the rest of the show trying to get them back.
- Captain Superhero
- Catch Phrase: "It just keeps getting better and better..."
- "Gotta get that thing fixed..."
- "The ' '."
- Chuck Yeager: Captain Simian.
- Combining Mecha: Their ship, the Primate Avenger, can split up into five smaller ships, each piloted by one of the crew.
- Deadpan Snarker: Spydor, and especially the Captain himself.
- Distracted by the Sexy: More of a straight and deliberate example here. In one episode Shao Lin purposefully uses the fact she is a female to distract a bunch of monkey mooks, before going Ape-shit on their asses.
- The Dragon: Rhesus-2.
- Dumb Muscle: Gor, who broke the intelligence amplifier partway through his amplification.
- Everything's Better With Monkeys
- Evil Counterpart: Rhesus-2 to the Space Monkeys, especially Captain Simian.
- Expospeak Gag: Dr. Splitz/Splitzy is this trope.
- Five-Man Band:
- Frank Welker: Voiced a few incidental characters.
- Gentle Giant: Gor. Unless he becomes Gormungous or his Berserk Button is pushed, that is.
- A God Am I: What Lord Nebula is trying to accomplish.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Averted fiercely in a flashback that showcases Rhesus-2's predecessor being disintegrated by Nebula, complete with full on lingering shots of the bloody aftermath. And this was a kid's show.
- Grand Finale: The last three episodes.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Lord Nebula is half-human, half-black hole.
- Hey, It's That Voice!: Matrix, the evil supercomputer, shares a voice with a certain other megalomaniacal critter.
- How We Got Here: The first episode begins In Medias Res, with the Back Story revealed through a series of Flash Backs.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each episode title features some kind of monkey-based pun.
- Jeff Bennett: The voice of Orbitron and various incidental characters.
- Killer Space Monkey: Without the "killer" part, of course.
- Unless you count Rhesus-2...
- Lady of War: Shao Lin.
- Maurice LaMarche: The voice(s) of Dr.Splitz and Splitzy.
- Mind Rape: At one point, Rhesus-2 is punished for failure by being given back his original brain... which has the memory of his conversion. The last shot of the episode is a cutaway to a starfield as he screams.
- My Future Self and Me: At the end of the Grand Finale, The Reveal is that Mandrax, "a mysterious mandrill with unimaginable powers" who has been helping the heroes, is actually Captain Simian's future self.
- Non-Lethal Warfare: The " " give the Space Monkeys non-lethal weaponry.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Space Monkeys.
- Red Shirts: The holo-boons, Hard Light baboons in red jumpsuits who exist to both enable this trope and avoid angering the censors.
- Running Gag: "The who?"
- "Gotta get that thing fixed".
- "Check. It's a ______ thing."
- "Strangely soothing."
- Shout Out: The series references many famous Science Fiction films and series, including:
- Alien
- Plan 9 from Outer Space
- And, inevitably, Planet of the Apes.
- The holo-boons also parody many famous characters.
- In the first episode, when Gor accidentally crushes him, Orbitron garbles a few lines of "Bicycle Built For Two," a la HAL.
- Then there's this little gem from the episode "The Monkey Has Landed":
- The Smurfette Principle: Shao Lin is the only female primate of the group. Then again, she's also arguably the most capable combatant, so it levels out.
- Split Personality: Dr. Splitz/Splitzy exemplifies this trope.
- Sufficiently Advanced Aliens: The " ".
- True Companions
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: It was vaguely implied that the Captain and Shao Lin may have had some feelings for each other (when they weren't verbally assaulting each other of course).
- Unstoppable Rage: When Gor gets mad... well, he's a gorilla. It gets even more dangerous when he's hit with alien technology that causes him to go One-Winged Angel ("Gormungous") when he gets mad. And they don't COMPLETELY reverse it...so he still does it for the rest of the series.
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