 Merlin Jones is a "brainy college oddball" who has "riotous escapades" in what
is a "madcap sequel to The Misadventures Of Merlin Jones." This time Merlin
has to save the football team by getting a "$10 million endowment for the
campus" that rides "on the outcome of his haphazard, airborne antics." 1965, 90 minutes, VHS As most of you have surely guessed from my cutting edge, too hip for the room,
too cool for school, X-Games-inspired writings, I ain't no old coot. Sure,
I've been up and down that road the last twenty years, fighting and scraping
anywhere and everywhere, taking on all comers in the wasteland of our
country's mid-section (and let me tell you, this country could use some ab
work), but there's some run left in this dog. What I'm getting at in my
catchphrased filled, Ric Flair way is that I wasn't around to remember when The
Monkey's Uncle came out in the summer of 1965. I haven't actually done any
research on this, but I'm think it's safe to say that in the summer of 1965,
the country was on the edge of its Model T seats down at the passion pits
waiting for the sequel to The Misadventures Of Merlin Jones. That surely can be the only explaination for the opening credits of The Monkey's Uncle.
See, like a lot of these dopey, I mean lovably whacky, Disney comedies of that era
that featured some sort of mutant animal or erstwhile Mouseketeer, the theme
song clumsily, I mean endearlingly goofily, explained the the concept of the
plot. In this case it involved Annette Funicello belting out lyrics at the
local malt shop along the lines of "I love the monkey's uncle and I want to be
the monkey's aunt." Aside from sounding slightly dirty (I can almost hear Jim
Morrison uttering those lyrics, but probably not as cheerfully as A.F. did), the song
was notable because A.F.'s backup band were a bunch square-looking nobodies
called the Beach Boys. What ever happened to them?
Their presence must have meant that this movie was a premiere film of the summer of 1965 and shows us
that rock groups selling their souls for easy soundtrack money isn't a modern
day occurence. The Beach Boys should feel confident in that their performance
in this movie puts them in the same league as Vanilla Ice's memorable "Secret Of
The Ooze" number from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III or Elton John's presence
on the Days Of The Thunder soundtrack. 
Just to let you know what sort of world 1965 was, the opening credits actually
list Annette Funicello as simply "Annette", putting her in such heady company
as Madonna, Tyrese, and RuPaul. Disney workhouse Tommy Kirk gets both of his
names listed, but that may be because he has that whole two first names thing
going that's strictly reserved in these times for porn stars and guys on soap
operas trying to throw off their real families. It almost makes you think that
that whole Cuban Missile Crisis ended too soon.
Once the movie actually starts (the opening credits take long enough that we have to hear every bit of
that horrible, horrible song) the Beach Boys permantly disappear, probably so
that one of them can start trying to drown himself in shame, while that other one
begins his decades-long descent into utter madness. Can you imagine how bad the
Rolling Stones were laughing at those guys?
Once those decidedly not-so-good vibrations finally ceased, the movie finally got rolling. Not one to mess up a
good thing, director Robert Stevenson ( Jane Eyre, billions of Disney movies
including The Gnome-Mobile, My Dog, The Thief, Johnny Tremain) slavishly hews
toward the same structure that made Merlin Jones' initial adventures the
darling of dullwitted middle class suburbia the year before. That means you're
aren't going to have to really worry about an actual movie going on, but
instead you get two more installments of the Merlin Jones TV show which never
existed. The first forty-five minutes and second forty-five minutes both
feature whacky schemes that involve Merlin and Midvale College, but are related
to one another only in the sense that they're on the same video tape with the
same actors. Of course, when you're dealing with a gizmo that lets you learn
in your sleep and a flying machine you pedal yourself, this is a good
thing. 
When we last left Merlin Jones, he was embroiled in some legal controversy that
ended up with his chimp Stanley having to testify on his behalf. Somehow that
all worked out for him and now we find ourselves back in court with Merlin,
Stanley, Annette and Judge Holmsby. This time Merlin is attempting to adopt
Stanley as his kid. The judge rightfully recognizes that Merlin is clearly an
unfit parent since he's a single guy. (Shoot, he's got Annette there pretending
to be his girfriend - that should allay the judge's homophobic fears.)
The judge though isn't the kind of heartless judiciary type to get in the way of
some whacky plot possibilities, so even though he's going to deny the adoption
petition, he will grant Merlin status as Stanley's guardian, which I think
means that Merlin can steal Stanley's social security checks. The proceeding
ends with the chimp giving the judge a banana and the judge trying to bang the
banana instead of his gavel. No, that's not my 1978 Maverick trying to start,
that's just me wheezing in attempt to jump start some laughs. Heh, heh, heh.
Sorry, no go yet. Check back later.
Merlin goes home and immediately begins
his latest experiment on Stanley. He tries to get Stanley to brush his teeth.
You'll never believe this, but after Merlin leaves Stanely alone to answer the
door, somehow or other that dang chimp knocks a bunch of bubble bath into the
sink with the water running and the next thing you know there's something like
fifty thousand cubic feet of bubbles filling Merlin's bathroom! I'd like to
know where to get them kind of bubbles, because the crap I get at Wal-Mart
usually requires me to dump half a gallon of it into the tub before I get a
suitable volume of bubbles and then I still have to add bath salts to get my
skin that right kind of baby soft texture I'm known for. 
Merlin follows that blazing success up with a more involved experiment that has
him hooking up curlers to Stanley's head at night that are also connected to a
record player. The record player spins the platters that matter and the stacks
of wax and all the big hits of the day such as "Merlin instructs Stanely on his
morning chores." That was a bigger hit than the Beach Boys' famous The
Monkey's Uncle number that they always do in between games at those minor
league doubleheaders they do on the Fourth of July every summer.
Merlin has concocted a way to get people to learn while they sleep and all they have to do
is listen to some instructional materials while they doze. This dovetails
nicely with the latest crisis that Midvale's football team is experiencing.
This time, their dire circumstances is that they have to pass their classes if
they want to play football! Egads! This sounds like the machinations of some
faculty member that hates football just because he didn't make the team years
ago!
Luckily, Judge Holmsby is an alum and football player and is determined
to find an "honest way to cheat" so that his players can stay on the team. How
ever will they get all that English literature into their stupid jock
heads? If only there was a quick and easy way to upload it all into the
smooth surface of their brains. So Merlin hooks up two football players that need smartening up to his sleep-learning device, including the ape-like Norman from the previous movie, and it works! Of course everyone
thinks they cheated and there's a little drama where the board of regents has
to decide whether to expel Merlin and the two football players. It doesn't
take a Merlin Jones to know that the regents will somehow decide that "an
honest way to cheat" is just fine, so long as it all done in time for Bowl
season. The football team is saved!
But the football team is still in danger! You see, this guy that hates the team
has come up with a donor who will donate a million dollars to Midvale, but only
on the condition that they disband the football team. Can even the unholy
alliance of Merlin Jones and Judge Holmsby figure a way out of this one? They
don't have to because a guy shows up willing to donate ten million dollars to
Midvale if someone can prove his grandfather wasn't nuts when he wrote a
children's book about flying without mechanical assistance. I'm starting to
think that in this case, screenwriters Alfred Lewis Levitt and his wife Helen
Levitt weren't using their pseudonyms Tom and Helen August just because they were
blacklisted.
Merlin is put in charge of coming up with a contraption that he
can pedal and fly and you get the added bonus of him inventing a drink that
gives him a burst of adrenline-fueled power (tried out on Stanely first who
promptly goes ape and destroys the lab single-handedly). Honestly, there ain't
enough monkey business in this movie for my liking. Stanley is treated for the
most part as just another cast member, kind of like the judge and Merlin's
girlfriend.
Merlin's oblivious enthusiasm for every retarded scheme he gets
roped into carries the movie along. Tommy Kirk is of course in a thankless
role since these movies aren't exactly even middle of the road even among
Disney live-action movies, but he's got that ability to make swallowing all the
poorly thought out and written material easier than it really ought to be. He's
kind of a younger version of Dean Jones in that regard. (We all remember how
Dean won the Medal of Honor when he survived acting with a goose that laid
golden eggs and Sandy Duncan in $1,000,000 Duck.)
Annette may be only going by
one name here, but she's still relegated to the role of flummoxed gal pal in
this one, even more so than in the previous one. The Judge's character
actually gets expanded and moves from grumpy establishment guy to Merlin's
partner in crime, his love for college football an understandable impetus for
turning to outlandish psuedoscience to see that his team gets a shot a BCS
berth next New Year's Day. If you've seen the first one, you know exactly what
you're getting this time around. It's virtually the same though there are less
amusing moments in this one. Of course you don't have to suffer through that
inane "Judge Holmsby as Lex Fortas the mystery writer" storyline we had in the
last one, so it's probably all a wash.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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