Movie Type: Animal Picture, Family-Oriented Comedy
Main Cast: Annette Funicello, Tommy Kirk, Leon Ames, Arthur O'Connell, Frank Faylen
Release Year: 1965
Country: US
Run Time: 90 minutes
Plot
The sequel to 1963's Misadventures of Merlin Jones finds young Mr. Jones (Tommy Kirk) still in college and still going out with Jennifer (Annette Funicello). In this movie, he must help football players pass their tests and invent a flying machine win a contest for the school. Funicello and the Beach Boys sing the title song. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
Review
Be forewarned that this witless but diverting Disney comedy contains far less monkey-related frivolity than the title might suggest. Tommy Kirk returns as science whiz Merlin Jones, who becomes the legal guardian of a chimpanzee named Stanley in hopes of teaching the beast advanced social skills. This initial storyline is set aside once the Midvale College football team is endangered due to low grades. In exchange for the acceptance of the best fraternity on campus, Merlin develops an "honest way to cheat" by implanting exam answers subliminally while the football heroes sleep. After some initial controversy, this successful method is hailed by the faculty as a perfectly legitimate escape route for terminally lazy students. Unfortunately, the football team is threatened once again when a generous endowment comes with strings attached, and the result is an end to the popular collegiate sport. Merlin is called upon to build the world's first successful man-powered flying machine, for which an even bigger cash payment will be awarded by a more football-friendly donor. Can he do it? It takes a lot of dubious science and a token song from Annette Funicello to find out, but precious little of the simian-based comedy the viewer might be expecting. After dominating the first few scenes of The Monkey's Uncle, Stanley the chimpanzee fades to the background, appearing from time to time to help Merlin out in the lab, make coffee, and chatter into the lens as punctuation to the pratfalls of his human co-stars. Veteran character actors like Frank Faylen and Leon Ames bluster nicely, but Kirk and Funicello aren't overly ambitious as the youthful leads and their fellow students fare no better. Enlightened parents may want to think twice about subjecting their children to the prehistoric gender dynamics of The Monkey's Uncle. True, Annette Funicello's character is a college student, but appears to be interested only in receiving her MRS degree, and supportive boyfriend Kirk says things to her like, "Try to think intelligently instead of like a girl." For Beach Boys fans, the best part of The Monkey's Uncle will be the film's opening credits, in which the fab five rock a frat party with Funicello on lead vocals. While they punch out the irresistibly catchy theme tune ("Love his monkeyshines/Every day his valentine/I love the monkey's uncle and the monkey's uncle's ape for me") the camera gets a skirt-level eyeful of the dance floor and lively footage of the original pre-Pet Sounds Beach Boys with their lovely guest doing what she's best at, namely being cute and singing silly songs. It's nearly worth the price of admission. ~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide
Carroll Clark - Art Director, William Tuntke - Art Director, Gertrude Casey - Costume Designer, Chuck Keehne - Costume Designer, Robert Stevenson - Director, Cotton Warburton - Editor, Buddy Baker - Composer (Music Score), Pat McNalley - Makeup, Edward Colman - Cinematographer, Walt Disney - Producer, Ron Miller - Producer, Hal G. Gausman - Set Designer, Emile Kuri - Set Designer, Eustace Lycett - Special Effects, Robert Mattey - Special Effects, Bill Walsh - Screen Story, Bill Walsh - Screenwriter
The Monkey's Uncle is a 1965 Walt Disney production starring Tommy Kirk as genius college student Merlin Jones and Annette Funicello as Jennifer, his girlfriend. The title refers to a chimpanzee named Stanley, Merlin's legal "nephew" (a legal arrangement resulting from an experiment to raise Stanley as a human); Stanley otherwise has little relevance to the plot. Jones invents a man-powered airplane and a sleep-learning system.[1][2]
In this sequel to the 1964 film The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, the small Midvale College is told that a wealthy man, Mr. Astorbilt (played by Arthur O'Connell), will give a large donation, but he has a strange request — he challenges the school to build a man-powered flying machine. If they succeed by a certain date, they get the donation, otherwise it will go to a rival school.
Merlin Jones (Kirk) designs a lightweight airplane, powered by a propeller driven by bicycle pedals. Recognizing that even his football-jock friends won't be strong enough for such a feat, he develops a strength elixir (based on adrenaline), which should give the power that a man would need to get off the ground.
To get the jocks' support, he creates "an honest way to cheat," adapting the recently-discovered sleep-learning method to help them pass a particularly hard history course. Once the jocks are asleep, a timer starts a phonograph album, with the sound of Jennifer reading their lessons to them. This backfires in class, however — asked to give an oral report, the jocks speak, but Jennifer's voice comes out. Eventually it works out in the students' favor.
Jones gets their help, and the great day comes. The pilot drinks the elixir, then pedals off into the sky, winning the contest. Unfortunately, the "wealthy donor" is last seen fleeing from men in white coats, who want to take him back to the local mental hospital.
Production notes
This production marks both Tommy Kirk's and Annette Funicello's last film for Walt Disney. Actor Mark Goddard, who plays Haywood (and is perhaps best known as Major Don West on television's Lost in Space), made his feature film debut in this movie.
The title song, written by the Sherman Brothers, is performed by Funicello, with the The Beach Boys doing backup. This song was covered in 2006 by Devo 2.0 on the music CD Disneymania, Volume 4.
Reception
The New York Times reported, "It all falls into bright, colorful and innocuous non sequitur and, in an hour and a half, you are through, mildly diverted and unburdened by message." [4]
