MONKEY!
The Complete boxed set, every episode on DVD
Buy it Here

MONKEY MAGIC
The long awaited feature film available now on dvd and blu-ray
(Check it out Here)

JOURNEY TO THE WEST
(4-Volume Boxed Set)
(.COM) / (CO.UK)

MONKEY CUSTUMES
Monkey costumes for hire
(Go Here)


Pearls of wisdom from the shows philosophisers!

"I'm still not immortal yet .. What's mortal must die and i hate that idea." (Monkey)

"Ohh look... a woman" (Pigsy)

" It's a cheerful philosophy and i've heard it from people before... they're all dead now though" (Sandy)

"Let me out..500 years under a mountain is enough.. a joke is a joke" (Monkey)

"Just because you're a Dragon it doesn't make you better than me." (Monkey)

"a boy priest all too human, a water monster once Commander of the Heavenly host and in the midst of beauty the ugliness which lust used to make an angel.. into a pig - Three of the four called by their karma to save the world. The fourth - least qualified of all perhaps, is of course.. Monkey " (Narrator)

"Alright, let battle commense - wine and ...bananas, bring on the dancing girls." (Monkey)

"Defeated, the God of Fertility turned over a new leaf. This is why, today, very few men have babies." (Narrator)

" Grow Stick... grow again stick... grow nice and large again for King Monkey." (Monkey)

"The Great Chinese Sage, Lao Tzu said words that are beautiful are seldom true." (Narrator)

"The Jade Emperor was visiting his 'good friend' the Star goddess Vega, on, erm, 'business matters." (Narrator)

"And you know eating babies isn't good manners, don't you?" (Monkey)

"There's nothing so stubborn as a Buddhist, nothing so stupid as a priest. I mean, what's he worshipping? Gods? I met the gods - bloody boring bunch!" (Monkey)

"There are worlds within worlds, some better, some worse. Not the least extraordinary are worlds which can be found in the internal plumbing of a demon in cosmic manifestation."
(Narrator) Please sign my GUESTBOOK before you leave
disciples seeking enlightenment have travelled to this Holy Homepage since
17th April 2006 This site contains (deep breath)
info - gossip - rumours - details - snippets - pictures - Monkey Magic video clips - the best live action, fantasy, adventure, kung fu odyssey ever - guides for characters - where are they now? - Monkey Magic - Pigsy - Tripitaka - Buddha - Sandy - Guan Yin the Bodishatva - Goddess of mercy - fairy of Heaven - sissy Demons - witches - vampires - profiles for Masaaki Sakai - Machaaki - Masako Natsume - Toshiyuki Nishida - Shiro Kishibe - news - audio clips - the Monkey theme remix and Gandhara by Godiego - The Bee Gees . Smile for me ...Really - Guides for episodes - including the thirteen unseen episodes - Journey to the West by Wu cheng en - including introductions to the disciples - Sun Wukong aka Son Goku - Son aware of Vacuity - Great Sage equal of Heaven - The Handsome Monkey King - owner of the Magic Golden Clasped Wishing Staff and pink cloud - ancient god of god knows what - Zhu Bajie aka Cho Hakkai, Zhu Ganglie - Sha Wujing aka Sha Gojo - Xuanzang aka Holy Fool - Boy Priest - Yulong Santaizi aka Jade Dragon - Dragon of the Western Ocean - Havoc in Heaven - Press release photos - Guangzhou attraction - 'Where can i find..?' section (for hire costumes etc..) and so much more...

Welcome to the Temple of Monkey.
Come... Worship at his hairy feet!

As a kid, 6.00 pm on a Friday was my favourite time, something i looked forward to all week..like a free treat. There was a half hour long Japanese Kungfu series on tv that has since aquired a cult following, the dubbing was terrible to say the least, but grossly exaggerated accents only added to the entertainment value. After the show I would wrap a cloth, a tie, or whatever I could find, around my head while I whistled, frantically waving my fingers in front of my mouth to summon an imaginary cloud - then came the insults - 'Oi.. PIGSY !' was always directed at people i didn't like much, and then the crowning glory.. my very own pilgrimage... to the tool shed.. for broomshanks to spin around my head, kungfu style! Now, there's a 'knack' to spinning a 'magic wishing staff', and sadly, as i hadn't been trained by a Taoist Master, i didn't have it. But that didn't stop me... 'Oi.. DEMON.. Pooftah!' BANG..the cat would get it. 'I love to fight'.. CRASH.. over went my mams best vase. Oh, the fun. Inevitably, the games would stop due to injury, normally to myself.. or a friend.. or relative. I would've happily carried on tearing around like a Kungfu loon with my head bandaged, and i wasn't the only one, but unlike Monkey i had parents to contend with!

The show brings back fond memories of countless hours of mischief. It was all good.

MONKEY or MONKEY MAGIC as i always referred to it, was based on Wu Cheng en’s legendary 630 ad Chinese epic - Journey to the West, also known as Saiyuki, Hsi Yu Chi, or just plain old Monkey - from the Arthur Waley version, about Tang Monk Xuanzang (TRIPITAKA) and his pilgrimage to india. Apparently the Journey really did take place, although the book makes the tale fantastical with the addition of Chinese fables, fairy tales, legends, supersitions, popular beliefs, monster stories and anything else the author could find in the Taoist and Buddhist religions.
For anyone not familiar with the story, it goes something like this...

Dismayed that the land of the South knows only greed, hedonism, promiscuity, and sins, Buddha instructs the Bodhisattva GUAN YIN to search Táng China for someone to take the Buddhist sutras of transcendence and persuasion for good will aka the great vehicle scriptures back to the East for translation. The Bodhisattva finds four willing disciples for the monk along the way, who agree to help Xuánzàng in order to atone for the sins of their past lives :

Sūn Wùkōng or MONKEY, previously Great Sage Equal of Heaven, and God of God knows what, trapped by BUDDHA for rebelling against Heaven.

Zhū Bājiè, sometimes translated as PIGSY, or Pig, was previously Marshal Tīan Péng, commander of the Heavenly Naval forces, banished to the mortal realm for flirting with the Princess of the Moon, Chang'e.

Shā Wùjìng - The river monster, also translated as Friar Sand or SANDY, was previously Great General who Folds the Curtain, banished to the mortal realm for dropping and shattering a crystal goblet of the Heavenly Queen Mother.

Yùlóng Sāntàizi - or YU LUNG, The third prince of the Dragon-King,  was sentenced to death for setting fire to his father's great pearl. He was saved from execution by Guānyīn, to stay and wait for his call of duty. He was later turned into a horse for Xuánzàng.
Throughout the journey, these four brave travellers have to fend off attacks on their master and teacher from various monsters and calamities.

The pilgrimage takes an arduous fourteen years to complete, after which, each traveller is promoted to a higher post in the bureaucracy of the heavens.

*Detailed Overview Here .*

Hats off to David Weir, who brought out the personality of the characters perfectly when he wrote the script for the English dubbed version of MONKEY, without the luxury of having even the most basic grasp of the native language … Pure Genius.

Looking back, it’s amazing how the show wasn’t subject to some kind of censorship. Monkey’s rebellion against the gods, heaven and authority in general, and the fact that he ‘loves to fight’, would have the powers that be screaming ‘‘holy war’’ these days.

Of course, I was too young to understand any of this back then, in fact, apart from the odd word that I could pick out…. pigsy, fool, oi !, sissy, demon, pooftah..(my parents had a right old squirm explaining that one)..the rest was lost on me. Still, I found ‘the way’ they spoke hilarious and the funky disco music that played as battle commenced, courtesy of GODIEGO, was the best thing ever! Hey..I was only eight!! The theme tune too deserves a special mention - ‘born from an egg on a mountain top, funkiest monkey that ever popped’. It was never going to win any awards, but boy once it got in your head it stayed there!

But what really drew me in was the visual content - The wonderfully o.t.t. facial expressions of the characters, everyone of them larger than life, the fact that, at any given time, they could break out into dance for no particular reason, and the ‘special’ effects. Sure they were cheesy, tacky, certainly not up to the standard of todays tv shows, but the series probably wouldn’t have achieved the cult status it has if they were.  Demons, Gods, Spirits, cloud flying, Kungfu, vampires, witches, beautiful old Chinese costumes, talking horses and dragons... The stuff that feeds a young boys imagination. In the world of Monkey, anything is possible.

It wasn’t until I watched the series again as an adult that I realized what my dad found so funny, and why my mom would throw sideways glances at him several times during the course of the show. Ye Gods! It is absolutely packed with thinly veiled adult humour, innuendo, double entendres and political incorrectness :  

‘‘Let battle commence! Wine and bananas! Bring on the dancing girls!’’

‘‘Grow stick….Grow again stick….Grow nice and large again for King Monkey!’’

... Or the scene where a pig monster tries to get some sweet lovin’ from a fairy in the belly of a giant fish!

Totally madcap, the situations the characters find themselves in make no more sense to me now than they did back then, but that’s Monkey. Don’t try to make sense of it, just roll with it.  

If you haven’t seen any of the series since you were a kid, I strongly suggest you go and buy a dvd now, you’ll love it in a completely different way.



So, here we are, 2004. What has possessed me to lash together a page about my all time favourite kids show, so long after the last of the original series was shown on British Tv? (the series ran from 1979 to 1981.)

Well, I watched the movie ‘Monkey King’  recently and the memories came flooding back. Having a little time on my hands it seemed like a good idea to put them here to share.

I’ve tried to break it down into sub pages which are easy to follow, and not too hard on the eyes, including episode guides, pictures, clips and anything else I could get my hands on.
I'm no web designer, so bear with me,

It’s very much a work in progress, so I don’t know when, or if, it will be finished, but hey, just like the show, the destination isn’t the important thing, it’s the lessons you learn and adventure you have trying to get there.

Enjoy.

Lee.  17th April 2004.