Geoff Roberts wrote:
> >> URGENT!! Please distribute this to everyone you know.
> >>
> >> When John Glenn returns from space, everybody dress up in ape suits.
> >> We have six days in which to bury the Statue of Liberty up to her
> >> head.
> >>
> >> Your cooperation is appreciated.
> Maybe this means something to the Americans in the list, but I don't get the
> connection.
> Someone care to enlighten me?
It's a reference to the film "Planet of the Apes" in which Charlton
Heston plays an astronaut who crashlands on a planet where humans
are animals and apes have a civilization. The punchline happens
after he's headed off into the wilderness and finds the Statue of
Liberty (a New York harbor landmark) mostly buried and somewhat the
worse for wear and realizes he's been home all along. There were
four sequels made, though the scriptwriters started on the third in
the series with a large handicap due to an ancient doomsday bomb
having sterilized the Earth at the end of the second movie. The
cable channel American Movie Classics recently ran all five films
(several times each, sometimes in pan-and-scan, sometimes in
letterbox), plus a two-hour special on the history and production
of the series featuring interviews with most of the principal
actors and hosted by the recently-departed Roddy McDowell, which I
guess must have been his last project (back in the late 60s / early
70s when the films were made he played a chimpanzee in the first
and third movies and the son of that chimp in the fourth and fifth,
then he played yet another chimp in the short-lived television
series in 1974).
The book by Pierre Boulle, written and originally published in
French, was rather better.
There were no computers in the film or television series, except for
some standard prop blinkenlights.
--
Ward Griffiths <mailto:gram_at_cnct.com> <http://www.cnct.com/home/gram/>
WARNING: The Attorney General has determined that Alcohol, Tobacco,
and Firearms can be hazardous to your health -- and get away with it.
Received on Wed Nov 04 1998 - 03:27:25 GMT