Rebel Monkeys: Human Personalities in a Monkey Package

With the closing of Fox Reality Channel I've been missing my fix of Solitary and other trashy Reality show reruns. One day, still thinking the channel was there, I switched over and was surprised to see Rebel Monkeys. Although I didn't expect myself to really like it, considering it's just a show about animals, it actually is a very "human" show. There is drama and emotion with very familiar reality show personalities. Problem is, they are all monkeys.

The show takes a similar format to Mere-cat Manor, which I've seen once or twice and didn't really care for. What they do is film these monkeys who run the streets of India. There, monkeys are worshiped so they run free like cats do in America. On the few episodes that I saw, there was a battle between two monkey troupes as the lower of the two troupes wanted to invade a shrine to the monkeys. Now I see where Legend of the Hidden Temple got the name for that room! While the monkey's run free, it's amazing how they got some of the shots that they did. For instance one of the monkeys enters a house through an open window, steals a bottle from a baby and drinks it outside. This is all caught on film and then strung into the storyline.

That is what makes the show so great: the storyline. Each of the monkeys have a name and each has it's own "personality". You have the strong leader, the rebel, the mothers who care for their babies then the ones who abandon them. You basically have all your infamous reality show heroes and villains in forms of monkeys. It's amazing really but in the end it is what it is: a reality show. They take bits and pieces of the footage that they capture and tell a story with it. Sure, most of it is real but I'm sure it's strung together in a way to make it entertaining, just like any other show. It's amazing though how they do it and although I probably won't want religiously like I do some other shows, I'll tune in to see what the crazy rebel monkeys are doing when I get bored.

Rebel Monkeys airs new episodes Wednesdays at 8 on the Nat Geo channel. Reruns air throughout the day though so catch it when you can.