Ookla the Mok's monkey rock opera

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Someone posted a thread about the Green Day album in another forum, so I wrote up a complete summary of the Ookla rock opera. Don't want it to go to waste...

Ookla the Mok has a Monkey Rock Opera, Smell No Evil.

The cast:

Dr. Klein and Dr. MacHaggis are the heads of Project P.R.I.M.A.T.E. (Putting Really Intelligent Monkeys Among The Extraterrestrials)

Having lost their mothers to project S.P.O.U.S.E.S (Sending P-O'd Ultra-feminists Screeching Endlessly Spaceward, Lisa Klein and Jeff MacHaggis were raised on the Sprocket Monkey Rocket compound.

Ping is the mission commander of Project P.R.I.M.A.T.E. He is also Jeff's best friend.

Not even cruel animal testing could separate Pang and Pong, Ping's monkey friends.

A. Businessman is just a passerby.

Huckster K. Monkey, our mysterious narrator, was last seen during the ill-fated Project A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.

Scene 1 (A distant jungle)
"Dawn of the Day Before the Time of the Land the Lost Dinosaurs Forgot to Remember." (Rand, Adam)
Ookla the Mok sings the prelude promising to make a monkey out of us and take us back to the dawn of the day before the time of the land the lost dinosaurs forgot to remember.

Scene 2 (A pond near the lab)
"Me and My Monkey" (Jeff, Ping)
"Not Me and My Monkey" (Jeff, Ping)
Jeff explains how his monkey Ping is the only one who likes him for who he is, and that's why he broke him out of the lab even though his dad said he'd ground him.

Scene 3 (The lab)
"Meet Dr. Klein" (All the scientists)
Introducing the scientists.

Scene 4 (The pond)
"Hockey Monkey" (Dr. Klein, All the kids)
All the scientists are running around, looking for the monkey, but he can't be found 'cause he's down at the pond playing hockey with the kids.
"Curb Your Dogma" (Ping, A. Businessman, Lisa, Jeff)
Various people are invited to not be so closed-minded. This is America?we don't really have any views because everything's so complicated.

Scene 5 (The lab)
"Beneath" (Jeff, Ping, Dr. MacHaggis, Lisa)
Jeff and Ping agree to let Dr. MacHaggis use his Histo-Ray on them to de-evolve them so that he can see whether people came from monkeys or primordial goo. However, before they changed, Jeff's girlfriend Lisa storms in because Jeff was out all night with his monkey (like he is every night), and she kicks the Histo-Ray. Its beam hits the ground and de-evolves the entire world, sending everything back to the dawn of the day before the time of the land the lost dinosaurs forgot to remember. (How they escape from this predicament is not explained.)

Scene 6 (The compound)
"Song of Kong" (Jeff, Lisa)
Jeff and Lisa have a titanic argument about how they're always mean to each other, like Godzilla vs. King Kong.
"Rats Live On nO eviL staR" (Dr. Klein)
Dr. Klein rants about how (his fired-into-space-wife? not sure) takes everything he says the completely wrong way.

Scene 7 (The lab)
"Escape" (Jeff)
Jeff misses a date with Lisa, so he borrows his dad's new time machine and sets the controls to "yesterday" but accidentally ends up in the dawn of the day before the time of the land the lost dinosaurs forgot to remember.

Scene 8 (an even more distant jungle)
"http://www.monkeysong.com" (Rand, Adam)
Ookla the Mok sings that when you're feeling blue, just point your browser to http://www.monkeysong.com.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Scene 9 (The pond)
"Monkey Must Do" (Ping)
Ping sings about how he has to leave Jeff and go to space, even though he doesn't want to, because if he doesn't, Pang and Pong will get sent instead, and they're not trained for it.
"Three Monkeys" (Jeff)
Jeff sings about how he wouldn't mind if (Ping? Lisa?) died, and he never thinks about (him? her?) all the time, or talk about him/her to his friends, and won't look for him/her or wait for him/her until the end of time.

Scene 10 (The Lab)
"Two Monkeys" (Pang)
Pang sings about how he can see Pong but she can't see him, and she can hear him but he can't hear her. (He's deaf; she's blind.) So they get along by touching each other and that does all right. Too bad their kid is deaf, dumb, and blind though, but at least he plays some mean pinball.

Scene 11 (The launch site)
"One Monkey" (Huckster K. Monkey)
"Blastoff Monkey" (Dr. Klein, Dr. MacHaggis, All the scientists, Ping)
The scientists sing about how much they'll miss Ping after they shoot him into space, since he's never coming back. And he goes up into space and then starts coming in for a crash landing toward crowds gathered to?

Scene 12 (The pond)
"No Monkeys"
"Animal Uprising" (All the monkeys, Pong, Pang)
In the zoos and on the farms, they're knocking down the cages and barns?it's really quite surprising, this animal uprising.

Scene 13 (Gorilla City)
"One Million Monkeys" (Huckster K. Monkey)
"Gorilla City" (Used monkey salesmen, Huckster K. Monkey)
Salesmen try to interest Jeff in a quality pre-owned gorilla to replace his lost friend.
"Too Many Monkeys" (Jeff)
"Fascist Couplet" (A. Businessman, Huckster K. Monkey)
Smile at the fascist bourgeoisie, deny your own autonomy.

Scene 14 (The zoo)
"Gorilla (gorilla)" (Jeff, Lisa)
Lisa works on her Masters thesis on the dating routines of higher primates at the zoo, but Jeff's thinking "Me Tarzan, you Jane." Lisa calls him a gorilla but then recants because she's never seen a gorilla that smokes, drinks, lies, or is as ugly as him.
"Animal" (Jeff)
Jeff is upset and asks if he's not who Lisa thought he was, then who was he? She can call him an animal, because that's how she makes him feel.

Scene 15 (The compound)
"Conquest" (Jeff)
Jeff sings about how Lisa has left him after he lost Ping, and he's been saving all her stuff in case she wants it back. She said "it's all very simple," but everything's so complicated, and he wishes they could just go back to the dawn of the day before the time of the land the lost dinosaurs forgot to remember. If he were a brave man, a primitive caveman, he'd scream and rage to show her he cared. But he has to act his own age?they don't live in the stone age?can't drag her away by the hair. So, he sets her free.

Scene 16 (The Planet of the Apes)
"Challenge of the Space Monkeys" (Huckster K. Monkey, Ping, All the monkeys)
The crowds are all gathered to see Blip and Gleek battle it out for who gets to rule the Planet of the Apes, and right after their fight begins, Ping's spaceship comes shooting from the sky and lands on them, killing both. Ping's king now of all that he sees, and he reminisces about how before he met the humans, life was so simple, but now he sees that everything's so complicated.

Secret Scene (An even more more distant jungle)
"Battle" (Rand and Adam)
Ookla the Mok sings about what they spent the whole disc singing about, about 17 minutes too long, but it seems like they keep going back to the dawn of the day before the time of the land the lost dinosaurs forgot to remember.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

ah, that helps. I've heard bits and pieces, but never the whole thing in order. Maybe I just need to buy the CD. It's certainly worth it.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Well. A few of the songs were written before the album concept came about, but I think they do a pretty good job of making them fit. I don't know how coherent most rock operas usually are, or especially most monkey rock operas. My summary doesn't really do justice to the humor or the non-humorous bits (though really, it's hard to beat the phrase "quality pre-owned gorilla"), so to get the full effect you've got to listen to it...

What I like most about the whole disc is that there are two musical themes repeated throughout, "the dawn of the day before the time of the land the lost dinosaurs forgot to remember" and "everything's so complicated." Each shows up in several different songs, but they appear together in one song only one time. I consider that song to be the thematic climax of the album and it's definitely my emotional favorite.

Eh. It's probably my favorite album of all time. But then I don't listen to much music at all so that's not exactly saying much. I remember well when I brought two Ookla CDs to TLE (this was before Smell No Evil came out) and lent them to a couple people. I gave them to Tage, and he gave them back the next day. I said "did you like them?" and he paused half a second and then said "No." My world was shattered...

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

well, Tommy is really the first Rock Opera. It's pretty coherant if you know the story. Which has to be told to you or seen. The songs mark a progression but, imo, it isn't very clear unless you can see what's happening too. For example, they never explain that Tommy's dad is away at war when he comes home to be killed by his cheating wife and friend. The only thing really sung about is Tommy seeing it and being told he never saw anything.

Still, that's a little better than The Wall, which really is kind of incoherant even if you DO watch it unless liberal amounts of controled chemicals are also used. But that's part of the point.  It reflects much more tightly what the listener is going through.

imo, the music of The Wall is superior, but Tommy's narrative is better executed.

[fuzzyoctopus]

ah, that helps. I've heard bits and pieces, but never the whole thing in order. Maybe I just need to buy the CD. It's certainly worth it.

You should, it's a great album

[fuzzyoctopus]

Scene 6 (The compound)
"Song of Kong" (Jeff, Lisa)
Jeff and Lisa have a titanic argument about how they're always mean to each other, like Godzilla vs. King Kong.

Hilarious song, especially because of the bit at the end.

"I suppose the obvious question is why we even hang out at all."
"Maybe it's karma or fate or the fact you're the only other one I know who's three hundred feet tall."

Scene 10 (The Lab)
"Two Monkeys" (Pang)
Pang sings about how he can see Pong but she can't see him, and she can hear him but he can't hear her. (He's deaf; she's blind.) So they get along by touching each other and that does all right. Too bad their kid is deaf, dumb, and blind though, but at least he plays some mean pinball.

This is one of my favorite songs on the album.  Most songs don't have a punchline. This has an excellent one.