Jungle Run - Sid and Elvis

Sid and Elvis

Sid and Elvis are a pair of monkeys, the Jungle King's most loyal servants. They will do anything it takes to stop the contestants from reaching the temple. They even make some challenges harder, especially the Dark Swamp challenges, as they seem to like hanging around near the swamp.

On rare occasions Sid and Elvis will kidnap a member of the team and lock them in a cage, to be discovered by the rest of the team and rescued. If the rescue attempt fails, a monkey statue is sacrificed. Previous kidnappings had the entire team locked in a bamboo cage high up in the trees - if the team failed to escape they each sacrificed a monkey. (Removed)

At the end of each show, the monkeys lounge around outside the temple of the Jungle King, and without fail Underwood tells them to "clear off". They do so in a most obedient fashion. They follow the orders of the Jungle King, which usually involves thwarting the jungle explorers. For example, they yank the ropes which control the baskets movement upwards while people jump (or swing) for them. They always disobey the Jungle Guide's commands.

In the rope swing challenge in Monkey Trees, Elvis is always caught playing on the swing while Sid is on the bridge. To get him to return the jungle guide has to either chase him, bribe him with a banana (which he never ends up actually getting) or tell him that Sid is stealing his bananas or has taken his monkey nuts.

Sid and Elvis have changed colour throughout the series of Jungle Run. Sid and Elvis used to be Red and Blue in the earlier series, but then Elvis became orange and Sid became yellow. In the later editions of the show, Sid changed colour again to orange and Elvis changed to be black and white.

There have been a notable number of complaints directed to ITV due to the alleged racism by Sid and Elvis to one of the contestants. The contestant in question was of Afro-Caribbean origin and when trapped in the 'monkey cage' shots, Sid and Elvis were feeding and taunting them with bananas. However, with both the presenter and one of the primate pair of afro-caribbean extraction too, any accusation of racism is probably misplaced. This edition of the show originally aired in 2005 and was re-aired on 25 January 2007 and again on 28 August 2008.