The Chimp Channel - Background and Production History

Background and Production History

In 1998, TBS aired Tom Stern's Monkey-ed Movies. Forty-eight of the short segments were produced to run during the feature-film program Dinner and a Movie and in odd time slots after sporting events. However, one day when a golf tournament ran short, the station played about half an hour of Monkey'ed Movies to unexpected results. The ratings actually increased, which prompted TBS to order 13 episodes of an expanded half-hour series. Aiming for a young male audience, TBS placed The Chimp Channel on Thursday nights at 10:05 p.m. ET following the network's top-rated professional wrestling show WCW Thunder. An April 1999 press release noted the series' original title as Channel of the Apes. The renamed Chimp Channel debuted on June 10, 1999.

Not long into production, Stern found himself at odds with TBS management regarding the direction of the series. This led to an incident on March 8, 1999 in which he improvised a raunchy performance art piece that involved full nudity and breaking two liquor bottles on the show's set. Stern was promptly fired for the incident despite claiming that he had permission from network officials to do what he called "improv comedy" described as "trying to get stuff off my chest about the wrong-headed direction the show was taking." On June 9, one day before the Chimp Channel series premiere, Stern filed a breach-of-contract suit against TBS, Warner Bros. Domestic Pay TV, Telescopic Pictures, and Palomar Pictures in Los Angeles, seeking damages in excess of $1,675,000. Stern was represented in the suit by Los Angeles attorney David Wall. Production of the series continued for a few more months without its creative founder.

Filming of The Chimp Channel required a reportedly critical sensitivity regarding its animal cast. In attempt to avoid any performance hampering or distraction, studio personnel and visitors were instructed not to mingle with, make gestures toward, or make eye contact with the chimps. Brief scenes required strenuous rehearsal before filming could begin, and all personnel not required for immediate set consulting, including the director, viewed the shooting from monitors 50 feet away. Regarding the apes' behavior on set, Tom Stern quipped "Maggie, who plays Marina, loves the Lycra suit she wears and can't refrain from going to the bathroom in it — she thinks it's just a really cool red diaper. All the chimps wear diapers, though, so it's a lot like Frasier."

The ape performances were coached by off-screen trainers using signals to communicate with them. This made shooting more than two chimps at once difficult, so high-tech editing was used to multiply the number of apes in the frame. And since they couldn't always follow the script perfectly, the apes' reactions were cataloged and often edited together to create cohesive scenes. Regarding the unpredictability of the apes', co-executive producer Tim Burns noted, "They're a comedy writer's best friend. I think the stuff is funny to begin with, but there's no replacing how much funnier it is when the monkeys add their own peculiar performance style."

The American Humane Association's Film and Television Unit supervised the filming of both The Chimp Channel and its predecessor, Monkey-ed Movies, and reported:

"The chimps and orangutans are receiving a very high standard of care. The trainers use modern, humane techniques to cue and motivate the animals. . . The TBS production team has been very cooperative, has upheld the Guidelines and insures the wellbeing of the chimps during filming." AHA field representative Netta Bank rated the crew's treatment of the apes "A-plus" and noted "This is all chimps, all the time, so they're treated like stars. . . They have their own dressing room, their own green room. They have a play area for themselves."