Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Happy Birthday, Cheeta!


North Adams Transcript - Headlines: PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) — Cheeta the chimp, star of a dozen ''Tarzan'' movies in the 1930s and 1940s, celebrated his 74th birthday with sugar-free cake. Although healthy and active, Cheeta is diabetic.

I wish Cheeta many happy returns. I loved the Tarzan movies with Johnny Weismuller and Gordon Scott when I was a kid, and Cheeta was a big part of things. He seems to be quite the artist, too.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting that, Bill...I'd heard a report on NPR, but hadn't heard it all, and assumed this was a "merely" middle-aged chimpanzee, from the '60s films (one Cheeta from that era famously bit his Tarzan actor...don't think it was Ron Ely). This seems like it should be a typo in the newspaper report:
"International Comedy Film Festival of Peniscola"...but it turns out it's merely missing a tilde, and that should be Peñiscola...the other way, it definitely has an unappetizing ring...

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

Definitely unappetizing!

Cap'n Bob said...

I'm glad to know that Cheeta is still alive. I wonder if he still smoke cigars. Have you heard the story about a man with a BB gun lurking on the Tarzan movie sets? Seems Cheeta would tend to get a woodie around Jane (not that you can blame him), and the BB gun was used to discourage his amourous proclivities.

Unknown said...

At Cheet'as age, he might need Viagra now.

Unknown said...

Who knew that Cheetah and Al Guthrie were the same age? Weird.