Page Three
 
 
1990
The Year in Review
  
     Well, it was another bad year.  Attendance at
the Hellmouth Municipal Zoo and Exotic Animal
Crematorium declined again, the famous Day
Range Hotel in fault-ridden and little-known
Makanza Mountains National Park fell over, and
that giant space primate is still heading toward
the Earth, with unknown consequences for all of
us here in the Tri-City area, but aside from that it
has not been much better.
      GREAT BLUE BEARDED MARMOSETS
went on a tear in January under their annual com-
pulsion to seek long-term monogamous relation-
ships with like-minded females.  In February, Leif
Englanberg and Olaf Petersen were lost briefly
during an expedition into the interior of the Hatt-
al-Kabob, from which they emerged later that
evening after several frenetic and exhausting
hours with lurid and fantastic tales of huge sand
worms and monkeys that only come out at mid-
night.
      March was marked by the eerie nocturnal
wailing of the FRILLED INDRI, an animal that
wails only when its environment is being ravag-
ed and ruined, and later in the month by the
123rd Semi-Annual Conference on Primate Nom-
enclature, which unhappily confirmed the basic
split between the great apes and the lesser pri-
mates, something that most of us here at “The
Year in Review” had long suspected and which
only the hylobatids took exception to.  In April,
giant leech prospectors (the leeches were giant
not the prospectors) thoughtlessly decimated
the only known habitat of the GRAY-FOOTED
MUSCATEL, leading to a harsh editorial in the
Gorgonzola Gazette.  The primates have moved
temporarily into the Gorgonzola City Zoo.
      In early May, the bottom fell out of the local
tropical products market both literally and figur-
atively when an enormous sinkhole opened up
right in the middle of Muggley's Main Street Mall
in downtown Cheesequake, instantly swallow-
ing a resting POUCHED LANGUR and several
CROESUS MONKEYS.  Only two days later, a
disastrous fire swept through Pruner's Imitation
Tree Farm, scorching an acre of fake oaks, and
scattering planting crews willy nilly.  The blaze
was finally put out by units from Hummingbird
Junction and Mt. Sydney.
      Chester Champ's Chimp Safari went belly up
in June, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and
spoiling the plans of a number of hopeful nulli-
parous GIANT PYGMY CHIMPANZEES, while
in July our very own Mr. Chris Shaw took some
time off from his demanding responsibilities as
West Coast Correspondent and Really Scientific
Letters Editor for the Nooz to personally oversee
the construction of an outdoor sauna and digital
video center at his soapstone-lined hideaway
high in the Hollywood Hills.  Regrettably, the
vibrations caused his entire backyard to slide
down into a neighbor's swimming pool.  Sorry,
Mr. Shaw.
      A letter-writing campaign was initiated in
August by the Black Brothers of the ancient and
venerable Very Secret Order of Sifakapithecus,
the ancestral SIFAKA who according to native
legends was supposed to have crossed the
mountains of Madagascar on the back of a turtle.
The Brothers have condemned the recently-
stated Nooz position that sideways hopping (or
(Cont. on page 4)        
Editor's note: “WHAT IS...?” is a semi-regular feature of
Primate Nooz which is aimed at some of our younger
readers and in which we ask different people in various
fields some pretty darn tough “What is” questions just to
make ourselves feel superior because we already know
the answers.  This time, our pages are graced by the in-
comparable ramblings of former Hellmouth Zoo Director
Dr. Jerry Archbibble.  Dr. Archbibble has handled every-
thing from jumping spider monkeys and deermouse deer
to great blue marmosets and Gabonese stinky galagos,
and he can certainly handle you pipsqueaks, so hush up.
You there, in the third row, put that magazine down and
pay attention!  Now then, we happily present Dr. Jerry
Archbibble.
 
 
by
Dr. Jerry Archbibble
Former Director, Hellmouth Municipal Zoo
and Exotic Animal Crematorium
  
 

     Hello hello hello to all you plaid-clad kids out there in
Noozland!  Glad to have you awake and on board.  I know
you're just itching with excitement to hear all about just
what is the Hellmouth Municipal Zoo and Exotic Animal
Crematorium, and it's not the kind of itch that can be
cured by some oriental ointment, but first I'd like to say
something about the Zoo's relationship with Pruner's
Imitation Tree Farm.  Now, I don't suppose any of you
little suspender-suspended infants have any idea how ex-
pensive real trees are, but let me tell you, they cost more
than Nintendos, alright?

      [Look, I just want to tell them about fake trees, OK?]

      So the next time you hear somebody saying some-
thing about how I bought fake trees for the new's new
landscaping program, just form your thumb and index
finger into a zero and say, “That's how much support the
Zoo got from the Hellmouth Town Council.”
      As it so happens, fake trees are not only cheaper, but
are also more durable and longer-lasting, more convenient
to plant and replant, and require far less care, almost none
in fact.  Pruner's Imitation Tree Farm, owned coinciden-
tally by our Mayor and Chairman of the Hellmouth Zoo
Association, the Right Honorable Frank Pruner, repre-
sents the state of the art in imitation trees.  Experts have
been hired who could not distinguish real trees from the
fake ones.....

      [Yes, yes, about the zoo, OK! OK!]

      As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, you
get more bark for your buck at Pruner's Imitation Tree
Farm, the most advanced and high-tech of the many such
operations in this part of Southwest Arizona.  People all
over the Tri-City area are switching to imitation trees, and
it's to Pruner's that the majority of them are turning.  Free
delivery and sale coupons every Sunday in the Hellmouth
Star Ledger and Daily Chronicle.  Where else can you get
a 50' Jaragua calaveris or a 75' fake oak, just perfect for
primate plummeting.  Every tree telescopes for easy trans-
(Cont. on page 4)        
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