What is Going Ape?

We spent most of the day so far in getting books ready for shipping, not a very exciting prospect for you in blog land, but we should photograph the leaning tower of books as they are built up for a dash to get them mailed. Here is the back of something we picked up with an idea to sell on eBay. It is a pairing of an old vinyl 45 and a comic book. It is from somewhere in the early to mid 70s, and it is a movie tie-in to the "Planet of the Apes" movies. This is the back cover of this rather obscure selection, it was put together to perhaps teach the marginally literate, or very young comic reader of that era how to read, or create a more vivid experience with the sound effects as one looked at the dynamic pictures of the captain and his crew as they found themselves lost in a world gone mad.

The written text in the comic book is repeated on the 45 record along with assorted sound effects. We still need to test the 45, we need to get ahold of the turn-table. But the wanted poster below is reminiscent of the Great War when Uncle Sam commanded the civilians with an enthusiastic gesture to join the Armed Forces. This enlarged publicity drawing is apparently to get you in the mood to buy the entire series of "Planet of the Apes" comic book and vinyl sets. (We have two we need to sell, probably as a pair). The younger of you may not know, or maybe you do know, that to "Go Ape" was once a common phrase, as in Go Crazy.

And the actual "street"phrase was truncated for politeness here, there being also a third word hyphenated on at the end in common parlance, there is no Comic Code Authority Seal on the cover of this publication anyway, which means it was border-line for the time. We checked the online dictionaries, and some do give this a vulgarity rating, but now define the phrase as simply getting excited or angry.

As with all slang the origin and true meaning are probably lost, unless there are some old movies or recording of young people talking amongst themselves. It was something to do with suddenly going crazy without reason in the My-Lynx Associates ancient lexicon of the 60's. It could also be used to describe someone acting like an ape, by screaming and carrying on, either for attention-getting, to impress the other members of one's group, or just to liven up an otherwise dull moment of tedium with some pointless noise and frantic activity that may or may not have resembled the antics of an ape. Flailing the arms around in a random manner, would have been a plus.

These are not for sale yet, it is still in evaluation stage, but they will probably go for auction on eBay for someone to read on a rainy day. The condition is not all that great, not collectible as in pristine and untouched, but still a little bit of nostalgia for adults who want to feel like kids again, if they don't mind a few wrinkles. We got excited when we saw them sitting in a box, waiting for us to pick them out, and maybe soon, you can point your mouse and buy them for your very own...