Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1053: Apes and Monkeys, Part 1

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

In this podcast, I talk about cards with subtype Ape and Monkey.

I'm not pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work at home edition. Okay, so today I'm going to talk about apes and monkeys. So there are 48 cards in magic that are creature type ape or monkey. And so I'm going to talk about all of them. monkey. And so I'm going to talk about all of them. So we'll begin. The very first monkey in magic, or ape in magic, was Curd Ape. So this is all the way back in Arabian Nights. So Curd Ape cost a single red mana. The original card was Summon Ape, and it's creature type ape. So the very first monkey was Action Ape, and it was summon ape. So okay, so Kurt Ape gains plus one, plus two

if you have any force in play. So the idea is, it's a one drop that's a one one, but, for example, if you play a Taiga, which is both a mountain and a forest, and you tap that for red to play Kurt Ape,

the Kurt Ape becomes a 2-3. So, Kurd Ape was actually very popular in early Magic, in some of the early beatdown decks. It was one mana for a 2-3 was basically the best you could do back in the day. And so, Kurd Ape saw a bunch of play. I think it's possible that Kurd Ape at one point even got banned. I think for a little point in time, it's one of the few creatures that was,

or I don't know if it was restricted or banned, but it was in the early days. It actually, there was a period of time where we had to say you can't play with it. Anyway, there's no ape. So this is Arabian Nights. There's no apes or monkeys in Alpha. But the very first expansion did have one, which had Kurt Ape. Okay, the next time an ape shows up is in Legends. So Barbary Apes.

So Barbary Apes is one and a green for a 2-2, with the flavor text, Unpredictable in the extreme. These carnivorous apes will prey upon even their own kind. So these are very scary apes, although apparently they're... Basically, what happened was when the teams early on were making large expansions, they would borrow cards that were in the main set,

but then they would flavor them differently. So Barbary Apes is basically just grizzly bears. It's one green for a two-two. But for some reason, they came up with the idea of carnivorous apes. I'm not sure where that came from. But anyway, so Barbary apes. So one of the themes you will see here, by the way, is that monkeys and apes show up, I think, exclusively, almost exclusively. They're mostly in red and green.

There's a couple black ones that will show up. But mostly monkeys are a red and green thing. That's the colors they show up in. So it's interesting that the very first two is in red and then in green. And even the first one, Card Ape, clearly cares about green. Like you wanted to play it in a red-green deck. So Apes and Monkeys have always been pretty red-green. Okay, the third monkey to show up.

Oh, it's interesting, by the way, that Barbary Apes, so both Curd Ape and Barbary Apes were creature type apes. Back in the day, it was summon. So, summon ape. Although, Barbary Apes were summon apes, plural. We don't do that anymore. Now, no matter if you are plural, you're still singular. So, like, Barbary Apes

in Oracle is creature ape, even though there's obviously multiple apes in the art. Okay, the third one to show up was in Ice Age. Gorilla Pack. So Gorilla Pack, I'm reading as it was printed, because I find it interesting, the original printed version.

Two in a green, three, three, summon Gorilla Pack. So originally, it's the first time Gorilla shows up. Gorilla's not currently a creature type. Ape and Monkey are creature types. Anyway, Gorilla Pack cannot attack if defending player controls no forest. Bury Gorilla Pack if you control no forest. So this has what we call Forest Home.

So Island Home was an ability first seen on Sea Serpent in Alpha. And basically the idea... Is Sea Serpent my name? Basically the idea was a creature that we wanted to represent that there were creatures that were in the water. And so Island Home meant, well, I have to have water or I go away. And you have to have water or I can't attack you.

We eventually called it Island Home. There's not a lot of homes for other things. This is a forest home. Let's see, in Oracle does it call it a forest home still? No, no, it's not, because we did away with the term island home and forest home. But anyway,

it's one of the few, if not only, forest home cards. Oh, the flavor text is, we learned this at a dear price. Once you cross the Great River, get through the Yavimaya Forest at top speed. Disa, the rest list, journal entry. Disa writes a whole bunch of stuff in Ice Age. Anyway, so the idea essentially is the grills live in the forest,

but they need the forest. They can't leave the forest. So your opponent has to have a forest to attack, but you have to have a forest to have them. In general, we did away with the homes because they were very limited. Like if I'm playing island home, if my opponent doesn't have an island,

there's not a lot I can do. At least in blue, you could turn your opponent's stuff into islands. Green doesn't do tons. I guess Gaeus Cradle did. So there's a little bit of early turning your opponent's stuff into forest. But green doesn't really do that as much as blue. And even blue doesn't do it that much. But anyway, it's a three mana 3-3.

It's the biggest ape so far. Kurt Ape was essentially a two, three, and Barbary was a two, two. But ah, we get to three, three. We will get some bigger apes coming up. Okay, next we get to Alliances. So Alliances actually had four. They were Summon Gorilla in Alliances.

The cards are now Ape. Or Ape Shaman for Gorilla Shaman. Okay, so first let me tell you the story of the gorillas in Alliances, and then I will tell you about the individual gorillas. So the way it worked back in the day, so Alliances was done when the team was external. It was still a freelance design team. They weren't in the building. Although several members of the Alliance team ended up working at Wizards.

Although I believe they designed Alliances before they started working at Wizards. But Scaf and Jim and Dave Petty, so Scaf Elias, Jim Lynn, Dave Petty, three of the four members of the design team, East Coast Playtesters, worked at Wizards at one point. Chris Page never did. Anyway, at the time, the creative team, I think it was called Continuity, and so they were creating a story to go along with this. And for some reason, they decided to make a bunch of the cards Scenting Gorillas. I don't know why they did that. They did it. I mean, Scenting Gorillas is in fantasy. They're cards Scenting Gorillas. I don't know why they did that. They did it. I mean, Scenting Gorillas is in fantasy.

There's definitely Scenting Gorillas, I guess, in fantasy. But anyway, the Alliance's design team did not like that. They thought it was silly. And out of protest, they changed all the design names in the set to have the word gorilla in them. names in the set to have the word gorilla in them. Which, by the way, while it's, I guess, silly, made playtesting very hard

because you wanted to refer to cards and they all blur together when they all have gorilla in their name. But anyway, that happened during Alliances. The gorillas did stay. There are four gorillas in the set, so the sentient gorillas are still here. Okay, so let's walk through the four gorillas in Alliances.

So first up is Gorilla Shaman. Costs one red mana. It's a 1-1. It's Summon Gorilla, was it originally? Now it's a creature type ape. XX1, colon, destroy target non-creature artifact with a casting cost equal to X. destroy target non-creature artifact with a casting cost equal to X. So the idea is, if I spend

if X is 1, so I spend 3 mana 1, 1, and 1 then I can destroy a artifact a non-creature artifact with a mana value of 1. So it costs 5 to do mana value of 2. The reason this existed they used to call these

Mox Monkeys these were really, really good at killing Moxes. Why? A Mox has a mana value of zero, so for one mana, you can destroy a Mox. And so, Guerrilla Shaman see play in formats usually where Moxes exist

because they're a very, very efficient way to destroy Moxes. And so, Guerrilla Shaman had seen, mostly they see play in which were Moxes. I don't know if they saw a lot of play outside of moxes. And so, Gorilla Shaman has seen, mostly they see play in which were moxes. I don't know if they saw a lot of play outside of moxes. It's possible they also, I mean, there are some

formats that have very strong artifact decks, Vintage being one of them, but Vintage also has moxes. So, Gorilla Shaman, I assume, still sees play there. Okay, next up, Gargantuan Gorilla Shaman, I assume, still sees play there. Okay, next up. Gargantuan Gorilla. Four green, green, green.

So seven mana total. Three of which is green. Seven, seven. Summon Gorilla. Now creature type eight. During your upkeep, sacrifice a forest or bury Gargantuan Gorilla. And Gargantuan Gorilla deals seven damage to you. If you sacrifice a snow-covered forest in this way, Gargantuan Gorilla gains trample to end your turn. Now, the current version of it... Yeah, actually, it's pretty close, the Oracle version.

This is one of the earliest versions of fighting, or a version of fighting that would later become fight. Homelands, I think, did it first. There's a card in Homelands that has a pseudo-fight ability. Anyway, so this card is... Early Magic did this thing where you would have giant creatures that have huge upkeeps that you have to pay. You know, force of nature, Lord of the Pit type stuff. So this is trying to be in that area.

So the idea is it's a 7-7 that I could tap to sort of fight other creatures. So it's – and this is obviously modeled after King Kong. It's a giant gorilla. But sacrificing a force is a pretty big cost. Now, once again, or Barry, it's using some old terminology. Barry was terminology where it would destroy something and you couldn't save it. You couldn't, like, regenerate it. But nowadays, sort of a sacrifice rule to take care of that.

You don't need that terminology. The other interesting thing is so the card had to sacrifice a forest. We added in if you sacrifice a snow-covered forest, he gains trample. That was done during development. The designers did not do that. The reason for it is

when they made alliances, they did not design it as being like Ice Age Part 2. They were just designing their own set. Yeah, it took place in Dominaria because everything took place in Dominaria, but it wasn't really designed to be Ice Age Part 2. We decided what happened behind the scenes was

R&D said, okay, we're going to move toward blocks with Mirage. And we're like, okay, well, this was designed by the same team. It takes place in mostly the same place. What if we just treat this as a second Ice Age? So what that required us to do is we then went in during development and added a little bit of touches, a few things that connected to alliances.

For example, there are not a lot of references to snow-covered lands. This might even be the only reference to snow-covered land. But he had a sacrifice of four, so we added a little rider. That's why that's there. Gorilla Berserkers. Three green green, two three. Originally summon gorillas. Now it's creature type eight.

Trample. Rampage two. I'll explain Rampage in a second. Cannot be blocked by fewer than three creatures. And the flavor text is their fury is their greatest weapon. Tavana of Kelsinko. Elvish Hunter. Okay, so Rampage was an ability

that was in Ice Age. This is another example of us moving it over. I don't think they had Rampage in the set, naturally. Rampage says, for every creature beyond the first that blocks me, I get N, or in this case, plus two, plus two.

So the idea, I'm a two, three. If you block me with one creature, I'm a two, three. But if you block me with two creatures, I'm a four, five. With three creatures, I'm a six, seven. So he gets bigger the more things that block him, and he is trample. So obviously, it's hard

to double block the Gorilla Berserkers, is the idea. Rampage first showed up in – oh, I'm sorry. Rampage isn't from Ice Age. Rampage is originally from Legends. Okay, I was remembering this wrong. So Rampage was an ability that first showed up in Legends, which was the first large expansion. It was Arabian Nights, then Antiquities, and then Legends. And for a while, Rampage was made, we made it evergreen.

And so this must have happened during the small window where Rampage was evergreen, because Rampage was not an Ice Age thing. I said that wrong. It was a Legends thing. Anyway, the reason we got rid of Rampage was the idea that it doesn't count the first creature is a little bit weird.

I think if we did Rampage to do it all over again, we would say for each creature blocking it and then cost it accordingly. Sorry. Did a sip of water. Okay. The fourth alliance's gorilla was Gorilla Chieftain. Two green, green for a 3-3.

Summon gorilla, now creature type 8. One in green, regenerate. Oh no, not you again. Jaya Bower, task mage. So Jaya Bower had flavor text in Ice Age alliances. Yeah, this is just a regenerating creature. For those who don't know, so one of the early abilities in Magic was regenerate.

Originally, when you regenerated, you would do it when you died and it kept you from dying. It later became, you had to do it ahead of time. You would make a regeneration shield. And then if you were to die instead, it doesn't die and it stays in play. Although it taps it and removes it from combat. Regenerate stayed in the game. I think we removed it during Tempest Block, is my memory. It was...

No, no, no, sorry. It lasted longer than Tempest Block. That's not correct. It lasted for a while. We removed it... I'm sorry. I'm confusing myself. Regenerate lasted for quite a while.

Banding went in... Banding is what went in Tempest. We eventually got rid of it, because with the 6th edition rules, it just became a little like the name regenerate, really what you were doing was sort of giving it a shield ahead of time, and so the name regenerate just wasn't very clear.

Also, we wanted to make sure that you could kill things, and regenerate sometimes was causing issues there. I don't know. It was a little mucky in a bunch of different ways. So we eventually got rid of regenerate. It is something. I don't know. It was a little mucky in a bunch of different ways. So we eventually got rid of Regenerate. It is something... I think we've... Maybe every once in a blue moon we've spent, like, a modern horizon

to regenerate. I'm trying to remember if we've ever done that. But it's basically a retired ability that other than a weirdo supplemental thing, I don't think you'll see us do again. Okay, next we get to Visions. There are two monkeys in Visions. Raging Gorilla. Two and a green. Two, three. If Raging Gorilla, two and a green, two, three. If Raging Gorilla blocks or is blocked,

he has plus two, minus two until end of turn. So it's a two, three that in combat becomes a four, one. Yeah, that is... I think we liked playing around with sort of different ways to have combat relevant. And so this is one of the ways in which, oh, well, I'm a 2-3, but if you're going to combat with me, yeah, you're likely to kill me, but I'm likely to kill you.

It's sort of the flavor of it. Just real quickly, Vision. So what happened was when Richard first made Alpha, he asked some teams to make some larger sets. The East Coast Playtester's made Ice Age. Joel Mick and Bill Rose and Charlie Coutinho and Don Felice and Howard Kallenberg and Elliot Siegel made Mirage and Visions. And so Visions was part of that group. Now, the second monkey is a very famous monkey.

So Octavia Orangutan. Two and a green for a 2-2. Summon ape. Now it's a creature type ape. When Octavia Orangutan comes into play, destroy target artifact. Now it would be enter the battlefield. So Visions had chronologically the first creatures with enter the battlefield effects. There were, I think, four of them in the set,

all of which saw a lot of play. I think Otabu Reign Tank is one of the ones that saw the most play. It just was very efficient. So Tempest would later... We not realizing Visions was doing this, the Visions team was doing this, Tempest made enter the battlefield effects as well.

But I didn't realize the Visions. And then when I worked on Visions, I said, oh, well, we was doing this. Tempest made Enter the Battlefield effects as well. But I didn't realize that the Visions, and then when I worked on Visions, I said, oh, well, we're doing this too. But this is the first set to have Enter the Battlefield effects. And Tribal Rating Tanks saw a lot of play. So anyway, a very popular card. Next up, we get into Portal Second Age.

So, oh, not Portal Second Age, Portal. This is the first Portal. So Portal was a set that we made. We were trying to simplify magic to help people learn. And so Portal was kind of simplified magic. It had creatures, it had lands, it had sorceries. But it had no instants. It had no artifacts, no enchantments.

Obviously no planeswalkers. This was before planeswalkers even existed. So it was a simplified version of the idea was, oh, you would learn how to play portal and then transition into magic. That was the thoughts at the time. So Gorilla Warriors, two and a green for a 3-2. The flavor text is, they were formidable even before they learned

the use of weapons. Oh, I didn't read the flavor text for Raging Gorilla and Octavia Rankin. I'll read those. Raging Gorilla was every temper tantrum makes another angry gorilla, a femur of children's myth, and is it true the apes wear furs of gold when they marry? Rana Sukata Market Fool. That's for Octavia Rankin.

Oh, so one of the themes you'll see in the flavor text is, for some reason, we really like angry monkeys. Oh, so one of the themes you'll see in the flavor text is for some reason we really like angry monkeys. Like monkeys are angry. And there's an ongoing theme you'll notice that monkeys do not like artifacts. Gorilla Shaman breaks artifacts. Tabi orangutan breaks artifacts. So there's a little theme that we like playing that monkeys both are, can you have a temper? And they're not very pro-technology.

They're a little more ancient technology. Okay, next up we get to Tempest. Apes of Wrath. Two green green for a 5-4. If Apes of Wrath attacks, it is not untapped during your next untapped step. Sorry, next untapped phase. So the idea is,

we used to do a bunch of these. We don't do a lot anymore. I think we called them Alpha Strike internally. The idea is I attack. You get more for your mana. I'm a more powerful creature, but I don't untap the turn I attack.

So if you attack with Apes of Wrath, yeah, for four mana I get a 5-4, but then the next turn I don't untap. So it sort of attacks every other turn. In Mirage, they did a thing called phasing, where a creature was there every other turn. It would disappear. It would phase out every other turn. This is us doing that sort of, except if you keep it on defense, you can have it every turn on defense.

It's only when you attack that it sort of goes away. Now, the name of the card, Apes of Wrath, this is my... So, Michael, Ryan, and I made the story for the Weatherlight Saga, and when we named the plane that they traveled to where Volrath was king,

and this is, by the way, before Volrath was even named Volrath, we named something the Death Pits of Wrath and the Furnace of Wrath. And we thought those were awesome sounding names. The Death Pits of Wrath sounded like a cool name. So we decided we would name the whole plane Wrath.

And then we named Volrath as Vol of Wrath and stuff like that. But anyway, when we decided to name the plane Wrath, literally the next thing I said after we decided to do that is I said, I'm making Apes of Wrath. And I was determined to do it, and I did it. And I think this went through a bunch of different designs.

But I knew the name. We were going to have an Apes of Wrath, making reference to the Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck's famous novel. Okay, next we get to Exodus. Exodus has ravenous baboons. You'll notice, by the way, we're starting to do different types of monkeys. Like, we have orangutans and

baboons and gorillas and anyway, we're starting to see different kinds of monkeys and apes. Okay, ravenous baboons is three and a red for a 2-2. When ravenous baboons comes into play, nowadays enters the battlefield, destroy target non-basic land. Build something and the baboons will tear it down. Leave the pieces lying and they will scatter them.

So continuing our destructiveness of the apes. This card was made because we were trying to get better to answer some of the threats of how good dual ends were. And I think the idea here was if you make a spell that destroys it, it has less use. But if you put it on a creature, you know, Enter the Battlefield effects taught us that we can make effects a little easier to play. And so Ravnus Baboons definitely saw some play. There was a version in, let's see, this is, yeah, in Urza's Legacy, Darwin Castle made a card called Avalanche Riders that enter the battlefield to destroy a land.

And so this was a riff off of Darwin's card, except it doesn't have echo and it doesn't hit any land it only hits non-basic land so we were sort of trying to refine it a little bit we generally liked the design but this is sort of our riff off Darwin's card okay next up

Tree Monkey Tree Monkey is from Portal Second Age so there were three portal sets Portal Second Age and Portal Three Kingdoms this was from the second one. So Tree Monkey costs one green. It's a 1-1 creature monkey. Tree Monkey can block creatures with flying.

They serve the world best on a platter with shallots and onions. So I think we decided not to have reach be a named keyword. So we really were stingy with what keywords were in portal. Flying was in portal. That might have been it. Maybe, maybe Defender. But there was not a lot of keywords in the first two Portals. Portal Three Kingdoms had a few more keywords, as we'll see in a second.

But, oh, anyway, their flavor text is, they serve the world best on a platter with shallots and onions. Talus cellular. Anyway, green does not have flying, but green needs to have answers to flying. So we gave green some reach in Portal, in Portal Second Kingdom, but we didn't call it reach. It's just spelled out. This is basically reach spelled out. Okay, now we get to Urza's legacy.

So Simian Grunts. Two and a green for a 3-4. It has Echo. So during your next upkeep after this permit comes under your control, pay its casting cost or sacrifice it. Or now it's mana cost. And you may play Simian Grunts anytime you could play an instant. So this says Flash.

So the Oracle ability has Flash. So basically it's two green for a 3-4 says Flash. So the Oracle ability has Flash. So basically, it's two green for 3-4 with Flash, but Echo means that you have to pay it the next turn. So you have to pay two green on the next turn. The cool thing about this is one of the things we played around with Echo is give you things that maybe you don't need to pay the Echo. So, for example, let's say something's attacking and I want to Flash this out as a blocker

and either it's not going to survive or, hey, it's worth it just to kill the attacking creature, that there's reasons you might play this and then not pay the Echo costs. For example, if your opponent attacked with a 4-3, okay, well, my 3-4 will take out the 4-3, but it'll die, but, okay, then I don't have to pay the upkeep cost.

So, this is back in the day of block. So Echo was introduced in Urza's Saga, but it showed up in Urza's Legacy and Urza's Destiny. And so we would evolve it as it goes along. Okay, speaking of Urza's Destiny, we get to one. There is a one monkey, or one ape, I should say, in Urza's Destiny. Ancient Silverback. Four green, green, six say, in Earth is Destiny. Ancient Silverback.

Four green greens, six five green, regenerate Ancient Silverback. The Phyrexian killing machines couldn't have known the seriousness of their mistake in wounding the ape. They'd never seen it angry. So this is another sort of King Kong. We like doing the giant apes. A fine staple in fantasy, I guess. And so this one, regenerateate, is still a thing. So it regenerates.

So the idea is it's a pretty big creature, and it's got a very cheap regeneration cost. So once you get it out, it's hard to deal with. Okay, next up is Silverback Ape. So now we're in... Oh, this is Starter 1999. So we made a product in which we were teaching people how to play. We had a...

And the idea was you buy the box. It came with two decks. And the instructions literally, like, you didn't shuffle the decks. You just played the decks in the order we gave them to you. And there were a few cards that we put in there because we didn't quite have what we needed. So this Silverback Ape is three green green for a 5-5, just vanilla 5-5.

And the flavor text says, His true majesty is not in his silver, but in his size. And once again, this is definitely sort of a King Kong-ish card. It's a giant gorilla. We thought it was flavorful. And I think all the stuff in Starter are basically vanilla creatures. Maybe there's some flying creatures, but very, very simple. They were just, we needed them for the set.

So it's got a little star on it. But anyway, that's, there's not, I mean, there are promotions and stuff, but this is a card from a release set that wasn't, like, didn't show up in booster packs or anything. Okay, next up, Zodiac Monkey. So there was a cycle.

This is Portal Three Kingdoms. The Zodiac, there's a Zodiac, Chinese Zodiac that is 12 animals and so I believe all 12 animals I think are in there's a giant cycle of all the animals I believe I think there's 12

I'm not remembering my zodiac whatever the full zodiac is there's one of each monkey's one of them so monkey's one and a green for 2-1 creature monkey, forest walk a defending player has a forest in play there's one of each. Monkey's one of them. So Monkey's one and a green for 2-1. Creature Monkey. Forest Walk. A defending player has a forest in play. Zodiac Monkey can't be blocked. By six offenses

from Hills of Kui, Kong Ming sought to change Han's destiny. So it's a quote from Portal Through Kingdoms. Portal Through Kingdoms was designed by Henry Stern by himself. We were trying to make a portal product that we could put into other markets, primarily Asia. China,

Japan, I think there was a little bit of English because it was printed in Australia. Anyway, Portal 3 Kingdom, we did not make a lot of them. We made very little in English. And so, there are cards that are very hard to get that show up in other formats, but they're very hard to get because we've never

reprinted. Some of them we've reprinted since then, but for the longest time, it was super hard to get that show up in other formats, but they're very hard to get because we've never reprinted some of them we've reprinted since then, but for the longest time it was super hard to get. Okay, next up, we get to Savage Gorilla. So Savage Gorilla is from I think Apocalypse? Yeah, Apocalypse. It's a common in Apocalypse.

So it's four and a green. It's a 3- three creature type ape. For blue and black, tap. Sacrifice savage gorilla. Tiger creature gets minus three, minus three until end of turn. Draw a card. These omnivorous gorillas have no qualm about a diet composed of equal parts fruit and phyrexians. Another thing I will point out is I don't think actual monkeys eat people.

I don't think they're carnivores. But we keep making carnivorous monkeys because I guess they're scarier. So Apocalypse was part of the Invasion block. Invasion and Planeshift were allied, and then Apocalypse was enemy. So it was the first time we did a third set with its own little mini theme. It went very popular. It would influence future design planning and stuff for blocks.

Anyway, in the set, so this set is a green card, but it makes use of blue and black in its activation. So in order to use this card efficiently, you need to be in three colors, green and blue and black. So that is not we. I mean, Legends has some three colors. So that is not we... I mean,

Legends has some three-color. We haven't done a lot of... At this point in time, there weren't tons and tons of three-color things, but Apocalypse was playing in that space. Okay, the final card that we'll talk about today. So this is going to be a two-parter because I did not get through all the monkeys. And probably next time I'll be a little faster. It's Gorilla Titan

from Odyssey. Three green, green, four, faster. It's Gorilla Titan from Odyssey. Three green green, four four. It's a creature type ape. Trample. Gorilla Titan gets plus four plus four as long as there are no cars in your graveyard. And it has a flavor text, I want a banana this big.

So the picture is this giant ape. Although he has a tail for some reason. He's a giant, sorry, not an ape. He's a giant gorilla. I mean, an ape's a gorilla. He's a giant gorilla. I mean, an ape's a gorilla. He's a giant gorilla. Very King Kong-ish. So he's a 4-4, then become an 8-8.

So the funny thing about this is I want a banana this big. There's not a lot of flavor text. This is true, but it's true for this one. This was both in the top five and the bottom five of our market research on favorite flavor text and least favorite flavor text in the set.

The way this came about is I was in charge of flavor text for Odyssey. So there were a few ones I was a little stumped on. So I put the pictures up on the wall. We had the art in and I had people write flavor text to match it. And somebody wrote, I want a banana this big

because it's a gorilla, but he has his arms out. And it was just, it made me laugh, so I put it on the card. And apparently some people adored it and some people hated it. But anyway, that is Gorilla Titan. Okay, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to wrap up for now because I'm at work. Although I started at work, I guess. And next time I will pick up and talk more about all the monkeys.

So anyway, I hope you guys are enjoying the monkey fest. It's fun talking monkeys, but I will be back next time to talk more monkeys. But, as I'm now at my desk, we all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking monkeys, it's time for me to be making monkeys. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.